By Rose Vidovix
It is easy to lose track of which John you are reading about in the New Testament. John the Baptist and John the apostle are two different men. But was the John who wrote Revelation the same man who left his fishing boat to follow Jesus? And when the Gospel of John speaks of the disciple Jesus loved, how do we know which disciple it means?
Five people named John can be clearly distinguished in the text. The count rises to six if John of Patmos, the author of Revelation, was a different person from the apostle.
1. John the Baptist
John the Baptist preached repentance and baptised Jesus in the River Jordan (Matthew 3:1–17). We also hear about him outside the Bible. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus describes John as a man whose preaching drew crowds. In Josephus’s account, Herod Antipas feared that John’s influence might lead to an uprising, so he had him imprisoned and executed at the fortress of Machaerus (Jewish Antiquities 18.116–119). Josephus gives us a glimpse of how a ruler might have viewed a preacher who could draw so many people to hear him.
2. John the Apostle
John and his brother James were mending their nets in a boat with their father, Zebedee, when Jesus called them to follow him (Matthew 4:21–22). Christian tradition identifies John as the disciple who took Mary, the mother of Jesus, into his home. In the scene at the cross, Jesus entrusts Mary to the disciple he loved, and the disciple takes her home from that hour. The Gospel leaves the disciple unnamed (John 19:25–27).
3. John Mark
Acts introduces him as John, also called Mark, when Peter goes to the house of John’s mother, where people have gathered to pray. John Mark later travels with Paul and Barnabas but leaves them in Pamphylia and returns to Jerusalem. When Barnabas proposes taking him on another journey, Paul objects. The disagreement is sharp enough that Paul and Barnabas part ways, and Barnabas takes Mark to Cyprus (Acts 12:12, 25; 13:5, 13; 15:36–40).
4. John the Father of Simon Peter
When Jesus first meets Peter in the Gospel of John, he addresses him as Simon, son of John (John 1:42). He calls him by the same name three times after the resurrection, when he asks Peter whether he loves him (John 21:15–17). Readers may remember a different name from Matthew, where Jesus calls Peter “Simon son of Jonah” (Matthew 16:17).
5. John of the High Priest’s Family
Acts names this John alongside Annas, Caiaphas and Alexander at the hearing in Jerusalem. The authorities ask Peter and the apostle John by what power or in whose name they healed a man who could not walk. The John from the high priest’s family is listed among those present, though Acts records no words of his own (Acts 3:1–10; 4:5–7).
6. John of Patmos
The author of Revelation gives his name as John and says that he was on Patmos, an island in the Aegean Sea. He addresses seven churches in the Roman province of Asia (Revelation 1:4, 9–11). Whether he was John the apostle was already debated in the early Church. In the third century, Dionysius of Alexandria pointed to differences in vocabulary and Greek style between Revelation and the Gospel of John. He accepted that Revelation was written by someone named John and doubted that it was the son of Zebedee (Eusebius, Church History 7.25).
Who Was the Beloved Disciple
Christian tradition attributes the Gospel of John to the apostle. In the late second century, Irenaeus wrote that the John who had reclined beside Jesus at supper published his Gospel in Ephesus (Against Heresies 3.1.1). Near the end of the Gospel, the text points to the beloved disciple as the witness behind the account and vouches for his testimony, leaving his name unstated (John 21:20–24).
That leaves a question we still cannot answer. Who was Jesus’ favourite apostle, if he had one? Was it John?
Sources
Eusebius of Caesarea. Church History. Book VII, chapter 25. Translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert. New Advent. https://www.newadvent.org
Irenaeus of Lyons. Against Heresies. Book III, chapter 1, section 1. Translated by Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut. New Advent. https://www.newadvent.org
Josephus, Flavius. Jewish Antiquities. Book XVIII, sections 116–119. Translated by William Whiston. Lexundria. https://lexundria.com
The Holy Bible. New International Version, UK edition. Biblica. Bible Gateway https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-International-Version-UK-NIVUK-Bible/
Denizli January 2026
