Papias' Acceptance Of The Synoptics And John

Another early example of what I discussed in my last post, though a less significant example, is Papias. It's well known that he thought highly of the Synoptics, as cited in Eusebius, Church History 3:39:15-16. Something that gets discussed much less is how various phrases and concepts found in the Johannine literature are found in Papias' writings as well, including in forms very unlikely to be merely coincidental. In all likelihood, Papias was familiar with the Johannine documents in the New Testament and thought highly of them. As I wrote in a post several years ago, "I've already noted Papias' use of 'the elder', a term that John applied to himself. In most lists of the apostles, Peter's name appears first. But in Papias' list, Andrew comes before Peter, followed by Philip. That order (Andrew, Peter, Philip) is identical to the order in which Jesus calls the disciples in John's gospel (John 1:40-41, 1:43). The same passage in Papias uses the phrase 'truth itself' (3 John 12), which is somewhat unusual." For a discussion of some other evidence for Papias' high view of both the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of John, see the sixth paragraph here. Just after discussing Papias' high view of the gospels of Mark and Matthew, Eusebius noted that Papias "uses testimonies from the first Epistle of John" (Church History 3:39:16). And he was a premillennialist and is reported to have corroborated the book of Revelation in some sense (see section E2 here). The sort of high regard for the writings of John suggested by all of these lines of evidence is furthered by Papias' reference to an elder named John who seems to have still been alive for some part of Papias' life and whose testimony Papias is interested in (Eusebius, Church History 3:39:3-4). For an argument that the John Papias refers to there was the son of Zebedee, see here. And see my recent post here for evidence that Irenaeus likely had the son of Zebedee in mind when he referred to Papias as an eyewitness of John (Against Heresies 5:33:4). Papias was a bishop in Asia Minor, the region where the seven churches of Revelation resided. He and the audience for whom he wrote provide further examples of what I referred to in my last post, people who seem to have held views that harmonized what's found in the Synoptics and the fourth gospel. Papias was closely associated with John in a variety of ways (as an eyewitness of John, as somebody who lived in an area of the world where John lived and had a lot of influence, as somebody who thought highly of the New Testament's Johannine documents, etc.), and he held a high view of the Synoptics.

How The Book Of Revelation Corroborates The Synoptic Gospels And John's Agreement With Them

Critics of the fourth gospel often fault it for its differences from the Synoptics. But there's a long history of Christians arguing that John wrote with a knowledge of and agreement with the Synoptics and an intention to supplement them.

How John's High Christology Is Connected To Other Historical Events

I've argued elsewhere that Jesus' high claims about himself in the fourth gospel can't be dismissed as easily as critics often suggest. I've argued for the historicity of Jesus' "I am" statements in general. I've argued especially for the historicity of John 8:12, such as how it's connected to so many aspects of the surrounding context in John's gospel and material outside John, meaning that removing 8:12 would cause a ripple effect that would go beyond that one verse. See my comments on 8:12 in the post linked above and my lengthier treatments of the subject here and here, for example.

Another example of that kind of thing is John 11:8. Jesus' disciples refer to how there had just been an attempt to stone him. That occurred in 10:31, in response to Jesus' high claim about himself in 10:30. So, removing 10:30 would affect 10:31 and 11:8, meaning that 10:30 doesn't exist in isolation. Even in the distinct context of 11:8, involving a different sequence of events in a different location, 10:30 is treated as historical.

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 That Irenaeus Attributed The Fourth Gospel To John The Son Of Zebedee

It's sometimes claimed that Irenaeus thought the fourth gospel was written by some other John, often referred to as John the Elder. I recently saw Tom Schmidt link a good article on the subject from Charles Hill. Here are some portions of Hill's argument, though the article includes a lot more:

Four of the five unequivocal references to the son of Zebedee [in Irenaeus] are found in a single chapter [of Against Heresies]: book three, chapter twelve. The last of these comes in 3.12.15, where Irenaeus says, “Thus did the apostles, whom the Lord made witnesses of every action and of every doctrine – for upon all occasions do we find Peter, and James, and John present with Him – scrupulously act according to the dispensation of the Mosaic law ...” The natural question arising from this statement would be, why would “all occasions” not include events recorded in the Gospel according to John? Irenaeus did not isolate John’s Gospel from the others as a maverick, renegade, or borderline-orthodox Gospel, but interpreted all four in the light of each other. So, when Peter and the rest reclined at supper with Jesus on the night he was betrayed, and Peter motioned to the disciple next to Jesus, the disciple whom Jesus loved – whom Irenaeus knows as a man named John –, why wouldn’t this John be the same John who is “upon all occasions” present with Peter and James as witness of every action and doctrine of Jesus (Jn 13:23–25)? Or, when Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved – whom Irenaeus knows as John – ran together to the tomb upon receiving Mary’s report (Jn 20:2–10). Or, when Jesus after his resurrection met seven of his disciples by the Sea of Tiberias and “Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved [the disciple Irenaeus knows as John], following them” and asked Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” (Jn 21:21). How is anyone supposed to think that this John is another John, and not the one that is found with Peter and James on all occasions?...

I mentioned earlier that the only way one could argue that John the Evangelist, if he was not one of the twelve, could in some sense be called an apostle “sent” by Jesus [as Irenaeus believed to be true of the author of the fourth gospel], would be by arguing that he was present among Jesus’ disciples when Jesus gave his sending commission in Jn 20:21: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” – although here the word πέμπω and not ἀποστέλλω is used for Jesus’ sending of the disciples. But if John was present that evening, and only members of the twelve were present, then John was one of the twelve – that is, one of the ten remaining. Again, this is how both Irenaeus and the Marcosians read the Johannine Great Commission. It is also how Cyprian, in the middle of the third century read it: “And again, in the Gospel, when Christ breathed on the apostles alone, saying, ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost ...’”

(n. 75 on 53, 60-61)

Does walking without sight mean walking without evidence?

John 20:29, 2 Corinthians 5:7, and Hebrews 11:1 are often abused for anti-apologetic purposes. It happened again during a recent discussion between Alex O'Connor and Rhett McLaughlin. There are a lot of other problems with their discussion, but I want to focus on the misuse of the three Biblical passages I just mentioned. I want to address that misuse among skeptics in general, not just Alex and Rhett.

The Cumulative Effect Of The Pre-Irenaean Sources On Gospel Authorship

I've sometimes linked a collection of resources I put together on the best and earliest evidence for the authorship of the gospels. A mistake that can be made when evaluating that kind of evidence is to view the information in too isolated a manner. There's a cumulative effect to the evidence, and sometimes two or more things take on an added significance when considered together, a significance they wouldn't have if considered individually.

The Maturing Of Matthew And John

I want to expand on some things I said in my last post. When somebody like Bart Ehrman refers to the unlikelihood that the average first-century Jew without much of an education, an ancient fisherman like John, etc. would compose a document like the gospel of Matthew or the gospel of John, there are other factors involved that are being neglected.

The Ehrman/Licona Debate On Gospel Authorship

Bart Ehrman and Mike Licona recently debated the subject. I listened to the debate while doing something else and didn't take notes, so I'll just be summarizing some points that have come to mind after listening to the debate. Mike had some good things to say, but I want to supplement what he offered.

External Evidence For Jesus' "I Am" Statements

It's become popular to reject the historicity of Jesus' "I am" statements in the gospel of John ("I am the light of the world", etc.). Much of the evidence for their historicity has been neglected, including a lot of external evidence.

I've argued for the historicity of the statements in previous posts, like here. One of the lines of evidence I've brought up is the history of interpretation, including how Irenaeus and some earlier sources he cited interpreted the passages. I've also argued for similar material in the Synoptics and for far more agreement in general between the Synoptics and John than is typically acknowledged. See my collection of posts on the topic here, which I've been periodically updating over the years.

The Importance Of The Wind In John 3

There are a lot of problems with using John 3:5 to support baptismal regeneration. I've written about those problems in many posts over the years. I'll briefly summarize some of the points I've made before, then move on to what I want to focus on in this post, verse 8.

Jesus' rebuke of Nicodemus for not understanding what he's saying (3:10) makes more sense if he's referring to something that can be more easily derived from the Old Testament than baptismal regeneration can be. He goes on to refer to justification through faith a few times (verses 15-18), without any reference to baptism, which also makes more sense if baptismal regeneration isn't involved. The other New Testament passage that uses the born again language, 1 Peter 1:23-25, associates that language with a response to preaching, which is a prebaptismal context. See my discussion of justification apart from baptism in 1 Peter here. For a discussion of how the preaching context of justification is problematic for baptismal regeneration, see my post on Galatians 3 here. In the timeframe after Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, the fourth gospel and the other gospels give us several examples of people being justified apart from baptism, including in contexts that seem to be normative rather than exceptional, and there aren't any examples of people being justified at the time of baptism. See my post here on the double healing phenomenon, for example. The evidence for justification apart from baptism in the gospels is such that advocates of baptismal regeneration frequently concede the point and claim that baptismal regeneration didn't go into effect until after the crucifixion or at some other later stage. That creates problems for their view of John 3:5, which uses the present tense and makes no suggestion that what Jesus is discussing wouldn't go into effect until later. There's also the fact that the evidence suggests continuity in how people were justified throughout history, not the sort of discontinuity baptismal regeneration involves. For more about that subject, go here. And contrary to what advocates of baptismal regeneration often claim, there wasn't universal or nearly universal agreement about their interpretation of John 3:5 prior to the Reformation. For discussions of the many interpretations of the passage that circulated before the Reformation, including some that are inconsistent with each other, see here, here, and here, among other relevant posts in our archives.

Most likely, what Jesus is doing in John 3 is drawing from some material in Ezekiel 36-37. Those chapters in Ezekiel refer to water, wind, and the work of the Holy Spirit in contexts that involve the bringing about of new life (being born again, as Jesus puts it; being made a new creature, as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:17; etc.). Ezekiel uses a lot of eschatological language and refers to a new covenant. In contrast to how baptism was typically practiced at the time when Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, Ezekiel refers to sprinkling with water (36:25). And he goes on to discuss wind in chapter 37, which Jesus discusses in John 3:8 (in the same order as Ezekiel: water, then wind). Most likely, then, the water of John 3:5 is summarizing one aspect of the Spirit's work, namely his cleansing, while the wind of 3:8 is summarizing another aspect of his work, its unpredictability. In addition to the close association of the water and the wind in both Ezekiel and John, the two are closely associated conceptually. They're both commonly experienced elements of nature. The wind obviously isn't literal in John 3. It would make more sense for the accompanying water to not be literal either. Furthermore, the unpredictability of the wind doesn't sit well with a highly visible ceremony that's anticipated ahead of time, like baptism. That's reminiscent of what we see elsewhere in scripture about the immediacy of justification, how it can happen at any moment (2 Corinthians 6:2) and by a means we have immediate access to (Romans 10:8-10). Baptism violates both of those kinds of immediacy, and it makes less sense of John 3:8.

What if men like Papias and Polycarp weren't eyewitnesses of the apostles?

I've argued, in other posts here and elsewhere, that they were. But if they weren't, what would follow?

There still would have been other individuals in early church history who had been an eyewitness of one or more of the apostles. There would have been many eyewitnesses, and some of them would have lived well into the second century. That's the nature of life. Skeptical challenges to the eyewitness status of individuals like Papias and Polycarp don't change that. It's not as though the presence of eyewitnesses depends on the status of particular individuals who have traditionally been thought to have been eyewitnesses of the apostles. The fact that eyewitnesses would have existed and have lived until well into the second century can't reasonably be denied. Keep that in mind when you see people questioning the eyewitness status of certain people.

And even those who weren't eyewitnesses could have been in a good position to have had significant information. They were contemporaries of the apostles, lived in an area where one or more apostles had been, etc. Think of the evidence for the apostle John's long lifespan and his interactions with Christians and churches in Asia Minor, for example. On his long lifespan, see here. For a discussion of the evidence for his influence on the Asia Minor region, go here. That post is focused on Ephesus, but much of what's said there is also applicable to Smyrna and other locations in the area. It's not as though Polycarp had to be a disciple of John in order to have had significant information about John and other eyewitnesses of Jesus. Polycarp was in the right place, at the right time, in the right sort of leadership position to have had a lot of reliable information about Jesus and the apostles, even if he wasn't a disciple of John (though the evidence suggests he was).

Anytime skeptics raise doubts about an issue like whether a certain person was an eyewitness of the apostles or whether a New Testament author was an eyewitness of whatever type, it's helpful to begin by asking what's at stake. Even if the skeptic's position were granted for the sake of argument, what would follow from it? Often, even if we granted the skeptic's position, the source in question still offers a large amount of evidence against the skeptic's view of Christianity.

Another Reason To Reject The Baptismal Regeneration Interpretation Of John 3:5

In other posts, I've discussed some of the problems with taking John 3:5 as a reference to baptismal regeneration. The exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus is set in an Old Testament context, and baptismal regeneration isn't taught in the Old Testament. Even advocates of baptismal regeneration frequently admit that it wasn't in effect at the time when Jesus spoke to Nicodemus (thus explaining why so many people are justified apart from baptism in the gospels while nobody in the gospels is justified at the time of baptism). The claim that everybody agreed with the baptismal regeneration interpretation of John 3:5 prior to the Reformation is far from true. And so on. You can go here to find links to some of the relevant posts in our archives. What I want to do in this post is focus on another line of evidence.

The terminology of being born again is also used in 1 Peter. I've written elsewhere about how 1 Peter contradicts baptismal regeneration, including in 3:21. 1 Peter 1:23-25 tells us that people are born again in the context of preaching, which is distinct from the later context of baptism (1 Corinthians 1:17). I've discussed the importance of distinguishing between the preaching context and the baptismal context at length elsewhere, like here. So, not only is John 3:5 poorly explained by a baptismal regeneration interpretation in its own context, but such an interpretation also poorly explains the other New Testament passage that uses the language of being born again.

Where's the fulfillment of Mark 10:39?

In my last post, I referred to how John 21:18-19 lines up well with what other sources report about Peter and Mark's use of Peter as a source. Something similar can be said of the apostle John, but with another element that adds further credibility to what's reported about him.

The Gospel Authors' Witness To Each Other

We often think of the evidence for the authorship of the gospels in terms of internal evidence and external sources of the patristic era, like Papias and Irenaeus. But we should also think in terms of the testimony of earlier sources, including the evidence the gospel authors provide for each other.

Did John 19:27 actually happen?

Last year, I wrote about the implications of John 19:27 for Mary's influence on the apostle John, the church of Ephesus, and other sources. But what reason do we have to think John 19:27 is historically accurate?

How Jesus Identified Himself By His Actions

Here's something I recently posted on the subject in a YouTube thread:

Examples Of First-Century Sources Passing On Information To Second-Century Sources About New Testament Origins

When skeptics put forward hypotheses in which second-century Christians speculated about New Testament origins without having received much information on those issues from their predecessors, those hypotheses aren't just highly unlikely in the abstract. They're also contrary to the testimony we have from multiple first- and early-second-century sources. So, one way you can respond to such skeptical claims is by citing such testimony. Here are a few examples.

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.