John

The special emphasis of the Gospel of John is the deity of Jesus. It consists chiefly of Jesus’ discourses and conversations and gives emphasis to the things that Jesus said rather than the things that he did.

John’s father's name was Zebedee. We believe that his mother was named Salome, who seems to have been a sister of Mary the mother of Jesus. If so, then John was a cousin of Jesus, and being around the same age, must have known him from childhood.

John was a business man of some means. He was one of five partners in a fishing business that employed "hired servants". Besides his fishing business in Capernaum, he had a house in Jerusalem, and was a personal acquaintance of the high priest.

He was a disciple of John the Baptist, and on the Baptist's testimony, he became an immediate disciple of Jesus, one of the first five disciples, and returned with Jesus to Galilee. Later, in about a year, Jesus called him to leave his business and travel with Him.

Jesus nicknamed John the "Son of Thunder", which would seem to imply that he had a vehement and violent temper (that he subsequently brought under control).

He was one of the three "inner circle" disciples, and was recognized as the closet to Jesus. In fact, five times he is spoken of as the disciple "whom Jesus loved".

He and Peter became the recognized leaders of the Twelve Disciples. Although utterly different in disposition, they were generally together.

Jerusalem seems to have been his chief residence for a number of years. His latter years are believed to have been in Ephesus; nothing is known of his activities or whereabouts in the interim. At Ephesus, he lived to a ripe old age, and wrote his Gospel, three Epistles, and Revelation.

The date of his Gospel is usually estimated to be about 90 AD. However, some scholars believe that it could have been much earlier, while he was still in Jerusalem, soon after the resurrection -- first written in Hebrew, and then later, issued in Greek (the so-called Ephesian edition).