When was the Gospel of John written?

Question

True Bible Answers · Accepted Answer

The Gospel of John carries no date in its own text, so commentators work from early Christian testimony and from the book's own character. Their answers cluster near the close of the first century, though they differ over the exact years, and behind the question of when lies a more interesting one: why God waited so long before this Gospel was written.

The Dates Suggested

The most common estimate places the writing around A.D. 90, offered with honest caution:

While the correct year in which the Gospel of John was written cannot be given, it seems quite evident that it was about the year 90 A.D.

Arno Clemens Gaebelein

Others give a slightly wider window — one writer suggests "most probably somewhere between A.D. 75-90." John's five books are also often dated in a sequence relative to each other:

The five books written by the apostle John were all published later than any other writings of Scripture, his gospel considered to be written about A.D. 85, his three epistles about A.D. 90 and Revelation about A.D. 95. His own age would likely be between 85 and 95 during the time of writing, and therefore these books show evidence of a dignity and maturity gained by long experience, yet with no marks of the infirmity of old age.

L. M. Grant

Commentators differ on the internal order: some hold the Gospel came first and the letters after, while others say it is probably impossible to tell which came first. On Revelation, one account has John writing it on Patmos and then returning to Ephesus, "where he wrote his Gospel and Epistles."

Written Last, and Written Knowingly Last

The dating is not only a matter of tradition. The book itself behaves like a later work, assuming what the first three Gospels had already told:

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN was evidently written some time after the other three Gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke had each told, in their divinely appointed way, the story of the birth, early years and entrance into ministry of Jesus Christ, and John takes their record for granted, since without it his opening paragraphs would be hardly intelligible... about a quarter of a century, it would seem, after both Paul and Peter had finished their course.

F. B. Hole

The Long Silence

John had been present at the events he records from the beginning. That makes the gap between the events and the writing striking:

But the delay is also remarkable. For we might have thought that the best time to furnish the saints with such intimate reminiscences was when all was fresh in his heart and memory. But God directed that the truth should be, not indeed hidden in his heart, but held back from his pen for fifty years at the least... And it was His time and way that the apostle John who was at the first should remain to be the last witness.

William Kelly

Why That Particular Moment

The late date is read as timing, not accident. By then the danger facing believers had changed:

Further, we may take note of the Divine wisdom which wrote and gave such a Gospel at a comparatively late date, when the enemy was seeking to corrupt and destroy, not by Pharisaic or Sadducean adversaries, nor by idolatrous Gentiles, but by apostates and antichristian teachers. These, under the highest pretensions to knowledge and power, were undermining the truth of Christ's Person, on the side both of His proper Deity and of His real humanity.

William Kelly

The condition of the Christian profession itself had also changed by then, and this shapes what the Gospel does and does not discuss:

The gospel sets forth Christianity according to the thought of God, and not according to the corruptions of Christendom; for, remember, the gospel was probably written at a late date when the ruin, foretold by the apostle Paul, had already overtaken the Christian profession. Thus, in this gospel, we are lifted above the world, and carried outside Judaism and corrupt Christendom, to learn the blessedness of Christianity according to God's thought, founded upon the Person of the Son of God.

Hamilton Smith

Much Later Dates Weighed and Rejected

Some scholars once pushed the Gospel deep into the second century — as late as A.D. 170, 140 or 130. Against these, a simple historical objection is pressed:

The old Tübingen opinion, now happily dead, was that it arose in the latter half of the second century... But Dr. Plummer asks: "If the Gospel was published between these years, why did not the hundreds of Christians who had known St. John during his later years denounce it as a forgery?"... Eusebius says that the Gospel was written in the Evangelist's old age.

William Kelly

Summary

- Date. Around A.D. 85–90, near the close of the first century, with A.D. 75–90 the outer range commentators allow.

- Last. John wrote after Matthew, Mark and Luke, and roughly twenty-five years after Paul and Peter had finished their course.

- Delayed. The truth was not hidden in John's heart but held back from his pen for at least fifty years, so that the apostle who was there at the first would remain as the last witness.

- Timed. It arrived when the enemy had shifted from open opposition to teachers undermining both the deity and the real humanity of Christ.

- Result. Written after ruin had already come into the Christian profession, it lifts the reader above the world to Christianity as God thinks of it, resting on the Person of the Son of God.