When Was John Written?

The Gospel of John gets a bad rap among skeptical scholars, and many place less value on it than on Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

One reason is that they date it later than the other Gospels.

But when was it really written?

Let’s look at the evidence . . .

 

Physical Evidence

A couple of centuries ago, it became fashionable in biblical scholarship to assign very late dates to John.

For example, the famed German scholar F. C. Baur (1792-1860) dated it to between A.D. 160 and A.D. 170 (The Church History of the First Three Centuries 1:163-164, 175).

Such dates fell out of favor after more recent discoveries. One of the most important was a document known as “the Rylands Papyrus” (aka P52) which is held in the John Rylands University Library in Manchester, England.

The fragment is small (3.5 by 2.5 inches). One side contains text from John 18:31-33 and the other from John 18:37-38.

This fragment has commonly been dated to the first half of the second century, say around A.D. 125 (though this is disputed).

This pushed the date of John back to the beginning of the second century or to sometime in the first century. According to Raymond Brown, SJ, the Gospel is commonly dated by scholars today sometime between 80 and 110 (An Introduction to the New Testament, 334).

However, this view is not well supported.

 

The Evidence of Revelation?

Sometimes scholars, including conservative ones, date all the Johannine literature (John, 1-3 John, Revelation) to the A.D. 90s, seemingly because they aren’t sure when else to place them and this is a popular date for the book of Revelation.

This is problematic for several reasons:

• It is based on the idea that the recent persecution referred to in Revelation is one that occurred under the emperor Domitian, but there was no Domitianic persecution.
• As we will see below, we actually have good reason to date Revelation considerably earlier, in the late 60s.
• People’s literary careers can span decades, and there is no necessary connection between the time Revelation was written and the time the Gospel was.

Revelation thus does not serve as a good anchor for the writing of John’s Gospel.

 

John’s Advanced Age?

Sometimes a late date for John’s Gospel is advocated because of a remark the Evangelist makes to rebut a rumor that he would not die before the Second Coming (John 21:20-23).

This has been taken to indicate that John must have been at an advanced age and saw his death approaching, motivating him to rebut the rumor before he died, lest it cause consternation among the faithful.

However, this does not require a date in the 80s or 90s. If John were written in the mid 60s (as we will argue below), then he already would have been quite mature, even if he were among the youngest of the disciples.

Witnessing the increasing persecution of Christians and actual or approaching martyrdom of apostles (Acts 12:2, John 21:18-19), he could have felt the need to respond to the rumor by the mid 60s.

 

Situational Arguments

Sometimes scholars argue that John should be assigned a date late in the first century because of the situation it suggests the Church was in. For example:

• The book has a very high view of Christ’s divinity (John 1:1-5, 14:6, etc.), suggesting a late date.
• The book refers to people being put out of the synagogues (John 9:22, 12:42, 16:2), suggesting a date after the final break with Judaism, which is often claimed to be around A.D. 85.
• The book refers to “the Jews” as a separate and frequently hostile group (John 1:19, 2:18, 20, etc.).

Situational arguments like this are quite weak. A given generation can have theological savants in it—like John and Paul—who may sound decades more sophisticated than their contemporaries, and there’s nothing in the substance of John’s Christology that isn’t found in Paul. (This argument also ignores the role of Jesus himself; if Jesus had a high view of his own divinity then we would expect at least some of his disciples—like John—to mention it!)

Similarly, as we’ve noted, persecution in the synagogues was a familiar experience for Jewish Christians all the way through New Testament history. Jesus himself was killed, and there is no reason to think that some of his followers weren’t being ostracized even earlier. Indeed, we would expect them to be!

Finally, we find other books of the New Testament referring to “the Jews” as a distinct and frequently hostile group (Matt. 28:15, Acts 9:22-23, 12:3, 13:45, 2 Cor. 11:24, 1 Thess. 2:14), and these books were written in the mid first century. Acts was written around 60, 2 Corinthians was written in 54 or 55, and 1 Thessalonians was written between 49 and 51!

 

Before the Fall of Jerusalem?

Like the Synoptic Gospels, John does not refer to the fall of Jerusalem or the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70.

However, it is harder to make a case from this that John was written before 70 because—unlike the Synoptics—it does not contain a straightforward prediction of the temple’s destruction.

Jesus does allude to it (John 2:19), as does Caiaphas (John 11:48). But Jesus’ reference is only implicit, and the high priest only makes a conjecture. In neither case does Jesus say that the temple will be destroyed, as he does in the Synoptics.

Without an explicit prophecy of the temple’s destruction, we would not expect a prophetic fulfillment notice, and so the fact that John doesn’t give us one amounts only to a weak argument from silence.

Yet there is a verse which does imply a pre-70 date:

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Beth-Zatha, which has five porticoes (John 5:2).

The Greek word here for “is” (estin) is present tense, indicating a present state of affairs: John is saying that the pool Beth-Zatha (aka “Bethesda”), with its five porticoes, exists in Jerusalem at the time he is writing.

He would not have made this claim after Jerusalem fell, for as the Jewish historian Josephus reports, the Roman general Titus “ordered the whole city and the temple to be razed to the ground, leaving only the loftiest of the towers, Phasael, Hippicus, and Mariamme, and the portion of the wall enclosing the city on the west” (Jewish War 7:1:1-2).

John 5:2 thus gives us reason to hold that the Gospel was written before the destruction in 70 (see Daniel B. Wallace, “John 5, 2 and the Date of the Fourth Gospel”).

If this is correct, A.D. 70 would serve as the upper boundary for when John was composed.

What about the lower boundary?

 

John and the Other Evangelists

The early Church Fathers commonly regard John as the last of the Gospels to be written.

The work itself does not say this, but its last verse at least hints that several Gospels were written previously:

But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written (John 21:25).

This suggests that John was aware of several previous books about Jesus’ deeds, and these likely included one or more of the canonical Gospels.

There is quite good evidence that John knew the Gospel of Mark. In fact, there is evidence that he used Mark as a template around which to organize his own Gospel. I have argued this here. It is also argued by the British scholar Richard Bauckham in his chapter “John for Readers of Mark” in The Gospels for All Christians.

There are also reasons to think that John knew Luke’s Gospel. I have been struck by the way John seems to expand upon events mentioned in Luke, particularly in the latter’s Resurrection Narrative. For example:

• Luke’s statement, “Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home wondering at what had happened” (Luke 24:12) is expanded upon by John 20:1-10.
• Luke’s statement, “And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them” (Luke 24:41-43) is expanded upon by John 21:1-14.
• Luke exclusively focuses on post-Resurrection events that occurred in or near Jerusalem (Luke 24:1-51), in contrast to Matthew and Mark, who focus on post-Resurrection appearances that occurred in Galilee (Matt. 28:7, 10, 16-20, Mark 16:7; cf. Matt. 26:32, Mark 14:28). By contrast, John indicates that Jesus appeared to the disciples both in Jerusalem and in Galilee (John 20:19-21:23).

It thus seems that there are good reasons to think that John knew Mark, which was composed around A.D. 55, and Luke, which likely was published in A.D. 59.

These dates would put the composition of John between 59 and 70—i.e., in the A.D. 60s.

But there is one Gospel that we still have to consider.

What about Matthew?

 

John and Matthew

While a significant number of scholars have thought that John shows awareness of Mark and Luke, fewer have thought that he shows awareness of Matthew.

The claim that he does has been recently argued by James Barker in his book John’s Use of Matthew.

I am still evaluating the case that John knew Matthew. On independent grounds, I have argued that Matthew was written in the A.D. 60s, say around 65—the same period to which we have dated John.

If Matthew was written in this period, and if it had come into John’s hands, then he may have had little time to assimilate it, resulting in the lesser impact it had on his Gospel compared to Mark and Luke.

At present, I don’t have a judgment on whether Matthew was written first or whether John was. So far, we can only say that it looks like both were written sometime in the 60s.

 

The Book of Revelation Redivivus

The dating of the book of Revelation now returns to affect the dating of John’s Gospel. As I mentioned before, we have evidence that Revelation was written considerably before the date it is often assigned in the 90s.

Specifically, it appears to have been written shortly before the fall of the temple in A.D. 70, during the brief reign of the Emperor Galba (the one emperor who “is,” after the five who have fallen; cf. Revelation 17:10). Galba reigned from June 8 of A.D. 68 to January 15 of A.D. 69.

We also know that Revelation was written when John was in exile on Patmos (Rev. 1:9). This is likely responsible for the difference in the Greek styles of Revelation and the Gospel of John.

While in exile, John may not have had access to the kind of editorial help he may have employed when writing the Gospel (i.e., he may not have had access to a good amanuensis to polish his Greek).

Unfortunately, we do not know much about when John’s exile to Patmos began or ended. However, it is likely both that he was in exile before Galba’s brief reign began and that he remained in it through 69, the chaotic “Year of Four Emperors.”

He thus was likely in exile during at least the last two years of the 60s, meaning the Gospel would have been written in the early or mid 60s.

 

Peter’s Martyrdom

There is one additional factor that may help us date the Gospel. Toward its end, Jesus tells Peter:

Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go (John 21:18).

John then adds:

This he said to show by what death he [Peter] was to glorify God (John 21:19).

This is commonly understood to mean that John’s Gospel was written after Peter’s martyrdom and that John was looking back on the event.

In a currently unpublished study, I have dated the martyrdom of Peter to the mid 60s. It likely took place in mid 65 or mid 66. If so, then the Gospel would have been written in a very short time frame, say in 66 or 67.

However, there is reason to question the premise on which this argument is based.

Most English translations of John 21:19, including the RSV (quoted above), make it sound like Peter’s martyrdom is a past event. They speak of the death by which “he was to glorify God.”

But the Greek text actually has the future tense at this point. The relevant verb is doksasei (“he will/shall glorify”). Some of the most literal translations thus render the passage along these lines:

And this he said, signifying by what death he shall glorify God (John 21:19, Young’s Literal Translation).

I’m uncertain why most translations render the passage the way they do. It may simply be due to the prevalent view among translators that John was written after Peter’s death. However, the Greek verb is future tense.

If the more literal translation is correct, it would appear that Peter’s martyrdom is still in the future at the point that John is writing—or at least that it occurred so recently that John has not yet received word of the martyrdom.

Word of Peter’s death would have spread quickly in the Christian world, though it would have taken months to make its way around the Mediterranean.

If John was in Ephesus at this time, he likely would have heard within a few weeks. (The ORBIS ancient travel database indicates a minimum travel time of just over 12 days between Rome and Ephesus during the spring and summer months, when Peter likely was martyred.)

If the literal translation of John 21:19 is correct, the latest possible date for John’s Gospel thus would be within a few weeks of Peter’s martyrdom, which would still leave us in the 65-66 time frame.

 

Conclusion

In view of the above, I estimate that John’s Gospel was written between the publication of Luke in 59 and the martyrdom of Peter in 65-66. For the sake of convenience, I will reckon it as approximately 65.

This would give us the following dates for the publication of the Gospels and Acts:

• Mark: approximately 55 (info here)
• Luke: approximately 59 (info here)
• Acts: approximately 60 (info here)
• Matthew: approximately 65 (info here, here, here, and here)
• John: approximately 65

It thus appears that the historical books of the New Testament were written in the span of about a decade.