Wiki:  “John of Patmos (also called John the Revelator, John the Divine, John the Theologian, and possibly John the Apostle; Greek: Ἰωάννης ὁ Θεολόγος; Coptic: ⲓⲱⲁⲛⲛⲏⲥ) is the author named as John in the Book of Revelation, the apocalyptic text forming the final book of the New Testament. The text of Revelation states that John was on Patmos, a Greek island where, by most biblical historians, he is considered to be exiled as a result of anti-Christian persecution under the Roman emperor Domitian.

Since the Roman era, Christians and historians have considered the Book of Revelation’s writer to be the Apostle John (John the Evangelist), supposed author of the Gospel of John.  However, a minority of senior clerics and scholars, such as Eusebius, recognize at least one further John as a companion of Jesus Christ, John the Presbyter “after an interval, placing him among others outside of the number of the apostles.”  Some Christian scholars since medieval times separate the disciple(s) from Revelation’s writer, John of Patmos/the Divine.”¹

Further detail from wiki:  Eusebius’ belief was not based on actual evidence, but an indirect reference in the early Christian writings.  The reference to John the Presbyter appears in a fragment by Papias, an early 2nd-century bishop of Hierapolis, who published an “Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord” (Greek κυριακῶν λογίων ἐξηγήσις — Kyriakôn logiôn exêgêsis) in five volumes.  Eusebius never saw that particular parchment fragment—only read about it in Papias’ writings.  Ironically, parchment excerpts from John the Presbyter himself supposedly still exist.  But they exclude any words that claim he wrote the Gospel or Revelation. 

Here’s one interesting description of him:  John the Presbyter was a high-ranking priest in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem when for the first time he heard Jesus speak. The encounter changed his life: he became a follower of Jesus and for the rest of his years he wrote…about his spiritual master…The common theme in these shorter writings is John’s determination to counter Paul’s efforts (who had never even met Jesus) to recast Jesus as a Roman godling inhabiting a spiritual body, not one of flesh.²  H-m-m-m-m  It sounds like John the Presbyter either didn’t read Paul’s epistles, or didn’t fully grasp them. (I myself find Paul’s writings to be incredibly deep. 😊 But I’m sorry.  “Roman godling” is somewhere out there in Lalaland…)

(Side Note:  However, whether John the Presbyter heard Jesus speak or not, can anyone imagine how wonderful it would have been to hear the Word spoken by the Word!  Talk about a spiritual overhaul!  Well, get ready for it—because Daniel and Revelation say He’s coming back—and I imagine He won’t be silent at that time—He will speak to us, live, up-front, and personal. 1 Thess 4:16 😊)

Moving along:  Were the Gospel of John and Revelation written by the same “John?”

Bible Odyssey:  Of the New Testament works, only Revelation names its author explicitly as “John.” Revelation is written in much poorer Greek than the Gospel and letters are, and it even spells the name Jerusalem in Greek differently than the Gospel does. So it is extremely unlikely that the same person wrote all of these books. Some scholars therefore refer to the author of Revelation as “John the seer” or “John of Patmos” to distinguish him from the purported author of the Gospel and letters.²

The thought occurred to me that maybe, with the flurry of all these “Bible Code” books that were published around Y2K (and wrote about complex computer algorithms that validated codes/patterns in the Bible like equidistant letter sequences), that maybe someone had a similar program for correlating the number of differences/similarities in the Johannine linguistic styles.  Web search indicates this technology has not yet come of age, but what a possible thesis topic!

Nevertheless, I found a good summary on www.biblestudytools.com:  It has been observed that the style of the Greek within the book of Revelation differs significantly from that of the gospel of John. This has been frequently used to intimate that the author, although describing himself as John (Rev. 1:1+, Rev. 1:4+, Rev. 1:9+; Rev. 21:2+; Rev. 22:8+), is a different John than the Apostle…The Greek of the book of Revelation has been categorized as “more primitive” or “rougher” than that of John’s Gospel. This is primarily due to the violation of some of the normal rules of Greek grammar.  (Grammatical irregularities like) disagreements in case, number, gender, or person…. peculiar variants in style…Some have suggested that the differences in style might reflect the aging of John between the writing of his Gospel and the book of Revelation, but this seems unlikely…(others see) the irregularity mentioned above as being evidence of the Hebraic material and thought of the author:  He thought in Hebrew or Aramaic; he wrote in Greek. Others suggest that John’s writing style was affected by the emotionally vivid content given in rapid succession.  Another possibility is that John utilized an amanuensis (secretary) when writing the Gospel, but was unable to do so on Patmos.³

This is good stuff!!  And how about this theory:  John didn’t write in Greek at all.  Assume the languages he was most comfortable with were Aramaic and Hebrew.  So he had not one, but two amanuenses—one in the location where he wrote the gospel, and one on Patmos.  I can take one section of Hebrew scripture and immediately find 23 ways of expressing it in English on Bible Hub (and how many other translations are out there?). Two people going from John’s spoken Aramaic to written Greek—two different ways of rendering.  One secretary may have had a PhD in Ancient Languages from Hebrew University. 😊 One may have had a Greek mother and a Jewish father.

But a secretary on Patmos?  Wasn’t John exiled alone?  Roman Christians late in the reign of Domitian (81-96 A.D.), even those of noble families connected to the Emperor, are known to have been banished to remote islands in the Aegean just as John was. In the Roman period, Patmos was not an uninhabited, deserted prison colony, but had a harbor, a town, a temple to Artemis, a temple to Apollo, perhaps a temple to Dionysus and a temple to Aphrodite, a gymnasium, and even a hippodrome/stadium.⁵ 

The commentators do seem to be in agreement somewhat that Revelation was written last.  “The gospel of John was probably written between A.D. 85 and 90, the epistles of John in the early nineties, and (Revelation) about A.D. 95.”⁶

In sum, if we go on the well-accepted traditional basis that the Apostle John wrote Revelation, that explodes our image of who John was as a person—and what his relationship was with God.

The Greek translation of the word “revelation” basically means to lift the veil. Compared to the Synoptic Gospels, the Book of John itself removes veil after veil to reveal Who Jesus was—and brings us into a higher dimension of understanding!  Perhaps the author of that book had something that others didn’t have at the time—he had less filtered access to the heart of Jesus (he symbolically laid his head on Jesus’ chest during the Last Supper).  Plus he had no reservations about getting on a bullhorn and proclaiming Jesus’ deity, glory, power, might, LOVE to the whole earth.  And I do not believe that he had the benefit of the Revelation visions when he did that.  So I can imagine Jesus smiling as John busily wrote his gospel, and thinking, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” 😊
 
Summary Statement:  We ain’t seen nothin’ yet.  Next week—more on who John was….

++++++++++++

¹Wikipedia Website:  /wiki/John_of_Patmos

²Bible Odyssey Website:  /people/related-articles/which-john.aspx

³Google Books Website:  /books/about/The_Writings_of_John_the_Presbyter.html?id=zZjToQEACAAJ

⁴Bible Study Tools Website:  /commentaries/revelation/introduction/style-of-writing.html

⁵Drive Through History on youtube: /watch?v=ZfHWPq1BAa4

⁶Robert L. Thomas, Revelation Exegetical Commentary – Volume 2, (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2016)