Neglected Evidence For The Authorship Of The Fourth Gospel

A neglected line of evidence for the fourth gospel's authorship is how closely John 19:35, 20:31, and 21:24 align with what Jesus said about the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the work of the apostles, and other issues in John 14-17. What the author of the document says in the passages I cited from John 19-21 seems to allude to Jesus' earlier comments in chapters 14-17. The implication is that the author of the fourth gospel is fulfilling what Jesus predicted. He's suggesting that he's one of the apostles Jesus was addressing in chapters 14-17.

What should we make of John 19:35 and the third-person language of the gospels?

Not every part of the gospels (and Acts, which is a continuation of one of the gospels) is written in the third person (e.g., Luke 1:1-3, Acts 16:10, John 1:14, 21:24-25). But most of the language is third person. Why the third-person language if some of the authors were eyewitnesses?

More Evidence For The Historicity Of The "I Am" Statements Of Jesus

I wrote a post a couple of years ago about some evidence for the historicity of the "I am" statements of Jesus in the fourth gospel. Something I didn't mention there is that some of the "I am" passages or contexts connected to them, depending on how you define the terms, include characteristics of Jesus that are widely attested elsewhere. See the discussions of John 8:59 and 9:6 here. Those verses come just after the "I am" statements in 8:58 and 9:5. The verisimilitude of Jesus' behavior in these passages adds to the cumulative argument for the historicity of the "I am" statements.

While there's a danger of assigning too much significance to something like verisimilitude, there's also a danger of assigning too little significance to it. One way to approach the subject I'm addressing in this post is to ask if there would be any diminishment of the credibility of the John 8 and John 9 passages if they didn't refer to the behaviors of Jesus in question, but instead only referred to behaviors not corroborated by other sources. There would be a diminishment, even though it wouldn't be a large one. It doesn't have to be large to have some significance.

More Pre-Reformation Disagreements Over Baptism And John 3:5

I've written a lot over the years about how diversely John 3:5 was interpreted prior to the Reformation, contrary to the popular suggestion that there was more agreement about the passage. For example, it's sometimes claimed, falsely, that everybody or almost everybody thought the passage teaches baptismal regeneration. I've discussed many examples of Christians who rejected baptismal regeneration before the Reformation, like here. Those who assigned some kind of high efficaciousness to baptism widely disagreed with each other about the sort of efficaciousness involved. Go here for a discussion of some examples. People often lowered their view of baptism in order to heighten their view of something else (prebaptismal faith, prebaptismal anointing with oil, postbaptismal anointing with oil, the laying on of hands, etc.). Such tradeoffs would inevitably affect the sort of efficaciousness assigned to baptism in an interpretation of John 3:5. Some people held a highly efficacious view of both prebaptismal faith and baptism. To the extent that they were consistent in maintaining those views, there would have to be a tradeoff. Heightening your view of prebaptismal faith lowers your view of baptism in some contexts, as I've discussed elsewhere. And there were many other issues that influenced how people understood John 3. As I've discussed elsewhere, there was widespread disagreement before the Reformation about types of baptism other than water baptism, such as baptism of desire. And there were disagreements over whether Jesus' comments in John 3:5 were in effect at the time when he spoke the words in that passage or wouldn't go into effect until later. Those who thought John 3:5 wouldn't be applicable until later disagreed over which later point in time that was.

How Diversely John 3:5 Was Interpreted Before The Reformation

The claim is often made that everybody agreed about the meaning of John 3:5 before the Reformation. Supposedly, there was universal agreement that the passage teaches baptismal regeneration.

The Historicity Of The "I Am" Statements Of Jesus

Critics often object to the historicity of the gospel of John on the basis of the presence of "I am" statements of Jesus there that aren't found in the Synoptics ("I am the light of the world", "I am the good shepherd", etc.). Whether such statements are absent from the Synoptics is a disputed issue, but to whatever extent they are, their presence in John is much less problematic than is typically suggested. We don't need to know why the statements weren't included in the Synoptics in order to have sufficient reason to believe in the historicity of the statements. But it's easier than critics suggest to explain why the "I am" statements would be absent from the Synoptics if the statements were made by Jesus.

Problems For The Anonymous Gospels Hypothesis

I've argued elsewhere that Papias was a disciple of John the son of Zebedee, that the elder he cites when discussing a document by Mark was John, and that the Markan document is our gospel of Mark. Notice, though, that even if we grant the skeptic's position on all three of those issues, the fragment of Papias in question (cited in Eusebius, Church History, 3:39:15) is still problematic for the idea that the gospels circulated anonymously until sometime in the second century. Even under the skeptic's scenario, we have two individuals (the elder and Papias) who lived at least part of their lives in the first century and were likely at least contemporaries of the apostles showing interest in the authorship of a document similar to our gospels. That's problematic for the notion that authorship attributions for our gospels didn't originate until the second century. Furthermore, just after the passage in Eusebius cited above, he goes on to quote some comments from Papias on something Matthew wrote. Again, even if we reject Papias' status as a disciple of John the son of Zebedee (or another disciple of Jesus named John) and assume that the Matthean document in question isn't our gospel of Matthew, we still have Papias showing interest in identifying the author of a gospel-like document.

Work For The Bread That Doesn't Perish

John 6 is often brought up in contexts like soteriology, the eucharist, and the historicity of John's gospel and miracles. That's appropriate, and it should keep happening, but the passage is also relevant in another context that should get more attention than it does.

In verses 26-27, Jesus rebukes the crowd for being overly focused on physical food and not focused enough on spiritual food. And he said that in a context in which problems like lack of food and poverty were much bigger than they are today, especially in a place like modern America. It's a documented fact that there's been a major decrease in poverty worldwide over the last several decades. It's also a fact that the modern world has far more technology, medicine, comforts and conveniences, literacy, and other advantages than people had in Biblical times. Yet, people, including Christians, frequently don't make the relevant distinctions between the Biblical context and ours. As if the tens of trillions of dollars we spend on government programs to help people in physical contexts, military assistance in such contexts, private charities, etc. don't make us significantly different than ancient Egypt, ancient Israel, or the Roman empire or only make us a little different. But even in a setting in which people were much worse off in these contexts than they are today, Jesus often made comments like the ones in John 6:26-27. How much more should we be doing it today?

The culture often suggests that the primary or only context in which Christians are doing good is when they benefit people physically in the short term (giving food to people, giving them clothing, giving them medicine, providing shelter, etc.). And Christians frequently accommodate that mindset by giving an inordinately large amount of attention to that sort of work. (And the fact that liberal professing Christians do that more than conservatives doesn't prove that conservatives aren't doing it. You can do something to a lesser extent, yet be guilty of doing it to some degree.) If people still haven't noticed the explicitly Christian names of the hospitals they go to, the widespread presence of explicitly Christian charities in so many contexts, etc., then they're culpably negligent. We can point these things out to them from time to time, but we need to keep the priorities Jesus set out in this passage in John 6 (and in many other places). There's some value in explaining to people what charity work and other such things Christians have done over the centuries, but we need to avoid taking that too far. You can be overly focused on it and leave people with false impressions. Mind precedes matter, and there are higher priorities than benefitting people physically in the short term.

I've occasionally heard John Piper make a good point in this context. One of the reasons why Christians should be so focused on work like evangelism and missions is to benefit people physically over the long term. The afterlife will have a physical dimension after the resurrection. The spiritual has priority over the physical, but as far as the physical is concerned, the long term has priority over the short term.

The Treasures Of John

The upcoming Christmas season is another good reason to read Lydia McGrew's recent book arguing for the historicity of John's gospel. (There's now a Kindle version of it.) See here regarding the fourth gospel's underestimated material on Christmas issues.

Imagine a young man, heir to a fortune, who has been told for years that certain portions of that fortune must not be used, claimed, or relied upon. Some of his most beautiful and pleasant properties, some of the loveliest treasures left to him by his ancestors, must never be treated as if they are really his. He may appreciate them aesthetically from a distance, but he may not live on the estates or handle the precious objects, and he is not free to spend any of those treasures for his most serious needs. His earnest advisors tell him (at least initially) that this is not because they themselves think that there is anything questionable about his right to these properties. But, they say, there are learned geographers who doubt that most of the lands even exist. Some lawyers question whether the heir has proper title to the lands; his advisors therefore worry that he will be evicted should he take up residence. Others, eminent financiers, believe that the property in question will disappear in some complex financial fashion if he should attempt to claim it. So the young heir learns to live on a far more modest inheritance and to act in practice as though he does not even possess some of his own property. Even some beautiful places and things that his father particularly wanted him to have do not come into his hands, for he has been taught not to claim them.

Now, suppose that some of his own advisors one day begin to say that they, too, have decided that he does not really own this great portion of his patrimony, that it is a chimera, or that it has disappeared in a financial crash. Will the man be likely to check out their statements? Is he not more likely to conclude that nothing much is at stake? After all, he has lived without this property for many years. He has had to behave as if he did not own it. Why should he bother to find out whether his current advisors are wrong or right, now that some of them also question this property?

In just such a way deference to credentialism and the persistent practical refusal to rely upon John’s Gospel create psychological indifference to its historicity and a passive willingness to let it be taken from us by scholarly skepticism. Yet if John’s Gospel is historically reliable, it is a very great treasure, far dearer than mere houses or lands or any earthly gold or silver. It tells us much that the other Gospels do not relate about the teachings and doings of Jesus Christ, and, if it belongs in the canon of Scripture with all of its overt claims to be the product of witness testimony, then these unique historical stories are gifts that our heavenly Father wanted us to have for our spiritual needs. They cannot truly satisfy those needs if they are merely pious fictions. Should we not then rouse ourselves to investigate the question of whether or not we can rely upon John?

(Lydia McGrew, pp. 18-19 here)

The Overlap Between The Synoptics And John

Critics make much of the alleged differences between the Synoptic gospels and John. The amount of overlap between them is often underestimated, including by conservative Christians. I want to gather some links to posts we've written on the subject over the years. These examples are far from exhaustive. You can search our archives for more.

On how much overlap we should expect, see here.

Jesus' family.

His childhood.

His career.

His viewing himself as the figure of Isaiah 9:1-7 and how he interpreted the passage.

The "I am" statements.

How he referred to Peter.

The prominence of Philip.

And here's one on some agreements about unusual terminology used by Jesus.

Regarding his nonverbal characteristics, see here and here.

His use of mountains.

Double healing.

How he raised the dead.

His use of object lessons.

Soteriology.

The prominence of love.

The character of the apostles.

The events surrounding Jesus' death and resurrection.

Undesigned coincidences among various passages.

I wrote a post discussing similarities between the Jesus of the book of Revelation and what's said about Jesus elsewhere. That post discusses some similarities between the Synoptics and John in the process: Jesus' telling people not to fear, his use of the "truly" language, his references to doing things in "my name", and his calling for repentance, for example.

You can find many other examples of agreements between the Synoptics and John in Lydia McGrew's Hidden In Plain View (Chillicothe, Ohio: DeWard, 2017) and The Eye Of The Beholder (Tampa, Florida: DeWard, 2021).

A Discussion Of The Eye Of The Beholder

Lydia McGrew will be on Cameron Bertuzzi's YouTube channel at 1 P.M. this afternoon to discuss her book, The Eye Of The Beholder (Tampa, Florida: DeWard Publishing, 2021). It argues for the historicity of the fourth gospel. It's a great book, and you can order it here.

The Beloved Disciple's Galilean Interests

I recently finished reading Lydia McGrew's The Eye Of The Beholder (Tampa, Florida: DeWard Publishing, 2021). There are portions of the book in which she interacts with Richard Bauckham's arguments that the author of the fourth gospel was a disciple of Jesus named John, but not the son of Zebedee, one who lived in Jerusalem and didn't travel much with Jesus. You can read Lydia's book for a lot of good responses to Bauckham's case. I want to highlight some points here that I don't recall seeing in Lydia's book. But some of my points are closely related to hers, and I may be forgetting some of what she said.

The Eye of the Beholder is out

Jason already noted that Lydia McGrew's latest book The Eye of the Beholder is out.

I wanted to point out Lydia has released a short trailer about her book too:

In addition, Lydia has a meaty post about her book. Her post includes free material like the book's table of contents, its first chapter, and its conclusion. Not to mention endorsements by very notable NT scholars like Stanley Porter and Tom Schreiner. Schreiner is the icing on the cake for those of us who are Reformed, I think.

Finally, since it might be of interest to Triablogue readers, a friend who already has Lydia's book informs us that Lydia has a dedication to Steve Hays in her book and cites him in her book too.

An Overview Of The Eye Of The Beholder

Here's a new video in which Lydia McGrew provides an overview of her book that just came out on the historicity of the gospel of John. You can order the book at Amazon or at Barnes & Noble.

Read Some Portions Of Lydia McGrew's Upcoming Book On John's Gospel

She's posted the first chapter and the conclusion of the book.

The Eye Of The Beholder

Lydia McGrew has posted a new video announcing the release date for her upcoming book on the gospel of John and quoting some of the endorsements for it. Here's the table of contents for the book.

Papias on the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0142064X16675269

HT: Alan Kurschner 

St. John at Ephesus

https://theologicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/bjrl/ephesus_bruce.pdf

This contains a generally helpful survey and analysis of witnesses in early church history to the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel, §§III-V, although Bruce's discussion of Papias is fairly inconclusive. 

Also, in n3 on p346, Cross's interpretation/reconstruction of the anti-Marcionite Prologue to the Fourth Gospel is interesting. And even if we question whether that reflects an accurate memory of how John's Gospel was composed, it's a witness to the ancient practice of dictating an oral history. 

Bruce defends the accuracy of Polycrates by arguing that his statement about John's high-priestly vestments is figurative (343). A  figurative interpretation certainly makes the claim of Polycrates far more plausible. At the same time, that's consistent with a figurative allusion to John's priestly lineage–which would help to explain–assuming any special explanation is required–his access to the high priestly residence.

Why trust the Gospel of John?

From Facebook:

Jeff 

What is [the historicity of John] predicated on?

Hays

The eyewitness testimony of the narrator (i.e. apostle John).

Jeff

Same goes for UFOs and bigfoot?

Hays 

From what I've seen, the footage of bigfoot is just a man in a monkey suit. UFOs are a much more complex subject.

Jeff  

I'm just talking about written testimony of those phenomena. Nothing like video.

Hays 

Is your point to dismiss eyewitness testimony out of hand? That leads to extreme and irrational skepticism, including your own firsthand experiences.

Jeff  

I prefer to externalize my knowledge claims, I know my own senses are not always reliable.

You don't have to verify anything about the author's testimony? You take it all of faith?

Hays 

To begin with, there's archeological corroboration for the Forth Gospel (as well as the Synoptics). Peter Williams has a dandy little book on that: Can We Trust the Gospels?

Moreover, there's lots of incidental internal evidence for the Fourth Gospel. It has the hallmarks of oral history, with lots of unnecessary details and digressions. 

Furthermore, there's the argument from undesigned coincidences. 

Finally, there's lots of evidence for modern miracles, which dovetail with the supernaturalism of the Fourth Gospel.

Jeff 

Well, let's say hypothetically John can be boiled down to 1,000 historical claims. What percent of John's historical claims have been verified? It would be cool to have a resource that goes verse by verse, giving the external verification if it exists.

Hays 

That's not a reasonable method of verification. It's not case-by-case verification but whether there's good evidence that the source is reliable. We don't have to revert to amnesia every time we have evidence for a particular claim, starting from scratch with each individual claim, when dealing with the same source of information.

Jeff 

How do you establish good evidence on the reliability of a source except by examining some mystery number of truth claims that source makes? I'm asking about that very criteria that would grant a piece of text handed to me the 'good evidence' label.

Hays 

There's no magic percentage. One basic principle is that if a source is accurate when we happen to have available evidence which corroborates it, then it's likely to be accurate in cases where corroborative evidence hasn't survived. 

But in addition, there are different kinds of internal evidence and a variety of individual touches that indicate firsthand recollection. So it's not reducible to a single formula. I'm mentioning general criteria, not just the Fourth Gospel.

Why Did Polycrates Refer To John As A High Priest?

Critics of the attribution of the fourth gospel to John the son of Zebedee often cite Polycrates as a witness against that attribution. Polycrates referred to the Beloved Disciple as "a priest, wearing the high-priestly frontlet" (in Eusebius, Church History, 5:24:2). In an article here, I argue against Richard Bauckham's formulation of the objection. I'm not aware of any easy explanation for why Polycrates referred to the Beloved Disciple as he did. We have to choose among options that are all difficult to some degree. But I proposed some possible explanations that I consider less problematic than Bauckham's. What I want to do here is expand on one of those alternatives to Bauckham's view.

How plausible is it that Polycrates was referring to the son of Zebedee as a high priest in a metaphorical sense? Notice that one of the Johannine documents, Revelation, puts substantial emphasis on the theme of the priesthood of all believers (1:6, 5:10, 20:6). And notice that the theme appears early, within the first several verses, in addition to being spread out over a few segments of the book. It's a somewhat prominent theme. Similarly, both the fourth gospel and Revelation make much of Jesus' role as a sacrificial lamb, which has priestly associations, especially given the Johannine emphasis on how Jesus offered himself rather than having his life taken unwillingly. And the lamb of God theme appears early in the fourth gospel, in the first chapter (1:29). So, both of these Johannine documents put a lot of emphasis on priestly themes, even referring to them near the beginning, and Revelation emphasizes the theme of a metaphorical priesthood in particular.

If all believers are viewed as priests, it's not much of a further step to think of somebody like an apostle as a priest in a higher sense, such as being a high priest. In fact, Polycrates starts with a reference to the Beloved Disciple as a priest, then qualifies it with a reference to being a high priest. He may have had the Johannine concept of the priesthood of all believers in mind, which he then expanded into a metaphorical high priesthood for John.

Keep in mind, too, that the passage in Polycrates begins with a reference to figures like John as "great lights". There's no question that Polycrates is being metaphorical to some extent.

Much more can be said about Polycrates' comments. I'm not trying to be exhaustive here. Those who want to read more about the subject can consult my post responding to Bauckham linked above, his book, or Dean Furlong's recent book that I referred to earlier.