Who was John? Was he as tradition afirms, One of Jesus' twelve disciples, indeed one of the closest friends of Jesus with Peter and James? Or was he the mysterious "John the Elder" mentioned by the Church Father Papias? Or was "John" simply the code-name of the "Johannaniine Community", a group of Christians who produced a work at the end of the first century reflecting their own theology and not the truth about the historical Jesus? This latter is the current wisdom of Gospel scholarship.

The Pope, in his best-selling book Jesus of Nazareth, insists on the contrary that the Gospel of John was a historical record based upon the testimony of the "beloved disciple", John the Son of Zebedee, who stood at the foot of the cross with Mary the Mother of Jesus.

John Redford has himself defended the essential historicity of the fourth Gospel in his book "Bad, Mad or God?". In this new book, he first shows the reasonableness of the Pope's view that the fourth Gospel is a reliable source for the life of the historical Jesus. Then, he goes deeper into the issue of who wrote the fourth Gospel, presenting the case for the traditional authoriship of the Gospel of John by John the Apostle.

"Who was John?" is not just an academic question, it goes to the heart of the question as to who the historical Jesus was, as testified by his beloved disciple.

Canon John Redford is Reader in Biblical Hermeneutics at the Maryvale Institute, Birmingham, and Director of the M.A. in Catholic Theology.