John a Apostle

John the Apostle Twelve Apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament. Generally transmitted as the youngest apostle, he was the son of Zebedee & Salome. His brother was James, who was another of the Twelve Apostles. The Church Fathers identify him as John the Evangelist, John of Patmos, John the Elder, & the Beloved Disciple, and testify that he outlived the remaining apostles and was the only one to die of natural causes, although modern scholars are divided on the veracity of these claims.

John the Apostle is traditionally held to be the author of the Gospel of John, and many Christian denominations score also held that he was the author of several other books of the New Testament the three Johannine epistles and the Book of Revelation, together with the Gospel of John called the Johannine works, depending on if he is distinguished from or mentioned with John the Evangelist, John the Elder, and John of Patmos.

Although the authorship of the Johannine works has traditionally been attributed to John the Apostle, only a minority of advanced scholars believe he wrote the gospel, and almost conclude that he wrote none of them. Regardless of if or not John the Apostle wrote all of the Johannine works, near scholars agree that any three epistles were written by the same author and that the epistles did not score the same author as the Book of Revelation, although there is widespread disagreement among scholars as to whether the author of the epistles was different from that of the gospel.

In art

As he was traditionally identified with the beloved apostle, the evangelist, and the author of the Revelation and several Epistles, John played an extremely prominent role in art from the early Christian period onward. He is traditionally depicted in one of two distinct ways: either as an aged man with a white or gray beard, or alternatively as a beardless youth. The first way of depicting him was more common in Byzantine art, where it was possibly influenced by antique depictions of Socrates; the second was more common in the art of Medieval Western Europe, and can be dated back as far as 4th century Rome.

Legends from the Acts of John, an apocryphal text attributed to John, contributed much to Medieval iconography; it is the reference of the opinion that John became an apostle at a young age. One of John's familiar attributes is the chalice, often with a serpent emerging from it. This symbol is interpreted as a quotation to a legend from the Acts of John, in which John was challenged to drink a cup of poison tothe energy of his faith the poison being symbolized by the serpent. Other common attributes add a book or scroll, in reference to the writing traditionally attributed to him, and an eagle, which is argued to live the high-soaring, inspirational variety of these writings.