Was John the Son of Zebedee Capable of Writing a Gospel?

I deal with an interesting question in this week’s Readers’ Mailbag: is it plausible that the apostle John could compose a Gospel in Greek?  If you have a question you would like me to address, ask away, and I will add it to my long list!

 

QUESTION:

You mention in your book Forgeries and Counter Forgeries that John most likely did not write the Gospel attributed to him as he almost certainly could not write in Greek. I seem to remember you ...

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20
AUG
2017
86

Bart Answers Readers, Canonical Gospels

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How Do We Know What “Most Scholars” Think?

I have received a particularly interesting question that has led to a bit of back and forth between me and a person on the blog.  This person pointed out that in my writings I often indicate that a view that I have (e.g., that the Gospel of John was not written by John the son of Zebedee; that the book of Ephesians was not really written by Paul even though the author claims to be Paul; or that the Gospels ...

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20
JAN
2017
60

Bart Answers Readers, Bart Responds To Critics, Bart's Reflections, History of Biblical Scholarship, Public Forum

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Did John Write the Fourth Gospel?

In my previous post I explained why the author of the book of Revelation, someone named John, was not claiming to be John the son of Zebedee and in fact probably was not John the son of Zebedee.   I also showed why this author was not the same one who produced the fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John.  Now I want to talk about the Gospel to show that it too was probably not written by John.

The first thing to ...

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2
AUG
2016
61

Canonical Gospels, Public Forum

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The Author of Revelation

In this post I want to explain why it is almost universally thought that the same author did not write the fourth Gospel and the book of Revelation, and then to show why the latter author was almost certainly not John the son of Zebedee, Jesus’ close disciple.  So far as I know, only fundamentalists today think that John the son of Zebedee did write the book of Revelation.   There are really only three things that speak in favor of ...

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1
AUG
2016
35

Public Forum, The Book of Revelation

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Who Wrote the Book of Revelation and the Fourth Gospel?

Speaking of the Apocalypse (from the previous post giving that odd video):  Someone recently asked me if the same author could have written both the book of Revelation and the Gospel of John.   Interesting question!   Traditionally, both books have been identified as coming from the same person, John the son of Zebedee, the fisherman who was one of Jesus’ closest disciples.   In answering the question I would like to stress two points: first, they almost certainly were not written by ...

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28
JUL
2016
43

Bart Answers Readers, Public Forum, The Book of Revelation

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Did Matthew Write in Hebrew? Did Jesus Institute the Lord’s Supper? Did Josephus Mention Jesus? Weekly Readers’ Mailbag July 9, 2016

Was the Gospel of Matthew written in Hebrew?  Did Jesus have a Last Supper?  And does Josephus mention Jesus’ brother James?  These are the three questions I will be addressing in this week’s Reader’s Weekly Mailbag.   If you have any question for me to address, let me know!

 

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QUESTION:

Just a short question: is there any possibility that Matthew gospel’s was written in Hebrew or Aramaic ?

RESPONSE

There was a long tradition throughout early and medieval Christianity that maintained that Matthew – commonly ...

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9
JUL
2016
59

Bart Answers Readers, Public Forum, The Historical Jesus

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Did the Beloved Disciple Write the Gospel of John?

I have started a series of posts dealing with the authorship of the Gospels – specifically, why they were eventually named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.   My first point, in my previous post and in this one, is that the books are completely anonymous.  Their authors never divulge their names.   Eventually I may want to address the question of why that is.  But for now, my point is that despite what people might commonly think, the books are anonymous.

I pointed ...

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14
NOV
2014
30

Canonical Gospels

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Our Anonymous Gospels, Starting with Luke

Over the past few weeks I’ve had several people ask me about why the Gospels of the New Testament are attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.   It’s a great question, and one that I want to do some more intense thinking and reading about myself.  So I thought I would lay out some of the basics here in a series of posts, and think aloud a bit about why I think the Gospels got the names they did.

To begin ...

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14
NOV
2014
34

Canonical Gospels

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Summing Up: Was Luke Luke?

I started this thread over a week ago on the authorship of the Third Gospel, and would like now simply to bring some closure to it before moving on to other things. To sum up: there is a kind of interpretive logic that can lead one to think that this Gospel was written by Luke, a Gentile physician who was a traveling companion of Paul. This is what I myself thought for years, and it was based on this logic, ...

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6
SEP
2013
42

Acts & Catholic Epistles, Bart's Reflections, Canonical Gospels

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Who Wrote Luke and Acts?

In this thread I have been discussing whether Luke, the gentile physician, the traveling companion of Paul, wrote the Third Gospel. The first point I’ve made, over a couple of posts, is that the idea that Paul *had* a gentile physician as a traveling companion is dubious. That notion is derived from the mention of Luke in the book of Colossians, but Paul almost certainly did not *write* Colossians. Paul does mention a companion named Luke in the book of ...

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3
SEP
2013
15

Acts & Catholic Epistles, Bart's Reflections, Canonical Gospels

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