On this note, the research sees the need to explore several appearance of the character John in the New Testament which might have an indirect or direct bearing with the discourse in question. Plausible and Argued Characters: “The Beloved Disciple” Here, the research sees the need to examine men with the name of ‘John’ mentioned in the New Testament. Critics argued and even denied the Johannine authorship not only on historical ground but also on doctrinal grounds. Although the Apostle is somewhat perceived to have had a large part in providing the material of this Gospel, it is still denied by many modern scholars that he actually wrote it. If the Gospel were written about the end of the first century and if John the Apostle did indeed survive till then, it might be thought to make little difference to the accuracy of the narrative, whether it was written by him personally or by one who was his contemporary. 6 Some scholars claim that the gospel was not in fact written by one of Christ’s immediate followers, but by a Christian of later date if this is the case, the force of the historical evidence would be weakened thus making it easier to deny the Gospel’s claims. 5 It is important to note that part of the controversy in this sphere is entangled with the fact that there are different Johns in the New Testament.įar beyond that, several scholars in the contemporary time see Church tradition regarding the authorship as being probable. 3 However, the research notes that what constitutes the problem of this discourse has to do with the fact that the book does not emphatically name its author 4 meanwhile, the author of the book is indicated as “the Beloved Disciple” or better still “the Disciple Jesus loved” (Jhn 21:20, 23-24) and a close companion of Peter. 2 The Book of John is often considered as a standing unique testimony in this sphere, though different from the Synoptics. The Gospels are the four canonized books of the New Testament which explicitly presents the life and ministry account of Jesus Christ.
However, this research calls attention to re-entrench past and current trends in regards to the issue at hand as well as analyze the varying reasons for different opinions in other to establish a viable stance. In view of this, there is an increasing tendency by critics to abandon earlier conclusions and traditions that the writer utilized synoptic materials and that the book was sub-apostolic in date designed for Greek-thinking people and that John’s theology reflects a long period of development. Meanwhile, questions surrounding the authorship of the Fourth Gospel which critical scholars of generations past thought were settled have recently gained keen attention of scholars in the recent time. It is instructive that this Gospel does not identify its author as John. 1 Recent scholarship has called into question the belief that Apostle John is the author of the Gospel attributed to him. John’s Gospel is generally regarded as the last of the four canonical Gospels to be written. Keywords: Gospel, Jesus Christ, John and New Testament. Far beyond these observations, the cardinality of this book to the whole Canon of the New Testament cannot be discarded however, modern and recent scholarship engagement of John’s gospel brings the authorship issue in to lime light. John’s Gospel is well known and oft-quoted texts as: “God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life”, “Jesus wept,” among others. Recent observations have shown that regular many Christians (even ordinary Church goers) have their favourite scripture quotations of the New Testament in the Gospel of John. Plausible and Argued Characters: “The Beloved Disciple”Īrguments for Apostle John as ‘the Beloved Disciple’