3 John was almost certainly written by the same author who wrote
2 John, and likely
1 John as well. This individual may have been John the Evangelist himself or someone else, perhaps
John the Presbyter, though according to scholar
C. H. Dodd, "If we attempt to ... identify the anonymous author of these epistles with some known individual, we have little but surmise to go on." There are many similarities between 2 and 3 John. Both follow the format of other personal letters of the era; in both the author self-identifies as "the Presbyter", a term which literally means "the elder"; and both deal with themes of hospitality and conflict within the church. They are also extremely similar in length, probably because they were both written to fit on one papyrus sheet. These considerations indicate a close affinity between 2 and 3 John, though 2 John is more strongly connected with 1 John than it is with 3 John. A minority of scholars, however, argue against common authorship of 2 and 3 John, and
Rudolf Bultmann held that 2 John was a forgery based on 3 John. If 3 John was written by John the Apostle, however, it is strange that
Diotrephes would oppose him since the apostles were highly respected in the early church. One possible alternative view of the epistle's authorship arises from a fragment written by
Papias of Hierapolis and quoted by Eusebius which mentions a man named "the Presbyter John". However, since nothing else is known of this individual it is not possible to positively identify him as the author of 3 John.
Date and location of writing All three letters of John were likely written within a few years of each other, and internal evidence indicates that they were written after the Gospel of John, placing them in the second half of the first century. This dating makes sense given their allusions and opposition to
Gnostic and
docetic teaching, which denied the full humanity of Jesus, and which was gaining ascendancy at the end of the first century. Dodd argues for a date between 96 and 110 A.D., concluding from the absence of references to persecution in the letters that they were probably written after the harsh reign (AD 81–96) of the Roman emperor
Domitian, whose persecution of Christians seems to have prompted the writing of the
Book of Revelation. Dodd notes, however, that they could have been written in the pre-Domitian era, which is likely if the author was a personal disciple of Jesus. Marshall suggests a date of between the 60s and 90s. Rensberger suggests a dating of around 100, assuming that the Gospel of John was written in the 90s and the letters must have followed after. The letters do not indicate the location of authorship, but since the earliest quotations of them (in the writings of Polycarp, Papias, and Irenaeus) come from the province of
Asia Minor, it is likely that the epistles were also written in Asia. Church tradition typically places them in the city of
Ephesus.
Manuscripts 3 John is preserved in many of the old manuscripts of the New Testament. Of the Greek
great uncial codices, codices
Sinaiticus,
Alexandrinus, and
Vaticanus contain all three Johannine epistles, while
Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus contains 3 John 3–15 along with 1 John 1:1–4.
Codex Bezae, while missing most of the Catholic epistles, contains 3 John 11–15 in Latin translation. In languages other than Greek, the
Vulgate and the
Sahidic,
Armenian,
Philoxenian Syriac, and Ethiopian versions contain all three epistles. Between the different copies there are no major difficulties or differences, meaning that there is very little doubt over determining the original text. ==Canonical history==