Essay on Analysis of the Gospel of John

Gospel of John - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2015. Gospel of John - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_John. [Accessed 12 July 2015].

The Gospels are stories of Jesus’ life and teachings, told by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in the first four books of the New Testament. There is little difference between the first three, they tell the same stories of jesus but with slight differences. But the gospel of John, the gospel that traditionally appears fourth in the new testament, has many differences to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They are used to spread the teachings of jesus, and give us guidance in our lives. ‘Gospel’ is derived from the old english, ‘god-spel’, (‘god’-’good’, ‘spel’- ‘news’). The gospel literally translates to ‘good news’.

As John preached the word of God there was one thing he always made sure people understood; that there was someone greater than him whose sandals he is not worthy to untie. As John's popularity grew people started to think he was the messiah, but he assured them that he had come before Christ, and that when Christ comes his work would be finished. John was also very bold when speaking to religious leaders and kings.

One of the major themes of the Book of John is to prove that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God. What makes these miracles so special is the difficulty faced to create them and what each is trying to teach. There are seven main miracles, seven being a significant number throughout the bible, that are used to help better understand Jesus and his true identity. We can also find a last miracle in His resurrection, which in itself is simply put that Jesus is a part of God because of how impossible this action seemed. The last miracle is sometimes skipped as a sign that Jesus is the Christ and Messiah. This book was written from true events which is why it is made important and allows people to see who Jesus is. The reason

The genre of John is The Gospels. The interpretive principals are: The Gospels are narratives. We should always think about the broader sweep of the narrative when we read, constantly relating the various events and teaching to those that precede and follow them. The Gospels demand some background information regarding history and culture. It is more relevant to understand the culture, values, and worldview of the people on the pages of the Gospels than to know the specific author or recipients. The focus of the Gospels is on Jesus, not on us. Our tendency in our reading of the Gospels is to reduce them primarily to sources of insight about ourselves. One of the primary goals of the Gospel writers is to prove that Jesus is the Messiah, not to prove that He is God. All of Jesus’ miracles attest the fact that He is the Messiah, the Anointed One who was long prophesied and long awaited by the people of Israel. With four different Gospels, we should do comparisons of the various Gospel accounts when appropriate. While all four Gospels share the central focus on Jesus, each writer nevertheless has the distinctive emphasis regarding the person of Christ. We must avoid the temptation to blur one Gospel account together with the other Gospels when they contain the same story. And we need to understand the centrality of the kingdom of God in the Gospels. Living obediently as a citizen of the kingdom presupposes our correct understanding of its nature. The sub-genre of

While numerous scholars say that John is the Gospel to the world (and Matthew to the Jews, Mark to the Romans, and Luke to the Greeks), a Jewish scholar such as Israel Abrahams might very well believe that the Gospel of John is the most Jewish Gospel of the four by the way it reflects Jewish traditions and symbolisms. According to David Wenham[i], there is more attention given to Jesus as the Messiah in the Gospel of John than in any of other Gospels. In John, from chapter one onwards people are directly talking about Jesus as Messiah, and then there is intense public debate about whether Jesus is Messiah or not in John 7:25-31, 41-44[ii], which indicates that John is quite mindful of Jewish issues.

The purpose of 1 John is similar to that of the gospel of John, “I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1 John 5:13). The occasion of John’s writing of his letters the church was in the midst a growing Gnostic movement. This movement suggested that Jesus was fully divine, but that “the ‘Christ spirit’ descended on Jesus at his baptism and left him at the cross”. John would take offense to this position; largely because his gospel is unequivocally committed to the divinity of Christ.

The Gospel of Luke focuses on the conception and the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus. It also provides the histories of Elizabeth and Zachariah. It also describes Angel Gabriel’s announcement to Zachariah and the Virgin Mary.

The book of John is the 4th of the gospels. It follows the first three pretty well but also differs from them in many ways. It was said to be written by John but they also say that John was never truly mentioned as the author and that he constantly refers to himself as the “disciple whom Jesus loved”. A lot of scholars say that there were multiple authors to this book and there are even scholars who think that because he never refers to himself as John, that it was never written by him at all. This book was written around AD 90-710. The biggest debate over the authorship of this book is due to the fact that the book of John is very slandering towards the Jewish community. It focuses a lot on how much the God disliked the Jews and how they were constant opponents to Jesus. Scholars have even gone as far to say that John was anti-Semitic and have tried to have the book removed because of its hateful tone. For example, in chapter 8 it states the Jews father is Satan. However, a lot of people will go on to say that this is just a literary example of the constant conflict the Christian church had with the Jewish community. With all that being said there are plenty of people that think this gospel is the best because John spent the most time with Christ and went on to write other books such as Revelation.

This essay will show contrasts in views on the Gospel of John regarding authorship,dates, and the relationship between John's Gospel and the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Some comparison of thought, concerning composition and life setting, will also be presented.

John referred to himself as the “disciple whom Jesus loved” and was nicknamed along with his brother James as the “Sons of Thunder”. He was also one of the twelve disciples and the Savior empowered John to continue ministering until the Second Coming (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 2014). The book of John was written for everyone and was different from the other three gospels in the New Testament. John’s gospel was known as the spiritual gospel because it told the story of Jesus in symbolic ways. Jesus dies on a different day in the Gospel of John than he does in any of the other gospels. The sequence of events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus in the Gospel of John is very different from the other gospels as well (White, 1998). John selected specific material for his book by focusing on the meaning of the Lord’s actions instead of the actions

The new testament contains four (4) accounts of the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection as presented by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, The 3 accounts are similar, while Johns bible presents Jesus in a unique way. These differences exist because Matthew and Luke got their information from Mark and John got his information from another source, maybe John did not have access to the other gospels or he chose not to use them. No one really knows the source of John’s gospel and we don’t know for sure who wrote the gospels. Scholars refer to the authors as Matthew, Mark, Luke & John, this may not even be their real names. The Gospel were not first hand accounts except for Mark. John did not seem to have known the existence of the other

The purpose of the Gospel of John is clearly stated in verse 20:31: “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” The fourth Gospel needs to be read with that in mind, that each aspect is included to prove the divinity of Jesus Christ. The second chapter of the Gospel of John tells of two distinct accounts; the first, turning water into wine. The second; clearing the temple. Each of these accounts serve John’s purpose as stated in 20:31.

The first three Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—are very similar in content, sequence of events, and literary style. As a result, they are given the name the Synoptic Gospels. The term “synoptic” means “viewing together.” The Gospel of John, however, is comparatively distinct from the first three. John’s omission of certain material, inclusion of unique events, literary style, and theme place it into a category by itself.

John composed this book to show how glorious messiah by using the miraculous signs. It is believed that Jesus performed seven Gospel Signs to prove that he was the messiah. One of the signs that Jesus used happened in Cana in Galilee when he turned water into wine. Jesus was attending a wedding ceremony together with his mother and the twelve disciples. At some point the host announced that they were out of wine and Jesus offered to help by changing 180 gallons of water to vintage wine. This miracle signified that God was present in his life and accommodative. He made his disciples to believe in him (Harris,