Because no one is able to come up with a more likely candidate.
Just because the gospel of John claims to be written by one of the 12 – oops, 11 – doesn’t mean that it actually was. Aside from Paul’s undisputed letters the authorship of the books of the NT are considered by scholars to be unknown to the best of my knowledge. It’s OK not to know.
No its like reading the gospel of Matthew and then you can come out with something on the same level as it.
First, the book of John is nothing like the book of Matthew, so the reasoning is flawed. Second, it is demonstrably untrue that the ability to read something does not, by itself, enable one to write something like it. Many millions of high school students can attest to that.
Robert said
That’s what I love about you, Stephen, always looking for something of interest everywhere and from everyone among us.
That’s very complimentary. There is a method in my madness. We tend to screen out sensory input that contradicts our view of the world. The only way I can attempt to get the whole picture is by consciously seeking our points of view with which I disagree. If there is something I missed it’s likely they will be the very ones who notice it. I think the idea that the gospels were written by eyewitnesses, prior to the First Revolt, is dead wrong. Naturally a book that purports to be a scholarly attempt to show just that is of some interest. Worth a fiver anyway.
brenmcg, this has been done before. Have you read Richard Bauckham’s ** you do not have permission to see this link **? But even Bauckham doesn’t think John was written by the “beloved disciple”.
brenmcg said
CEJ said
What eyewitness would that be? Certainly not John, if he was the fisher portrayed in the synoptics.
Why certainly not? He didn’t remain a fisherman – he became one of the pillars of a new religious movement centered in Jerusalem which collected money from cities around the Turkey/Greece. Neither he or his wife had any longer to work for a living outside of preaching the gospel.
So, let’s see: John, a supposed fisherman, who wouldn’t have had a formal education and whom Luke’s author identifies as illiterate in Acts 4:13, took night classes while in Jerusalem and not only learned to read and write a foreign language but learned how to compose a sophisticated novella in that language?
I’d like to agree with you, but the weight of reality just won’t let me.
TTHorne56 said
First, the book of John is nothing like the book of Matthew, so the reasoning is flawed. Second, it is demonstrably untrue that the ability to read something does not, by itself, enable one to write something like it. Many millions of high school students can attest to that.
The gospel of John is very much like the gospel of Matthew. Of all the millions of books ever written the gospel of John is third closest in form and content to the gospel of Matthew.
Being the pillar of a religious community capable of drawing crowds while debating in solomon’s collanades, discussing theology with people like Paul, coupled with the ability to read Matthew and the septuagint would produce someone capable of writing something like the gospel of John. There would be nothing remarkable or miraculous about it.
Stephen said
brenmcg, this has been done before. Have you read Richard Bauckham’s ** you do not have permission to see this link **? But even Bauckham doesn’t think John was written by the “beloved disciple”.
No but I think he claims John the Elder wrote it.
I think John of Zebedee and John the Elder are the same person.
CEJ said
So, let’s see: John, a supposed fisherman, who wouldn’t have had a formal education and whom Luke’s author identifies as illiterate in Acts 4:13, took night classes while in Jerusalem and not only learned to read and write a foreign language but learned how to compose a sophisticated novella in that language?
I’d like to agree with you, but the weight of reality just won’t let me.
He no longer had to be a day laborer – he got paid to preach the gospel – so night classes were unnecessary.
Greek was not any old foreign language – it was the lingua franca of the empire. The scripture was readily available in greek and many jews could only understand only the septuagint. If he had any belief in the need to preach the gospel to the gentiles he needed to learn it. When Josephus talks about it he says the elite wouldn’t learn greek but it was “common, not only to all sorts of free men, but to as many of the servants as please to learn them.“
Why did John become a pillar of the community? He must have been capable of making arguments and discussing religious ideas. If he had learned to read and write greek why couldn’t he write the gospel of John – its not particularly sophisticated and structurally very similar to Matthew.
Whoever wrote the gospel claimed it was written by the beloved disciple. The most likely candidate for the beloved disciple is John.
brenmcg said
CEJ said
So, let’s see: John, a supposed fisherman, who wouldn’t have had a formal education and whom Luke’s author identifies as illiterate in Acts 4:13, took night classes while in Jerusalem and not only learned to read and write a foreign language but learned how to compose a sophisticated novella in that language?
I’d like to agree with you, but the weight of reality just won’t let me.
He no longer had to be a day laborer – he got paid to preach the gospel – so night classes were unnecessary.
Greek was not any old foreign language – it was the lingua franca of the empire. The scripture was readily available in greek and many jews could only understand only the septuagint. If he had any belief in the need to preach the gospel to the gentiles he needed to learn it. When Josephus talks about it he says the elite wouldn’t learn greek but it was “common, not only to all sorts of free men, but to as many of the servants as please to learn them.“
Why did John become a pillar of the community? He must have been capable of making arguments and discussing religious ideas. If he had learned to read and write greek why couldn’t he write the gospel of John – its not particularly sophisticated and structurally very similar to Matthew.
You’re correct. The author or authors of John had access to the LXX. But otherwise, you’re mostly wishing. If John spoke some Koine Greek, and that’s not assured, speaking it would rarely translate to writing it, let alone composing a complex text with it. No. The 4th gospel was not cobbled together by an illiterate commoner who picked up reading and writing a second language late in life.
Further, there’s a timing issue. GoJohn is dated by most scholars to the ‘90s. It would be unlikely for John to even be alive at that late date, despite a church tradition to the contrary brought to us, if I recall correctly, by Eusebius. There appears to have been another church tradition dating to Papias, according to George the Sinner, that John died at the hands of his fellow Jews, which likely means he died in Jerusalem before the fall of the city just as his brother did according to Acts. And that would have allowed Mark’s author to predict the martyrdom of both James and John in Mark 10:39 in that text from the ‘70s.
But you keep wishing, hear?
jakejones said
nobody knows it is the beloved disciple. mark doesnt know. matthew doesnt know. luke doesnt know.“we know his….”none of the synoptic writers know about this guy.“whom jesus loved”
The claim is that there is a disciple that referred to himself as the one Jesus loved. A statement like that is likely to cause some tension with the other disciples.
Matthew/Mark both tell us that James and John wished to be greater or closer to Jesus than the other disciples which annoyed the rest of the 12.
Luke tells us Jesus rebuked James and John when they suggested they could call down fire from heaven.
So its a pretty good match. The Zebedees are also conspicuous by their absence from the gospel of John.
CEJ said
You’re correct. The author or authors of John had access to the LXX. But otherwise, you’re mostly wishing. If John spoke some Koine Greek, and that’s not assured, speaking it would rarely translate to writing it, let alone composing a complex text with it. No. The 4th gospel was not cobbled together by an illiterate commoner who picked up reading and writing a second language late in life.
The early church claim is that John wrote the gospel. The modern claim is that that isn’t possible. I’m only countering the modern claim – of course its possible that one of the 12 could learn to read and eventually write John. It might not be true that he wrote but to dismiss it out of hand is baseless.
Further, there’s a timing issue. GoJohn is dated by most scholars to the ‘90s. It would be unlikely for John to even be alive at that late date, despite a church tradition to the contrary brought to us, if I recall correctly, by Eusebius. There appears to have been another church tradition dating to Papias, according to George the Sinner, that John died at the hands of his fellow Jews, which likely means he died in Jerusalem before the fall of the city just as his brother did according to Acts. And that would have allowed Mark’s author to predict the martyrdom of both James and John in Mark 10:39 in that text from the ‘70s.
Once people get over the belief in the late dating of the gospel there’ll be no reason to think John couldn’t have written it.
“A statement like that is likely to cause some tension with the other disciples.”
you didn’t even provide evidencee that the synoptic writers even knew this unknown guy mentioned in john. you quickly assumed that they did and said “it would cause tension” ? where is a “beloved disciple” in the synoptics ?
where is there mention of “jesus had this favourite beloved disciple” in synoptics? why would it cause tension when it is unidentified?
“Matthew/Mark both tell us that James and John wished to be greater or closer to Jesus than the other disciples which annoyed the rest of the 12.”
so 12 got annoyed because 2 wished for something, this means john = “beloved disciple” ?
i mean if we playing this match making game, im sure we can conclude that beloved disciple fit someone other than john?
“Luke tells us Jesus rebuked James and John when they suggested they could call down fire from heaven.”
so?
brenmcg said
CEJ said
You’re correct. The author or authors of John had access to the LXX. But otherwise, you’re mostly wishing. If John spoke some Koine Greek, and that’s not assured, speaking it would rarely translate to writing it, let alone composing a complex text with it. No. The 4th gospel was not cobbled together by an illiterate commoner who picked up reading and writing a second language late in life.
The early church claim is that John wrote the gospel. The modern claim is that that isn’t possible. I’m only countering the modern claim – of course its possible that one of the 12 could learn to read and eventually write John. It might not be true that he wrote but to dismiss it out of hand is baseless.
Further, there’s a timing issue. GoJohn is dated by most scholars to the ‘90s. It would be unlikely for John to even be alive at that late date, despite a church tradition to the contrary brought to us, if I recall correctly, by Eusebius. There appears to have been another church tradition dating to Papias, according to George the Sinner, that John died at the hands of his fellow Jews, which likely means he died in Jerusalem before the fall of the city just as his brother did according to Acts. And that would have allowed Mark’s author to predict the martyrdom of both James and John in Mark 10:39 in that text from the ‘70s.
Once people get over the belief in the late dating of the gospel there’ll be no reason to think John couldn’t have written it.
I have a song for you:
Now you keep wishing. It’s what Dusty would want, don’t ya know.
Once people get over the belief in the late dating of the gospel there’ll be no reason to think John couldn’t have written it.
Precisely the impetus behind dating the gospels as early as possible. The “late” dating of the gospels is a conclusion reached after a careful examination of the evidence. An “early” dating is an assumption you begin with to validate an apostolic witness. But “late” or “early” are meaningless concepts. The goal should be to carefully sift the evidence in order to come to as precise a conclusion as possible given the limited data we have available. The fundamentalist mindset is left with an appeal to the supernatural. Historical/Critical method begins with the assumption that New Testament literature is as responsive to the same interpretive methods as all ancient literature.
brenmcg said
jakejones said
“Whoever wrote the gospel claimed it was written by the beloved disciple. The most likely candidate for the beloved disciple is John. “how do you know?
Because no one is able to come up with a more likely candidate.
you mean its like reading a washing machine manual and then you can come out with comflex literary features in writing?
No its like reading the gospel of Matthew and then you can come out with something on the same level as it.
A more plausible candidate is an anonymous forger and liar
** you do not have permission to see this link **
jakejones said
“A statement like that is likely to cause some tension with the other disciples.”you didn’t even provide evidencee that the synoptic writers even knew this unknown guy mentioned in john. you quickly assumed that they did and said “it would cause tension” ? where is a “beloved disciple” in the synoptics ?
where is there mention of “jesus had this favourite beloved disciple” in synoptics? why would it cause tension when it is unidentified?
The evidence in the synoptics is that James and John considered themselves above and closer to Jesus than the rest of the 12, and that this caused annoyance and anger in the others.
The evidence in the Gospel of John is that one of the 12 went around referring to himself as the one Jesus loved. Chapter 21 gives an illustration of this apparent jealousy/tension. When Peter sees turns to see the beloved disciple and says “what about him?” and Jesus replies “If I want him to remain until I return what is that to you?“.
Except for chapter 21, a probable later addition, the Zebedees are otherwise unmentioned in the gospel.
It means James or John are excellent candidates for this disciple who referred to himself as the one Jesus loved.
“Matthew/Mark both tell us that James and John wished to be greater or closer to Jesus than the other disciples which annoyed the rest of the 12.”
so 12 got annoyed because 2 wished for something, this means john = “beloved disciple” ?
i mean if we playing this match making game, im sure we can conclude that beloved disciple fit someone other than john?
The asked to be sat at the right and left hand of Jesus in his kingdom. “When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers.“
Which other of the 12 is it likely to be?
“Luke tells us Jesus rebuked James and John when they suggested they could call down fire from heaven.”
so?
So Luke feels the need to tell his audience that James and John had a very high opinion of themselves and that even Jesus had to rebuke them for it.
Makes them excellent candidates for the disciple that referred to himself as the one Jesus loved right?
Stephen said
Once people get over the belief in the late dating of the gospel there’ll be no reason to think John couldn’t have written it.Precisely the impetus behind dating the gospels as early as possible. The “late” dating of the gospels is a conclusion reached after a careful examination of the evidence. An “early” dating is an assumption you begin with to validate an apostolic witness. But “late” or “early” are meaningless concepts. The goal should be to carefully sift the evidence in order to come to as precise a conclusion as possible given the limited data we have available. The fundamentalist mindset is left with an appeal to the supernatural. Historical/Critical method begins with the assumption that New Testament literature is as responsive to the same interpretive methods as all ancient literature.
If John was written pre 70 in what way would that be “supernatural”? There’d be nothing remarkable about it whatsoever.
A careful sifting of the evidence would reveal that when it comes to dating the gospel of John there is almost nothing to go on. Written after 30 and written before 200. After that its anyone’s guess.
The only positive piece of information is John 5:2 “Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. “
That leaves 3 possibilities
1) John was written before Jerusalem was destroyed
2) The author of John wasn’t aware Jerusalem had been destroyed when writing the gospel
3) The author was aware it had been destroyed but was trying to trick his readers into believing he was writing pre Jerusalem’s destruction.
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