It’s rational to believe John wrote John…

Despite many accusations, the author of John’s gospel is not strictly anonymous. After all, he refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. We have less certainty for the author of John’s gospel than the others, but textual and traditional evidence suggests the author is the Apostle John, son of Zebedee. Clues that suggest this are:

• He is clearly an Israelite – the author’s knowledge of biblical feasts and institutions is detailed, along with Palestinian geography.
• The “beloved disciple” is present at the last supper (13:23) and with the apostles after the resurrection (21:4-7)
• “Beloved” suggests that he was in Jesus’ inner circle (this would be Peter, James and John, who were the only three that were renamed (Mark 3: 16:17))
  • Peter is distinguished from the beloved disciple in 20:2 and 21:20. James was martyred too early to be considered an author.
• There is a close association between Peter and the “beloved disciple” (20:1-9), which is also mirrored in Luke 22:8 and Acts 3:1.
• The attention to detail suggests that the author was an eyewitness –
  • “filled up to the brim” (2:7) at the wedding in Cana.
  • “barley” in 6:9.
  • “aroma filled the house” (12:3).
• Lastly, early Christian writers testify with one voice that the author is John the son of Zebedee, such as Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria

Some even claim that John was written by a community of believers, but the details given above suggest that there was at least one primary author.

…but a lot of scholars tend to date him later

We have a fragment of John’s gospel dating as far back A.D. 120, telling us that the gospel was written at least this early, but probably much earlier given that it would have needed to have time to gain popularity and circulate.

Secondly, Ignatius of Antioch seems to allude to the teaching of the fourth gospel in a collection of letters written at about A.D. 107. Ultimately, there is no real issue dating the gospel to even the 60s, but scholars tend to date it to the 90s. One clue pushing the date earlier would be the word ‘is’ used in 5:2 to describe the pool of Bethesda which was lost in A.D. 70 with the fall of Jerusalem – it wouldn’t make much sense to use the word ‘is’ to refer to something that is no longer intact.

General Hurdles for the skeptic

Why would a false author use the name of a Jewish tax collector (Matthew), or non-disciples (Mark, Luke) in an attempt to permeate a Christian message? Why not use the name of Peter, or James?

You could point to what are known by the Church as the ‘Apocryphal gospels’ as an attempt to provide reason to be sceptical about the authorship of the gospels, however, these were well known to be forgeries by the Church according to their usage, consistency, orthodoxy and authorship.

Further, none of them are known to be earlier than 150AD – as opposed to the synoptics which were penned almost a century before.

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Next… is some pretty gruesome stuff.

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