Did the Author of John Know the Other Gospels?

At first reading, the Gospel of John feels a world apart from the other gospels. The language is different, there are new stories (see our episode on "the woman taken in adultery") and Jesus speaks about himself in bolder terms ("I am the resurrection and the life." "I am the light of the world.") That has led some scholars to argue that the author of John didn't know the synoptic gospels and was instead working from other sources, probably oral traditions about Jesus circulating in the 1st c...