« Could All Three Disciples Named John Have Been Martyred? »

If all three of the men named John in the Gospels — the apostle John, John the Baptist and John Mark — were martyred, which man named John lived to write Revelation?

We know John the Baptist was beheaded. Jesus told the apostle John that he and his brother James would drink from the same cup as Jesus, suggesting martyrdom lied ahead for the brothers in the minds of some scholars. James, the brother of John, was beheaded by Herod. Early church patriarch Papias reports that the apostle John was martyred “by the Jews at an early date.”

According to church tradition, John Mark is believed to have been martyred in Alexandria, Egypt by being tied to a rope and drug through the streets of Alexandria.

So which man named John lived to an old age to the end of the 1st century, when most scholars believe that Revelation was written by a man who identifies himself as John?

Tantalizingly, Jesus suggests that there was a man presumably named John who would not taste death, and this would be the Beloved Disciple, “the other disciple, the one Jesus loved,” who on the testimony of church patriarch Irenaeus may have been the man John who wrote the Gospel of John and likely lived on to write Revelation. 

If we take into account this scene in the final chapter of John’s Gospel when Jesus suggests to Peter that a man presumably named John will not taste death — therefore making him eligible to write Revelation toward the end of the 1st century — we may conclude by the somewhat impersonal way in which Peter refers to “this man” presumably named John that Peter does not know him very well. Peter, having heard rumors that one disciple of Jesus will not die, looks back behind him as he is walking with Jesus in this scene, sees a man presumably named John and impersonally asks Jesus, “What about this man?”

If Peter was referring to his friend John, the son of Zebedee, i.e. the apostle John, would he have used the impersonal identifier “this man” within earshot of his fishing partner to ask Jesus whether John was the one disciple apparently rumored to be the one disciple who would not die? And, if “this man” was the apostle John, is it likely that he would have been chosen above his brother James to live while James went on to be martyred as James was just as Jesus had arguably predicted?

If all of the men named John in the Gospels were martyred, which disciple and follower of Jesus named John lived to the end of the 1st century to write Revelation? The only conclusion that we can come to is that either the tradition which says the apostle John was martyred or the tradition that says John Mark was martyred … is false. Or, there is another disciple of Jesus named John somewhere who wrote the Gospel of John and Revelation, which is not likely. 

Is one of these accounts of martyrdom wrong, false? If so, which one is false? Which disciple named John was not martyred, though we’re told that all of the disciples named John in the Gospels were martyred?

Why would someone lie and say that a disciple of Jesus named John died a martyr when he might not have been put to death, when not all of the disciples named John in the Gospels could have died as martyrs?

We either have a serious misrepresentation of the truth, a very significant fabrication, an important error on our hands … or we must come up with another disciple of Jesus named John to be the man who lived to write Revelation.

If there has been deceit pertaining to a disciple named John and his martyrdom, are there other areas where deceit has been used to obscure from us the identity of the Beloved Disciple and the writer of the fourth Gospel and Revelation?