Although the religious literature about Jesus, the New Testament, emerged from the Jewish literary tradition of the Old Testament) it has also been argued that in some portions of the New Testament, particularly the Gospels of St. John and St. Luke, the life, works, death, and resurrection of Jesus was described using a Greek rather than a Jewish literary model. In particular, evidence of a shared literary tradition may be seen within St, John's Gospels and depictions by Greek authors (Plato, for example) of such figures as Orpheus or Socrates. In this essay, I will analyze the claim of a Hellenistic literary connection between St. John's Gospels and Plato's Apology.

             First, the Gospels of St. John were originally written in Greek, and therefore, based on that alone, share a common literary heritage with works by Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek authors of the Hellenistic era. Moreover, according to the web article "John: Introduction": .

             The Gospel according to John is quite different in character from the three .

             synoptic gospels. It is highly literary and symbolic. It does not follow the same .

             order or reproduce the same stories as the synoptic gospels. To a much .

             greater degree, it is the product of a developed theological reflection and .

             grows out of a different circle and tradition. It was probably written in the 90s .

             of the first century [emphasis added].

             Moreover, as the web article "St. John the Baptist" points out: .

             There are considerable differences between John's gospel and the synoptics .

             [sic]. In many ways it seems to be in a different world; and the distinctions .

             come immediately to our attention. The ministry, in Mark, lasts just a little .

             longer than a year; in John, three Passovers are mentioned. Mark describes .

             the last supper as a Passover meal; John interprets the death of Christ as .

             occurring the day before Passover, at the time the lambs were being killed in .