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Who is the Author?
Though the Gospel of John does not officially have a name attached to it, the early tradition of the ancient church held that the fourth Gospel was written by one of Jesus’s disciples, John the son of Zebedee. Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons (c. AD 180) wrote that “John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon his breast, had himself published a Gospel during his reticence in Ephesus in Asia” (Against Heresies3.1).1 Other external sources also support Irenaeus’s claim that John is the author. Theophilus of Antioch (second century),Tertullian of Carthage (first–second centuries), Clement of Alexandria (second century), and the church historian Eusebius (fourth century) all mention the disciple John as the author of the fourth canonical Gospel.2
The Gospel of John also contains internal evidence that hints at Johannine authorship. The closing passage focuses on “the disciple whom Jesus loved” as the writer of the Gospel (John21:20–24). John’s Gospel identifies John as one of the three disciples closest to Jesus (along with Peter and James). John was the one Jesus committed his mother to while Jesus hung on the cross (John 19:25–27) and is also the disciple who joined Peter on the morning of the Resurrection (John 20:2–8).