Jerusalem, Judea – Late Spring/Early Summer, 27 A.D. 

     Jesus presented himself alive, (after death by crucifixion), to the Apostles by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.  While meeting with them, (after several meetings both in Judea and Galilee), he enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem immediately, but to stay for a while longer. “Wait for the promise of the Father about which you have heard me speak, for John (the Baptist) baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

     Then he led them (out) as far as Bethany, (on a plateau on the hilly road from Jerusalem to Jericho, about 2 miles east of Jerusalem where Lazarus had been raised and where the sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha – a family very close friends with Jesus, where Jesus had been before the Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem only a month and a half before), raised his hands, and blessed them.

     They asked Jesus, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

     He answered them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

     When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. “Men of Galilee! Why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.” They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God.

     When they entered the city they went to the upper room where they were staying. Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James - all these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

27 years later, probably in early Christian parts near Rome, in a common Greek language …

     Mark’s Gospel is published.

61 years later … in an unknown location, within the Roman Empire under siege, in a modified “hip” Greek language style  …

     … John’s Gospel is published, independent of earlier works, probably to refute existing irritating heretical works purporting themselves to be Gospels in a style and format that had gained popularity in those times in the world as John knew it. The style was aimed directly at a target audience including pagans familiar with Hebrew signs in prophesy fulfilled through Jesus. Much has been written about the more durable subculture John is directly addressing and simultaneously rebuking by using their own style against them, the Gnostics. This Gnostic variant was certainly not the first of its type, but it represents a value system that John was clearly addressing. As such, John’s Gospel is so different and against the Synoptic Gospels so irrelevant to our own values and culture that for good reason its incorporation into the Liturgy at Mass is the exception in today’s world, and not the rule. Yet even so, against the renewed infatuation of Gnosticism in some corners of popular culture today, the best argument deflating those theories continues to be found in John’s writings. In this Gospel, in his various letters, and especially in “Revelations” (formerly known as “The Apocalypse,”) John structures his writings with adequate valued symbols, signs and wonders as important priorities, all in order to convert and correct popular culture. Jesus and the writers of the other Gospels do not give symbols, signs and wonders any value at all. An elderly John, who would certainly have younger assistants with him who would constitute what is today called the Johannine Tradition, borrows that same style and format, and writes his Gospel for a public already well familiar with signs, symbols, and wonders, to set the record straight. Yet, even stripped of the elements included to defend against heretical and perhaps well known cultural values of the past, John’s Gospel, although clearly out of order chronologically as presented, contains several powerful stand-alone stories that are all based on actual events in the life of Jesus that were omitted by the other eyewitnesses or scribes of eyewitnesses who had constructed their own Gospels, Luke, Mark and Matthew. It is most likely, in hindsight, that the Gospel of John existed in draft form for decades before being published. The Johannine Tradition made the most use out of the earlier form, perhaps constructed in draft form long before the other Gospels were written, copied, and distributed. In fact our earliest surviving scrap of original Gospels is from John dated not long after John’s Gospel was published. We know by the excerpt found that we can be confident, if this is a representative sample, of the fidelity of early Gospel construction compared with what we have today. We also know that those who constructed the published form of John’s Gospel did perhaps inadvertently incorporate material that was better suited for inclusion into Luke’s Gospels, where it is largely omitted. Perhaps the original parchment or papyrus – just unmarked sheets that could be rolled and transported independently that we know now as John 7:53-8:8,11 had been misplaced by Luke’s team because someone on John’s team had borrowed, discovered, or otherwise obtained the original source material originally written by someone on Luke’s team, as evidenced by the style much closer to Luke’s writings than John’s.