enough to turn away a lot of people. The way that Jesus finally dies is quite clearly different from the synoptic gospels. In those, Jesus is portrayed as a man who is the Son of God, but a man none-the-less. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is shown as shouting in Aramaic "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 28:45) which is a very human cry to make. It is the cry of someone who is in pain, who is scared, who is unhappy with where he is in life. On the other hand, in John, Jesus is shown as not feeling pain, and also doing things specifically to meet the scriptures like telling the Roman soldier at his crucifixion that he was thirsty. He then drinks quietly the sour wine given to him, and then dies. This is a far cry from the screaming suffering servant of the other gospels.Another major point that is only found in John is the action of piercing Jesus' side after his death. According to the gospel, the soldiers go around to the various bodies hanging on crosses and proceed to break their legs and remove their bodies. However, when they get to Jesus' body and they find that he was already dead, one of the soldiers pierces his side with his spear. Instead of nothing happening, "blood and water came out" (John 19:34). Whether this is in a slow dribble or a burst is not clear. However, it is stated that this occurred so that the prophecy might be fulfilled, so as to prove that Jesus was the messiah. It is also interesting to note that verse 35 is in parentheses and is a statement saying that the person who saw the incident has testified to its truth, almost as a way of further trying to prove that the events were real.Of the four gospels, John is by far the most poetically written and the most distinct in terms of style, narrative and approach. While there are varying theories about who wrote it and when, it can be agreed on that the Gospel of John was written for not only a very different audience than the s...
