The Gospel According to John (Greek: Τὸ κατὰ Ἰωάννην εὐαγγέλιον, translit. To kata Iōánnēn euangélion; also called the Gospel of John, the Fourth Gospel, or simply John) is one of the four canonical gospels in the New Testament. It traditionally appears fourth, after the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Although the Gospel of John is anonymous, Christian tradition historically has attributed it to John the Apostle, son of Zebedee and one of Jesus' Twelve Apostles. The gospel is so closely related in style and content to the three surviving Johannine epistles that commentators treat the four books, along with the Book of Revelation, as a single corpus of Johannine literature, albeit not necessarily written by the same author.
C. K. Barrett, and later Raymond E. Brown, suggested that a tradition developed around the "Johannine Community", and that this tradition gave rise to the gospel. The discovery of a large number of papyrus fragments of manuscripts with Johannine themes has led more scholars to recognize that the texts were among the most influential in the early Church.
The discourses contained with this gospel seem to be concerned with issues of the church–synagogue debate at the time of composition. It is notable that in John, the community appears to define itself primarily in contrast to Judaism, rather than as part of a wider Christian community. Though Christianity started as a movement within Judaism, it gradually separated from Judaism because of mutual opposition between the two religions.