How many books did Saint John write?

Answer 1

A:

The apostle John is traditionally credited with having written the fourth gospel and three epistles, all of which now bear his name. He is often also credited with writing the Book of Revelation, although this claim was already seriously doubted in the second century.

The tradition of authorship by John came about because the second-century Church Fathers sought to establish who wrote each of the, previously anonymous, New Testament gospels, and decided that there were clues in the gospel that pointed to John as the author. They noticed that this gospel did not mention the apostle John, but alone of all the gospels mentioned a disciple "whom Jesus loved." They decided that this disciple was John and that he was also the author of the fourth gospel, too modest to use his own name. On such a speculative claim, John has ever since been credited with having written one of the gospels, which came to be known as John's Gospel. As three epistles appear to have been written by the same author as the fourth gospel, the Church Fatherstherefore attributed these to the disciple John. The Book of Revelation was eventually attributed to the apostle John simply because it is signed by an otherwise unknown author called John.

Modern scholars say that the gospel now known as John's Gospel could not have been written by an eyewitness to the events portrayed, which thus means that John was certainly not the author. And if John did not write the gospel that bears his name, he did not write the Johannine epistles. The author of the Book of Revelation is now commonly called 'John of Patmos' to distinguish him both from the apostle John and the anonymous author of John's Gospel.

Research has shown that St. John the apostle did not write any books in the New Testament.