The majority of Biblical scholars believe that John’s Gospel was the last Gospel to be written, sometime between the last two decades of the 1st century (80s or 90s). It is also likely that the author of the fourth Gospel would have been aware that other Gospels had been written (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) yet decided that it was important to write their own account of Jesus. New questions and concerns about Jesus and those who are called to follow him prompted the author to write.

Of all the New Testament Gospels, John presents by far the most hostile picture of relations between Jesus and the Jews. Jesus consistently rebukes “the Jews,” and in return, they try to stone Jesus, and those who confess Jesus as the Messiah are put out of the synagogue. Yet Jesus and his disciples were Jews themselves! It is not likely that Jewish Christians were expelled from synagogues before the 80s C.E., and even then, it didn’t happen everywhere.

Scholars recognize that the state of affairs within the Gospel of John reflect much of a Christian group some years after his death. This Christian group seems to be undergoing a painful separation from the Jewish society to which many of its members had belonged. The claim that Jesus was the Messiah, and indeed the Son of God, brought disciplinary action from the synagogue authorities. It is important to remember, then, that when John’s Gospel speaks of “the Jews,” it refers not to the Jewish people as a whole but to the synagogue authorities of a particular time and place. 

Grace and Peace,

Daren Hofmann