When was Saint John the Apostle born?

Answer 1

This is difficult to answer as there is no actual figure mentioned in The Bible. However, we can get some clues.

Firstly, John and his brother James were known as 'sons of thunder' - a rather beligerent pair. When they joined jesus's disciples, they left their father Zebedee who was an active fisherman. In those days, when life expectancy was only around 40 - 50 so, Zebedee, to be an active person would have to have been no more than 38-42 or so or he would have been considered too old to set out on the sea. Furthermore, the mother of John and James once approached Jesus to ask about who would sit at his right hand when his Kingdom came. All these facts lead us to believe that at the time Jesus conducted his ministry, John was probably no more than a teenager - past his Bahmizvah at 14 (or the Bioble would have mentied him as a child), but not much older. The above incidents bear this out - as a 40 year old Zebedee would have a son no older than 18 or 20, that their mother was a typical mum wanting the best for 'her boys' and the 'sons of thunder' description would be an apt description for a beligerent teenager. Finally, we know that John's gospel was not written until near the end of the first century. If john was already old during the time of Jesus' ministry he would not have lived this long. As it stands, if John was a teenager at the time of Jesus' ministry, then he could easily have written his gospel towards the end of the first century,when he was very elderly - in his 80s or early 90s - rather unusual for men in those times.

Now to John's birth date. Jesus was 30 - 33 when he conducted his ministry, and we must assume that John was around 15 - 18 at the same time, ie John would be around 15 years younger than Jesus. If jesus was born around 4 BC as is generally accepted then this puts the year of John's birth at around 11 AD or so - give or take a few years!

John the Baptist was born about the year 1 AD. John the Apostle was born about 10 AD - both dates approximate depending on calendar adjustments.

The above information about Jesus and the Apostle John is resonably accurate. However, John the baptist was born only 6 months before Jesus. In the first chapter of Luke, Elizabeth, John the Baptist's mother was 6 months pregnant when she was told of Mary's extected pregnancy by God's angel Gabriel. When John was born, Mary was then 3 months pregnant. If Jesus was born in 4 BC, then John the Baptist was born 6 months before that, not in 1 AD. sometime earlier this month
Belfast

Answer 2

John the Apostle was born in c. 6 AD in Galilee, and died c.100 AD.

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