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John’s Olivet Discourse?
This fall I’m auditing a course on the Gospel of John at a local seminary. John’s gospel is very different from Matthew, Mark, and Luke which are called the Synoptics since they have a parallel structure and content. John, on the other hand, chooses just a few episodes in the life of Jesus and goes into each in greater detail.
The Synoptic Gospels each contain a section near the end where Jesus tells some of his disciples (Peter and Andrew, James and John) the signs of the end of the age. Scholars call this teaching the Olivet Discourse because it happened on the Mount of Olives. But John’s gospel doesn’t have any similar teaching.
I would like to propose that Revelation is John’s “Olivet Discourse”. The reason this come to my mind is that as I painted Mark 13 I couldn’t help but notice the similarities with parts of Revelation. John is the most mystical of the gospel writers, a contemplative to Peter’s activist personality. It seems fitting that the Lord would reveal the signs of the end of the age to John in a deeper, more complexly complete fashion.