27 December
John, Apostle and Evangelist
John, son of Zebedee, was one of the twelve apostles of Our Lord.
Together with his brother James and with Simon Peter, he formed a
kind of inner circle of Three among the Twelve, in that those three
were privileged to behold the miracle of the Great Catch of Fish (L
5:10), the healing of Peter's mother-in-law (P 1:29), the raising of
the daughter of Jairus (P 5:37 = L 8:51), the Transfiguration (M
17:1 = P 9:2 = L 9:28), and the Agony in Gethsemane (M 26:37 = P
14:33). He expressed a willingness to undergo martyrdom (M 20:22 = P
10:39) -- as did the other apostles (M 26:35 = P 14:31) -- and is
accordingly called a martyr in intention. However, we have ancient
testimony that, although imprisoned and exiled for his testimony to
the Gospel, he was eventually released and died a natural death in
Ephesus: "a martyr in will but not in deed."
John is credited with the authorship of three epistles and one
Gospel, although many scholars believe that the final editing of the
Gospel was done by others shortly after his death. He is also
supposed by many to be the author of the book of Revelation, also
called the Apocalypse, although this identification is less certain.
For a discussion of the authorship of the Gospel of John, send the
messages GET JOHN PART1 and GET JOHN PART2 to
LISTSERV@ASUACAD.BITNET
or
LISTSERV@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU.
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