Who wrote the New Testament books associated with "John"?

It can be confusing keeping track of the name John in the New Testament—John the Baptist, John son of Zebedee (one of the 12 disciples of Jesus), John Mark (author of the gospel named after him), and even the author of Revelation(if he is different from the disciple John). I just finished reading What Have They Done with Jesus?, and the author, Ben Witherington, spends a chapter discussing his conclusions regarding authorship of several New Testament books connected with “John.”

He points out that only one book in the New Testament mentions the name John as being associated with it – Revelation. Both the gospel and 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John are anonymous; the headings “according to John” were added much later, probably in the second century as guesses. Witherington says the John of Revelation is never called the apostle or identified with John the son of Zebedee. If it was written by an apostle, the author would have identified himself as such when his credentials would have added to his message. Witherington claims most scholars have concluded that the language and style of Revelation are very different from the gospel and 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John, which all seem to be from some other person. He believes these latter four documents may have been penned by the Beloved Disciple.

Why does Witherington believe John son of Zebedee is not the author of these? According to him, the fourth gospel has none of the stories in the other three gospels which involve events that John would have been an eyewitness to (the raising of Jairus’ daughter, theTransfiguration, and the request for special seats in the kingdom ). But this gospel does claim that its author was an eyewitness of other events during Jesus’ ministry, and it records many unique traditions about what Jesus did in Jerusalem.

Witherington then focuses on the Beloved Disciple. He is apparently first mentioned directly in John 13:23, reclining next to Jesus at a meal. The author says a previous meal, mentioned in John 12:2, seems to be a strong parallel to this second meal. If we look at John11:3, we see Lazarus mentioned as someone whom Jesus loved. He then links these three references as connected, meaning that Lazarus, a Judean disciple, is the Beloved Disciple. He defends this conclusion by saying Lazarus did have a close relationship with Jesus, he was associated with Jesus’ ministry in the south (Judea), not in Galilee, the scene of so many stories that appeared in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In addition, John 18:15 says the narrator of the gospel had direct access to the house of Caiaphas the high priest. How could a fisherman from Galilee have such access? Then there is a reference to the fact that all the twelve disciples deserted Jesus and were not present at the crucifixion. However the Beloved Disciple is clearly there at the death scene. Finally, the story of the raising of Lazarus is the longest continuous narrative in the entire gospel, giving it an emphasis that might have come from the fact that it is a first-person story.

Is this overwhelming evidence? Probably not for many, but it is intriguing and challenging. I plan to read more about it, and share more interesting thoughts from Witherington’s book in a later blog.