Gospel of John

[Mithrae]

I'm interested in folk's views on the subject. A few points worth discussing:

1 - Many biblical scholars hold that the gospel was written in the late 1st century CE, some 60ish years after Jesus' death.
- - - the earliest manuscript fragments date from as early as 130CE, if memory serves; the work has strong anti-gnostic themes, and early Christian tradition holds that it was written in opposition to the teaching of Cerinthus (late 1st century)

2 - Many biblical scholars hold that the gospel had the same author as the first epistle of John
- - - the similarities in style, themes (love, anti-gnostic themes etc.) and specific phraseology are obvious even to the untrained reader

3 - 1 John 1:1-3, John 1:14 and John 19:35 are the only distinct eyewitness claims regarding Jesus' life in the bible (besides 2 Peter, widely held to be a 2nd century work)
- - - of particular interest, note the contrast between 19:35 and the appended section in 21:24, which uses third person

4 - While someone present during Jesus' ministry would be in his 80s by the time the gospel was written, there are numerous examples of such comparatively long lives in the ancient world (several notable Greek philosophers, for example)

5 - In addition to the specific eyewitness claims, some verses such as John 5:2 imply a sense of familiarity with Jerusalem which one wouldn't particularly expect from the author of Greek work, unless the author was in fact a Jew



Interested in everyone's thoughts

[Mithrae]

I have to head out of town early in the morning, so I will try to keep this short. Apparently you read some of the posts in the debate Gospel of John or not, but you either did not notice or did not bother to weigh the biblical evidence presented in the free eBook The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved referenced on that thread - for that book not only shows why the John idea forces the Bible to contradict itself, it also offers biblical evidence as to why the "other disciple, whom Jesus loved" was not one of "the twelve".

At a glance I couldn't find any biblical evidence in that book showing that the beloved disciple was not one of the twelve, though it does provide good arguments that there may have been others present at the last supper.

However, I have to wonder why you are so quick to rush past telling facts, like the fourth gospel's TOTAL omission of the events where John was explicitly said to be in attendance, for your willingness to do so does not suggest that you are open to being persuaded on this issue no matter what evidence is presented.

I think you misunderstand the purpose of this thread; I don't care which disciple wrote the gospel, I merely point out that the evidence suggests it was a disciple. I also don't consider tales in the synoptic gospels like the raising of Jairus' daughter or the transfiguration to be reliable historical information against which to judge the fourth gospel. I'm not a Christian; I'm merely arguing, for the sake of interest, that John is the most likely biblical candidate.

Omission of these stories from the fourth gospel must obviously be intriguing for a Christian, but given a prior commitment to biblical inerrancy the 'omission not contradiction' dodge serves well enough on many, many occasions in addition to this. For example the first gospel describes earthquakes, mass resurrections and a torn temple veil at Jesus' death, yet Mark, Luke and John say nothing about these remarkable events. As with your comments about the fourth gospel, we'd surely expect things like that would be worth mentioning, but since they're not the conservative Christian must maintain that the omission is not truly important. For various reasons, the fourth gospel omits many things found in the synoptics; Jesus' birth, Jesus' baptism, the sermon on the mount, the choosing of the twelve, the transfiguration, John the Baptist's death, Jesus' apocalyptic prophecy, the communion ritual, the other women at the tomb...

You might as well argue that the author wasn't a disciple at all because of all these omissions, as pick out a couple of specific examples to 'prove' that it wasn't John. Best to be consistent in the approach used regarding earthquakes, mass resurrections, women or angels at the tomb, apocalyptic prophecies and so on - let's just say that the omissions are never really important.

Rather, a jury that was not committed to holding on to the John idea would obviously see the omission of the most important events that John was an explicit eyewitness to as being significant evidence against the claim that the fourth gospel is 'John's eyewitness testimony.' For some reason you make the point that this fact does not contradict the other gospels, but that is a straw man argument because no one ever said it did.

You claimed that the John idea makes the bible contradict itself, and I asked you to show where. You haven't done that in this post. Googling through that ebook, the only other possible contradiction I found is the story of Peter and John before the high priest and Sanhedrin in Acts 4. Yet John 18 doesn't say the beloved disciple was known to the high priest by sight, or particularly well, and Acts 4 says only that the Sanhedrin were surprised by Peter and John's boldness and knew they were Jesus' followers; it doesn't explicitly say that the high priest had never laid eyes on John previously, that's something the author is reading into the verse. Even taking the bible at it's word, there is no direct contradiction there. So again, could you point out where the idea that John was the 'beloved disciple' makes the bible contradict itself?

After considering the evidence that the free eBook presents, if you still want to maintain this unnamed "other disciple" had to be one of "the twelve" because of the arguments you put forth in post 137, then so be it. The readers of this thread can consider the biblical evidence the book presents which argues against the one "whom Jesus loved" being John or any of "the twelve" and weigh that against your argument that he had to be one of "the twelve" (and, further, that among the apostles John and only John could be this unnamed "other disciple" despite all of the evidence to the contrary).

I didn't say that "John and only John" could be the beloved disciple; I specifically said that it could have been Matthew, James son of Alphaeus or Simon the Cananaean. But John seems the most likely candidate. Since James son of Zebedee died fairly early on, the synoptic gospels, Acts and Paul all clearly elevate Peter and John as the most significant and closest of Jesus' disciples. Even if there were others besides the twelve present at the last supper, it's still most likely that "the disciple who Jesus loved" was John, not some obscure unknown bloke always hiding in the shadows.

Edit: I should also note that the ebook makes a fundamental error in assuming that John of Patmos was the apostle John; that's at least as dubious as the identity of the beloved disciple, if not more so.

[Mithrae]

Discussing Jesus in the thread Circumstantial Evidence against BibleGod, I suggested the fourth gospel as admissible (non-'hearsay') evidence since it claims eyewitness status. To avoid derailing that thread any further, I'll reply to Goat's objections here.

The author does claim to have been a witness in 1:14. Some might interpret this as a non-specific 'we,' as in 1 John 1:1-3, but I don't suspect it that it's a very convincing view. The anonymous references to the 'beloved disciple' and the aforementioned 19:35 fit in well with that view. And of course since John 21:24 was written by someone else it provides additional confirmation, which personally I wouldn't say is a reason to dismiss it as irrelevant.

Actually, that does not meet the evaluation of most Johnaine scholars. The full article about it is here

It says

There is a case to be made that John, the son of Zebedee, had already died long before the Gospel of John came to be written. It is worth noting for its own sake, even though the "beloved disciple" need not be identified with John, the son of Zebedee. In his ninth century Chronicle in the codex Coislinianus, George Hartolos says, "[John] was worth of martyrdom." Hamartolos proceeds to quote Papias to the effect that, "he [John] was killed by the Jews." In the de Boor fragment of an epitome of the fifth century Chronicle of Philip of Side, the author quotes Papias: Papias in the second book says that John the divine and James his brother were killed by Jews. Morton Enslin observes (Christian Beginnings, pp. 369-370): "That Papias source of information is simply an inference from Mark 10:35-40 or its parallel, Matt. 20:20-23, is possible. None the less, this Marcan passage itself affords solid ground. No reasonable interpretation of these words can deny the high probability that by the time these words were written [ca. 70 CE] both brothers had 'drunk the cup' that Jesus had drunk and had been 'baptized with the baptism' with which he had been baptized." Since the patristic tradition is unanimous in identifying the beloved disciple with John, at least this evidence discredits the patristic tradition concerning the authorship of the Gospel of John.

The passage from Mark reads:

• Mark 10:35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Him, saying, Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask.
  36 And He said to them, What do you want Me to do for you?
  37 They said to Him, Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on Your left, in Your glory.
  38 But Jesus said to them, You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?
  39 They said to Him, We are able.
  So Jesus said to them, You will indeed drink the cup that I drink, and with the baptism I am baptized with you will be baptized; 40 but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared.

The interpretation suggested here is that it's referring specifically to death, rather than to more general suffering and rejection. It's certainly true that James suffered death a few years afterwards (Acts 12:2). By the time Mark was written, so had a number of other key Christian figures (Peter, Paul and Jesus' brother James for starters). Even if we presume that the passage can only refer to martyrdom, I think it's a weak argument to infer that the second brother definitely must have already died also. On the contrary, the passage is all about the contrast between hopes for the next life and an expectation of suffering in this; to assume that it must be anachronistic seems to rather miss the point.

On the subject of the death of James son of Zebedee, however, it's interesting to note that while the synoptic gospels name Peter, James and John as Jesus' three closest disciples (and Paul and Acts confirm the later prominence of the surviving Peter and John), the fourth gospel names only Peter out of the three. If John were the 'beloved disciple' as church tradition maintains, would it be so surprising that he doesn't mention his deceased brother in his record of Jesus' ministry?

The 5th and 10th century quotations from Papias shouldn't be dismissed, but two things are worth noting; first that under Roman law the Jews did not have the power to legally execute anyone, and secondly that martyrdom was not by any means the sole preserve of young Christian leaders. Polycarp was allegedly in his 80s when he was killed in Rome! There's no reason why John also might not have been killed at an old age by some Jewish mob, if we choose to speculate on the accuracy of Papias' information. In fact according to Irenaeus (c 180CE), Polycarp himself confirmed that John was alive and at Ephesus at the time of Cerinthus (AH 3.3.4). We've got no solid information on exactly when Cerinthus taught there, but it was probably sometime after the Jewish revolt and it confirms that John had traveled well beyond the Jewish homeland.

If the author of the Gospel of John were an eyewitness, presumably the author would have known that Jesus and his compatriots were permitted to enter the synagogues. But at one several points it is stated that those who acknowledged Jesus as the Christ during the life of Jesus were put out of the synagogue. This anachronism is inconceivable as the product of an eyewitness.

Kysar states that most scholars today see the historical setting of the Gospel of John in the expulsion of the community from the synagogue (op. cit., p. 918). The word aposynagogos is found three times in the gospel (9:22, 12:42, 16:2). The high claims made for Jesus and the response to them (5:18), the polemic against "the Jews" (9:18, 10:31, 18:12, 19:12), and the assertion of a superiority of Christian revelation to the Hebrew (1:18, 6:49-50, 8:58) show that "the Johannine community stood in opposition to the synagogue from which it had been expelled." (p. 918)

I've read this page numerous times in learning about the gospel of course, and this argument has always baffled me. Apparently, it is inconceivable that an eyewitness would be inaccurate, and would have issues relevant to his own time and community showing through his work. It goes to show that even scholars don't always think or write very clearly; frankly it's so laughable as to merit no further response

Kysar states concerning the dating of the Gospel of John: "Those who relate the expulsion to a formal effort on the part of Judaism to purge itself of Christian believers link the composition of the gospel with a date soon after the Council of Jamnia, which is supposed to have promulgated such an action. Hence, these scholars would date John after 90. Those inclined to see the expulsion more in terms of an informal action on the part of a local synagogue are free to propose an earlier date." (p. 919)

Kysar also observes on the dating of the Gospel of John: "The earliest date for the gospel hinges upon the question of whether or not it presupposes the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. Most agree that it does, although there have been persistent attempts to argue otherwise. The reasons for positing a post-70 date include the view of the Temple implicit in 2:13-22. Most would argue that the passage attempts to present Christ as the replacement of the Temple that has been destroyed." (p. 918) Note also the irony of 11:48: "If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place [i.e. temple] and our nation." Finally, there is no mention of the Sadducees, which reflects post-70 Judaism. The retort that there is also no mention of scribes misses the mark, as the Pharisees represented the scribal tradition, and the Pharisees are mentioned.

The terminus a quo might also be set by dependence upon the Gospel of Mark, if it were certain that the Gospel of John is dependent upon Mark. The matter is debated in contemporary scholarship, but Kysar says that the theory of Johannine independence commands a "slim majority" of contemporary critics. For a discussion of this issue, D. Moody Smith's John Among the Gospels is recommended.

I would say it's fairly clear that the gospel was written sometime after the Jewish revolt, not only because of the passages about the temple but also because of the distinction drawn between the emerging Christ movement and mainstream Judaism (including being 'put out of the synagogue'). Whether it was written after 90CE I'm not certain, though that wouldn't pose a significant problem for Johannine authorship. It's worth noting however that if our combined information from Papias and Polycarp suggests that John was killed by Jews at Ephesus, that would indeed suggest strong local tensions between the Christian and Jewish communities. I wouldn't argue for a date before 90CE, but nor would I rule it out as a possibility. As discussed earlier in this thread, I don't believe there's reason to suggest John's dependency on Mark.

Kysar writes: "In the place where the synoptics narrate the origin of the eucharist stands the account of the foot washing (13:1-10). The last meal Jesus celebrates with his disciples before his passion is not a Passover meal at all. Thus one of the basic features of the institution scenes in the synoptics is missing. Furthermore, there is no account of the baptism of Jesus, and there is confusion about whether or not Jesus practiced baptism (compare 3:22 and 4:2). Water baptism is treated critically and assigned strictly to the Baptizer in contrast with Spirit baptism (1:26, 31, 33). One is left with the impression that the sacraments of baptism and eucharist did not figure in the theology of the fourth evangelist." (p. 929)

Kysar states: "The passages which seem to address the sacraments are sometimes thought to be redactional. Some maintain that 'water and' in 3:5 and the discourse in 6:51-59 are insertions of a later hand by one interested in strengthening the explicit sacramental teachings of the gospel. It has been recently argued that portions of chaps. 13-17 come froma redactor at the time of the writing of the Johannine epistles some ten years or more after the completion of the gospel." (p. 922)

Norman Perrin believes that the redactor who added the sacramental passages to the Gospel of John also authored the first epistle of John, in which the sacraments are emphasized.

Helms adduces evidence that there were divisions over the interpretation of John at an early period, as early as the writing of the epistles 1 John and 2 John. Consider the passages 1 John 2:18-19 and 2 John 7. Helms writes (Who Wrote the Gospels?, p. 163):

Some members of the Johannine community departed, became a rival sect, over the question of the 'flesh' of Jesus Christ, an event that leads the author of I John to the certainty that 'this is the last hour.' We do not know for sure who these secessionists were, but as Raymond Brown notes, they were 'not detectably outsiders to the Johannine community but the offspring of Johannine thought itself, justifying their position by the Johannine Gospel and its implications' (1979, 107). This seems likely, until we reflect on the oddity of people who purportedly deny that 'Jesus Christ came in the flesh' citing a gospel that declares 'the Word became flesh,' and 'whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood possesses eternal life.' Brown's argument founders on his insistence that 'John exactly as we have it' (108, his italics) was the text used by those who left the Johannine community. Brown refuses to 'exclude certain passages from the Fourth Gospel on the grounds that they were probably not in the tradition known to the secessionists but were added by the redactor (either later or as anti-secessionist revision)' (1979, 109). He admits that many accept that John 1:14 - 'The Word became flesh' - was 'added by the redactor as an attack on the opponents of I John' (1979, 109) but continues to write as if there were no revision of the Fourth Gospel.

Helms states, "we need to note that part of the purpose of Irenaeus was to attack the teachings of Cerinthus, a gnostic Christian teacher who lived in Ephesus at the end of the first century" (op. cit., p. 162). Cerinthus was "educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, taught that the world was not made by a primary God, but by a certain Power far separated from him...Moreover, after [Jesus'] baptism, Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler, and that then he proclaimed the unknown Father, and performed miracles. But at last Christ departed from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and rose again, while Christ remained impassible, inasmuch as he was a spiritual being" (1.26.1). Irenaeus stated that the purpose of John at Ephesus was as follows:

by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans, who are an offset of that 'knowledge' [gnosis] falsely so called, that he might confound them, and persuade them that there is but one God, who made all things by His Word; and not, as they allege, that the Creator was one, but the Father and the Lord another; and that the Son of the Creator was, forsooth, one, but the Christ from above another (3.11.1)

I find this to be a very interesting topic, which sparked lengthy discussion with Shermana and others (starting here). As stated above, Cerinthus apparently believed that 'the Christ' descended on Jesus at his baptism and departed before his death. If the Christ descended at the time of one key Christian ritual, is it possible that Cerinthus believed he departed at the time of the other - the last supper? My guess so far is that the omission of direct description of these two events in the fourth gospel is in fact quite good evidence that it was indeed written in part against Cerinthus; deliberately omitting the supposed moment of the Christ's descent and (perhaps) departure. With that view, the less overt references to the Christian rituals elsewhere in the gospel are entirely consistent with fairly 'mainstream' or Johannine authorship without the need for speculating about redactions.

On the subject of authorship of John and 1 John, even a casual reader will note the strong similarities in both themes and style found in the two works, suggesting the obvious presumption that the same person wrote them. Arguments that they were written by different people seem weak to my mind, emphasising the gospel's scant references to sacraments (explained above) and conjuring a false dichotomy regarding eschatology in the fourth gospel in order to suggest different theologies in the two works. The fact of the gospel's extant references to sacraments and eschatology are explained away as redaction by the epistle's author! (Source) Essentially I, like many scholars, can see no evidence that church tradition and common sense are wrong in considering them the product of the same author. Arguments drawing on that presumption are therefore obviously very weak.

With that in mind, the epistle's initial introduction of the deceivers and antichrist's couldn't be more clear about their error: "Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son" (1 John 2:22). While the arguments quoted above emphasise 'Jesus Christ is come in the flesh,' this verse shows clearly that the primary concern is the identity of Jesus as Christ. Again, this fits in perfectly as opposition to Cerinthus' teaching that the Christ descended on and departed from Jesus. Later verses (1 John 4:1-3) may be more general warnings not tailored specifically for the issues of John's community at Ephesus, or they may again be insisting the identity of Christ who came in the flesh as Jesus, rather than as a spirit who came and went from Jesus. And the quoted arguments' emphasis that the deceivers "went out from us" again seems to me slim pickings from which to draw sure conclusions; it could indeed be that Cerinthus gained some followers from John's community (perhaps Cerinthus himself had been a follower), or it could simply be referring to their departure from the wider mainstream Christian belief and 'us' doesn't refer to the specific community.

In short, while it's certainly interesting to speculate in more detail about the precise interactions between John, his community, Cerinthus and his followers, the traditional view of authorship for the gospel and epistle/s makes perfect sense overall, with no need for unevidenced speculation about redactions or the like.

Helms argues: "So the gospel attributed, late in the second century, to John at Ephesus was viewed as an anti-gnostic, anti-Cerinthean work. But, very strangely, Epiphanius, in his book against the heretics, argues against those who actually believed that it was Cerinthus himself who wrote the Gospel of John! (Adv. Haer. 51.3.6). How could it be that the Fourth Gospel was at one time in its history regarded as the product of an Egyptian-trained gnostic, and at another time in its history regarded as composed for the very purpose of attacking this same gnostic? I think the answer is plausible that in an early, now-lost version, the Fourth Gospel could well have been read in a Cerinthean, gnostic fashion, but that at Ephesus a revision of it was produced (we now call it the Gospel of John) that put this gospel back into the Christian mainstream."

Another point covered in earlier discussion with Shermana. Quite simply, Epiphanius' opponents c. 390CE really are not a valid source from which to draw conclusions about the gospel's origins. Indeed in the second century not only the proto-orthodox but Gnostics also attributed the gospel to John:

• Mithrae wrote:
  There is evidence of the gospel's use in gnostic circles in the 2nd century:
  By Heracleon c. 170CE
  By the 'Peratae,' mentioned by Hippolytus c. 210-230CE
  By the Valentinians as described by Irenaeus c. 180CE
  However according to Irenaeus the Valentinians acknowledged John as the author:
  • 5. Further, they teach that John, the disciple of the Lord, indicated the first Ogdoad, expressing themselves in these words: John, the disciple of the Lord, wishing to set forth the origin of all things, so as to explain how the Father produced the whole, lays down a certain principle,"that, namely, which was first-begotten by God, which Being he has termed both the only-begotten Son and God...
  Similarly, Heracleon attributes the gospel to a disciple of Jesus:
  • The words, No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known, were spoken, not by the Baptist, but by the disciple.
  So it would seem that the tradition of Cerinthean authorship for the gospel probably began after the 2nd century, long after it would have any value for our discussion. And indeed, if we believe that the quotations by Origen of Heracleon and Irenaeus of the Valentinian text are reliable, they provide two additional sources of mid/late 2nd century evidence confirming the gospel's authorship.

----

To conclude, I think it's worth re-posting my summary of the evidence for and against which I made back in January (I've made a few changes):

• Mithrae wrote:
  As a matter of interest, I decided to summarize the discussion and the arguments last night, with an analysis of the type of argument and their relative strength. Perhaps others will find it interesting, or helpful in clarifying their thoughts on the matter. I've tried to put them in as much of a coherent claim/response format as possible.
  
  I think such an analysis is important in order to think clearly on a subject. Evidence should be assessed and weighed, not stacked on one side from which to argue against anything contrary. So it's important to try to assess the relative strength of any given point, as well as the reasoning used to make it. For example, an argument that the gospel is anti-semitic is based on interpretation; an argument that John wouldn't have learned to write is based on probability; an argument that the gospel was originally an unorthodox, gnostic work is based on interpretation and historical factors (the use of the book by gnostics); an argument based on the attribution by Irenaeus is similarly based on historical data.
  
  So without further ado, my summary of the arguments:
  • 1 - The gospel and 1 John were written by the same person - style analysis & interpretive, average (and historical, weak)
    2 - Eyewitness claims in 1 John 1:1-3, John 1:14 & John 19:35 (contrast 21:24) - interpretive, average
    A ~ A disciple wouldn't have lived that long - probabilistic, weak
    3 - There were quite a few long-lived ancients - historical & probabilistic, weak
    4 - The appendix was written shortly after disciple's death (21:22-23) - interpretive, strong
    5 - The appendix confirms it was written by a disciple - historical, strong
    B ~ John was already dead (Mark 10:35-40) - James was killed; further interpretation is weak
    6 - John was alive at Ephesus - historical (Polycarp/Irenaeus), weak
    7 - Omission of James from the gospel - interpretive, weak
    C ~ John wouldn't have learned sufficient literary skills to write it - probabilistic, average
    8 - The disciple had some 50-odd years to learn - probabilistic, average
    9 - The gospel's Greek is nevertheless quite Semitic/vulgar - linguistic, strong*
    D ~ The gospel is anti-semitic - interpretive, weak
    10 - Pro-semitic; it shows sympathetic reasons and God's will for Jesus' execution (11:49-51) - interpretive, weak
    11 - The gospel merely distinguishes between Christianity and Judaism - historical & interpretive, average
    E ~ Anachronistic; Christians 'put out of the synagogue' - interpretive & historical, average
    . . . . . . The gospel distinguishes between Christianity and Judaism - historical & interpretive, average
    12 - It may reflect local tensions or the division from the council of Jamnia - interpretive, average
    F ~ It was used by gnostics (attributed to Cerinthus 3rd-4th century) - interpretive & historical, weak
    G ~ It's unorthodox, anti-ritual; it omits Jesus' baptism and Lord's supper - interpretive, weak
    . . . . . . John was at Ephesus - historical (Polycarp/Irenaeus), weak
    13 - He wrote the gospel against Cerinthus - historical & interpretive, average
    14 - Jesus' baptism and last supper support Cerinthian doctrine**; hence omitting those specific stories - interpretive & historical, weak
    
    Summary of main positive evidence:
    Eyewitness claims in 1 John 1:1-3, John 1:14 & John 19:35 (contrast 21:24) - interpretive, average
    The appendix was written shortly after disciple's death (21:22-23) - interpretive, strong
    The appendix confirms it was written by a disciple - historical, strong
    John was alive at Ephesus - historical (Polycarp/Irenaeus), weak
    15 - Quotation by Justin Martyr - historical, average
    16 - Attribution by Irenaeus - historical, weak
    17 - Attribution by Heracleon and the Valentinians - historical, average
  
  * I don't have a proper source for this yet, but I think Student is reliable: "As for Johns Greek, according to Wallace [Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament; p.30], the range of literary levels of the NT authors is as follows: Most semitic / vulgar : Revelation, Mark, John, 1-3 John, 2 Peter." This may also confirm that the epistles were written by the same author.
  
  ** One of the doctrines of Cerinthus was Jesus was a good human, son of Joseph and Mary, but that the Christ came down on him (as a dove) when he was baptised, and departed before his crucifixion. If one primary Christian ritual (baptism) was the time of the Christ's descent, the other (Lord's Supper) may well have been considered the time of the Christ's departure. The gospel does mention these two rituals in different manner and places, but the fact that it departs from the synoptic norm on those two points is arguably (interpretive, weak) further evidence that it was written against Cerinthus - whereas if it had been a Cerinthian/gnostic work, they would probably have been emphasised.
  
  
  
  Any comments/disagreements/criticisms would be welcome. Do you believe that John's presumed illiteracy after Jesus' death (point C) is actually a strong argument, for example? Or is my interpretation of the gospel's appendix (point 4) only an average argument - is there a more reasonable view on the matter? Or perhaps you'd claim that Irenaeus' attribution of the gospel (point 16) should actually be considered evidence of average strength?
  
  Like I say, it's more for the purpose of clarifying my own thoughts, but I figured it might be interesting to others also.

Overall, I'd say there's a very solid balance of evidence favouring Johannine authorship

[Goat]

Discussing Jesus in the thread Circumstantial Evidence against BibleGod, I suggested the fourth gospel as admissible (non-'hearsay') evidence since it claims eyewitness status. To avoid derailing that thread any further, I'll reply to Goat's objections here.

The author does claim to have been a witness in 1:14. Some might interpret this as a non-specific 'we,' as in 1 John 1:1-3, but I don't suspect it that it's a very convincing view. The anonymous references to the 'beloved disciple' and the aforementioned 19:35 fit in well with that view. And of course since John 21:24 was written by someone else it provides additional confirmation, which personally I wouldn't say is a reason to dismiss it as irrelevant.

Actually, that does not meet the evaluation of most Johnaine scholars. The full article about it is here

It says

There is a case to be made that John, the son of Zebedee, had already died long before the Gospel of John came to be written. It is worth noting for its own sake, even though the "beloved disciple" need not be identified with John, the son of Zebedee. In his ninth century Chronicle in the codex Coislinianus, George Hartolos says, "[John] was worth of martyrdom." Hamartolos proceeds to quote Papias to the effect that, "he [John] was killed by the Jews." In the de Boor fragment of an epitome of the fifth century Chronicle of Philip of Side, the author quotes Papias: Papias in the second book says that John the divine and James his brother were killed by Jews. Morton Enslin observes (Christian Beginnings, pp. 369-370): "That Papias source of information is simply an inference from Mark 10:35-40 or its parallel, Matt. 20:20-23, is possible. None the less, this Marcan passage itself affords solid ground. No reasonable interpretation of these words can deny the high probability that by the time these words were written [ca. 70 CE] both brothers had 'drunk the cup' that Jesus had drunk and had been 'baptized with the baptism' with which he had been baptized." Since the patristic tradition is unanimous in identifying the beloved disciple with John, at least this evidence discredits the patristic tradition concerning the authorship of the Gospel of John.

The passage from Mark reads:

• Mark 10:35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Him, saying, Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask.
  36 And He said to them, What do you want Me to do for you?
  37 They said to Him, Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on Your left, in Your glory.
  38 But Jesus said to them, You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?
  39 They said to Him, We are able.
  So Jesus said to them, You will indeed drink the cup that I drink, and with the baptism I am baptized with you will be baptized; 40 but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared.

The interpretation suggested here is that it's referring specifically to death, rather than to more general suffering and rejection. It's certainly true that James suffered death a few years afterwards (Acts 12:2). By the time Mark was written, so had a number of other key Christian figures (Peter, Paul and Jesus' brother James for starters). Even if we presume that the passage can only refer to martyrdom, I think it's a weak argument to infer that the second brother definitely must have already died also. On the contrary, the passage is all about the contrast between hopes for the next life and an expectation of suffering in this; to assume that it must be anachronistic seems to rather miss the point.

On the subject of the death of James son of Zebedee, however, it's interesting to note that while the synoptic gospels name Peter, James and John as Jesus' three closest disciples (and Paul and Acts confirm the later prominence of the surviving Peter and John), the fourth gospel names only Peter out of the three. If John were the 'beloved disciple' as church tradition maintains, would it be so surprising that he doesn't mention his deceased brother in his record of Jesus' ministry?

The 5th and 10th century quotations from Papias shouldn't be dismissed, but two things are worth noting; first that under Roman law the Jews did not have the power to legally execute anyone, and secondly that martyrdom was not by any means the sole preserve of young Christian leaders. Polycarp was allegedly in his 80s when he was killed in Rome! There's no reason why John also might not have been killed at an old age by some Jewish mob, if we choose to speculate on the accuracy of Papias' information. In fact according to Irenaeus (c 180CE), Polycarp himself confirmed that John was alive and at Ephesus at the time of Cerinthus (AH 3.3.4). We've got no solid information on exactly when Cerinthus taught there, but it was probably sometime after the Jewish revolt and it confirms that John had traveled well beyond the Jewish homeland.

If the author of the Gospel of John were an eyewitness, presumably the author would have known that Jesus and his compatriots were permitted to enter the synagogues. But at one several points it is stated that those who acknowledged Jesus as the Christ during the life of Jesus were put out of the synagogue. This anachronism is inconceivable as the product of an eyewitness.

Kysar states that most scholars today see the historical setting of the Gospel of John in the expulsion of the community from the synagogue (op. cit., p. 918). The word aposynagogos is found three times in the gospel (9:22, 12:42, 16:2). The high claims made for Jesus and the response to them (5:18), the polemic against "the Jews" (9:18, 10:31, 18:12, 19:12), and the assertion of a superiority of Christian revelation to the Hebrew (1:18, 6:49-50, 8:58) show that "the Johannine community stood in opposition to the synagogue from which it had been expelled." (p. 918)

I've read this page numerous times in learning about the gospel of course, and this argument has always baffled me. Apparently, it is inconceivable that an eyewitness would be inaccurate, and would have issues relevant to his own time and community showing through his work. It goes to show that even scholars don't always think or write very clearly; frankly it's so laughable as to merit no further response

Kysar states concerning the dating of the Gospel of John: "Those who relate the expulsion to a formal effort on the part of Judaism to purge itself of Christian believers link the composition of the gospel with a date soon after the Council of Jamnia, which is supposed to have promulgated such an action. Hence, these scholars would date John after 90. Those inclined to see the expulsion more in terms of an informal action on the part of a local synagogue are free to propose an earlier date." (p. 919)

Kysar also observes on the dating of the Gospel of John: "The earliest date for the gospel hinges upon the question of whether or not it presupposes the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. Most agree that it does, although there have been persistent attempts to argue otherwise. The reasons for positing a post-70 date include the view of the Temple implicit in 2:13-22. Most would argue that the passage attempts to present Christ as the replacement of the Temple that has been destroyed." (p. 918) Note also the irony of 11:48: "If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place [i.e. temple] and our nation." Finally, there is no mention of the Sadducees, which reflects post-70 Judaism. The retort that there is also no mention of scribes misses the mark, as the Pharisees represented the scribal tradition, and the Pharisees are mentioned.

The terminus a quo might also be set by dependence upon the Gospel of Mark, if it were certain that the Gospel of John is dependent upon Mark. The matter is debated in contemporary scholarship, but Kysar says that the theory of Johannine independence commands a "slim majority" of contemporary critics. For a discussion of this issue, D. Moody Smith's John Among the Gospels is recommended.

I would say it's fairly clear that the gospel was written sometime after the Jewish revolt, not only because of the passages about the temple but also because of the distinction drawn between the emerging Christ movement and mainstream Judaism (including being 'put out of the synagogue'). Whether it was written after 90CE I'm not certain, though that wouldn't pose a significant problem for Johannine authorship. It's worth noting however that if our combined information from Papias and Polycarp suggests that John was killed by Jews at Ephesus, that would indeed suggest strong local tensions between the Christian and Jewish communities. I wouldn't argue for a date before 90CE, but nor would I rule it out as a possibility. As discussed earlier in this thread, I don't believe there's reason to suggest John's dependency on Mark.

Kysar writes: "In the place where the synoptics narrate the origin of the eucharist stands the account of the foot washing (13:1-10). The last meal Jesus celebrates with his disciples before his passion is not a Passover meal at all. Thus one of the basic features of the institution scenes in the synoptics is missing. Furthermore, there is no account of the baptism of Jesus, and there is confusion about whether or not Jesus practiced baptism (compare 3:22 and 4:2). Water baptism is treated critically and assigned strictly to the Baptizer in contrast with Spirit baptism (1:26, 31, 33). One is left with the impression that the sacraments of baptism and eucharist did not figure in the theology of the fourth evangelist." (p. 929)

Kysar states: "The passages which seem to address the sacraments are sometimes thought to be redactional. Some maintain that 'water and' in 3:5 and the discourse in 6:51-59 are insertions of a later hand by one interested in strengthening the explicit sacramental teachings of the gospel. It has been recently argued that portions of chaps. 13-17 come froma redactor at the time of the writing of the Johannine epistles some ten years or more after the completion of the gospel." (p. 922)

Norman Perrin believes that the redactor who added the sacramental passages to the Gospel of John also authored the first epistle of John, in which the sacraments are emphasized.

Helms adduces evidence that there were divisions over the interpretation of John at an early period, as early as the writing of the epistles 1 John and 2 John. Consider the passages 1 John 2:18-19 and 2 John 7. Helms writes (Who Wrote the Gospels?, p. 163):

Some members of the Johannine community departed, became a rival sect, over the question of the 'flesh' of Jesus Christ, an event that leads the author of I John to the certainty that 'this is the last hour.' We do not know for sure who these secessionists were, but as Raymond Brown notes, they were 'not detectably outsiders to the Johannine community but the offspring of Johannine thought itself, justifying their position by the Johannine Gospel and its implications' (1979, 107). This seems likely, until we reflect on the oddity of people who purportedly deny that 'Jesus Christ came in the flesh' citing a gospel that declares 'the Word became flesh,' and 'whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood possesses eternal life.' Brown's argument founders on his insistence that 'John exactly as we have it' (108, his italics) was the text used by those who left the Johannine community. Brown refuses to 'exclude certain passages from the Fourth Gospel on the grounds that they were probably not in the tradition known to the secessionists but were added by the redactor (either later or as anti-secessionist revision)' (1979, 109). He admits that many accept that John 1:14 - 'The Word became flesh' - was 'added by the redactor as an attack on the opponents of I John' (1979, 109) but continues to write as if there were no revision of the Fourth Gospel.

Helms states, "we need to note that part of the purpose of Irenaeus was to attack the teachings of Cerinthus, a gnostic Christian teacher who lived in Ephesus at the end of the first century" (op. cit., p. 162). Cerinthus was "educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, taught that the world was not made by a primary God, but by a certain Power far separated from him...Moreover, after [Jesus'] baptism, Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler, and that then he proclaimed the unknown Father, and performed miracles. But at last Christ departed from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and rose again, while Christ remained impassible, inasmuch as he was a spiritual being" (1.26.1). Irenaeus stated that the purpose of John at Ephesus was as follows:

by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans, who are an offset of that 'knowledge' [gnosis] falsely so called, that he might confound them, and persuade them that there is but one God, who made all things by His Word; and not, as they allege, that the Creator was one, but the Father and the Lord another; and that the Son of the Creator was, forsooth, one, but the Christ from above another (3.11.1)

I find this to be a very interesting topic, which sparked lengthy discussion with Shermana and others (starting here). As stated above, Cerinthus apparently believed that 'the Christ' descended on Jesus at his baptism and departed before his death. If the Christ descended at the time of one key Christian ritual, is it possible that Cerinthus believed he departed at the time of the other - the last supper? My guess so far is that the omission of direct description of these two events in the fourth gospel is in fact quite good evidence that it was indeed written in part against Cerinthus; deliberately omitting the supposed moment of the Christ's descent and (perhaps) departure. With that view, the less overt references to the Christian rituals elsewhere in the gospel are entirely consistent with fairly 'mainstream' or Johannine authorship without the need for speculating about redactions.

On the subject of authorship of John and 1 John, even a casual reader will note the strong similarities in both themes and style found in the two works, suggesting the obvious presumption that the same person wrote them. Arguments that they were written by different people seem weak to my mind, emphasising the gospel's scant references to sacraments (explained above) and conjuring a false dichotomy regarding eschatology in the fourth gospel in order to suggest different theologies in the two works. The fact of the gospel's extant references to sacraments and eschatology are explained away as redaction by the epistle's author! (Source) Essentially I, like many scholars, can see no evidence that church tradition and common sense are wrong in considering them the product of the same author. Arguments drawing on that presumption are therefore obviously very weak.

With that in mind, the epistle's initial introduction of the deceivers and antichrist's couldn't be more clear about their error: "Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son" (1 John 2:22). While the arguments quoted above emphasise 'Jesus Christ is come in the flesh,' this verse shows clearly that the primary concern is the identity of Jesus as Christ. Again, this fits in perfectly as opposition to Cerinthus' teaching that the Christ descended on and departed from Jesus. Later verses (1 John 4:1-3) may be more general warnings not tailored specifically for the issues of John's community at Ephesus, or they may again be insisting the identity of Christ who came in the flesh as Jesus, rather than as a spirit who came and went from Jesus. And the quoted arguments' emphasis that the deceivers "went out from us" again seems to me slim pickings from which to draw sure conclusions; it could indeed be that Cerinthus gained some followers from John's community (perhaps Cerinthus himself had been a follower), or it could simply be referring to their departure from the wider mainstream Christian belief and 'us' doesn't refer to the specific community.

In short, while it's certainly interesting to speculate in more detail about the precise interactions between John, his community, Cerinthus and his followers, the traditional view of authorship for the gospel and epistle/s makes perfect sense overall, with no need for unevidenced speculation about redactions or the like.

Helms argues: "So the gospel attributed, late in the second century, to John at Ephesus was viewed as an anti-gnostic, anti-Cerinthean work. But, very strangely, Epiphanius, in his book against the heretics, argues against those who actually believed that it was Cerinthus himself who wrote the Gospel of John! (Adv. Haer. 51.3.6). How could it be that the Fourth Gospel was at one time in its history regarded as the product of an Egyptian-trained gnostic, and at another time in its history regarded as composed for the very purpose of attacking this same gnostic? I think the answer is plausible that in an early, now-lost version, the Fourth Gospel could well have been read in a Cerinthean, gnostic fashion, but that at Ephesus a revision of it was produced (we now call it the Gospel of John) that put this gospel back into the Christian mainstream."

Another point covered in earlier discussion with Shermana. Quite simply, Epiphanius' opponents c. 390CE really are not a valid source from which to draw conclusions about the gospel's origins. Indeed in the second century not only the proto-orthodox but Gnostics also attributed the gospel to John:

• Mithrae wrote:
  There is evidence of the gospel's use in gnostic circles in the 2nd century:
  By Heracleon c. 170CE
  By the 'Peratae,' mentioned by Hippolytus c. 210-230CE
  By the Valentinians as described by Irenaeus c. 180CE
  However according to Irenaeus the Valentinians acknowledged John as the author:
  • 5. Further, they teach that John, the disciple of the Lord, indicated the first Ogdoad, expressing themselves in these words: John, the disciple of the Lord, wishing to set forth the origin of all things, so as to explain how the Father produced the whole, lays down a certain principle,"that, namely, which was first-begotten by God, which Being he has termed both the only-begotten Son and God...
  Similarly, Heracleon attributes the gospel to a disciple of Jesus:
  • The words, No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known, were spoken, not by the Baptist, but by the disciple.
  So it would seem that the tradition of Cerinthean authorship for the gospel probably began after the 2nd century, long after it would have any value for our discussion. And indeed, if we believe that the quotations by Origen of Heracleon and Irenaeus of the Valentinian text are reliable, they provide two additional sources of mid/late 2nd century evidence confirming the gospel's authorship.

----

To conclude, I think it's worth re-posting my summary of the evidence for and against which I made back in January (I've made a few changes):

• Mithrae wrote:
  As a matter of interest, I decided to summarize the discussion and the arguments last night, with an analysis of the type of argument and their relative strength. Perhaps others will find it interesting, or helpful in clarifying their thoughts on the matter. I've tried to put them in as much of a coherent claim/response format as possible.
  
  I think such an analysis is important in order to think clearly on a subject. Evidence should be assessed and weighed, not stacked on one side from which to argue against anything contrary. So it's important to try to assess the relative strength of any given point, as well as the reasoning used to make it. For example, an argument that the gospel is anti-semitic is based on interpretation; an argument that John wouldn't have learned to write is based on probability; an argument that the gospel was originally an unorthodox, gnostic work is based on interpretation and historical factors (the use of the book by gnostics); an argument based on the attribution by Irenaeus is similarly based on historical data.
  
  So without further ado, my summary of the arguments:
  • 1 - The gospel and 1 John were written by the same person - style analysis & interpretive, average (and historical, weak)
    2 - Eyewitness claims in 1 John 1:1-3, John 1:14 & John 19:35 (contrast 21:24) - interpretive, average
    A ~ A disciple wouldn't have lived that long - probabilistic, weak
    3 - There were quite a few long-lived ancients - historical & probabilistic, weak
    4 - The appendix was written shortly after disciple's death (21:22-23) - interpretive, strong
    5 - The appendix confirms it was written by a disciple - historical, strong
    B ~ John was already dead (Mark 10:35-40) - James was killed; further interpretation is weak
    6 - John was alive at Ephesus - historical (Polycarp/Irenaeus), weak
    7 - Omission of James from the gospel - interpretive, weak
    C ~ John wouldn't have learned sufficient literary skills to write it - probabilistic, average
    8 - The disciple had some 50-odd years to learn - probabilistic, average
    9 - The gospel's Greek is nevertheless quite Semitic/vulgar - linguistic, strong*
    D ~ The gospel is anti-semitic - interpretive, weak
    10 - Pro-semitic; it shows sympathetic reasons and God's will for Jesus' execution (11:49-51) - interpretive, weak
    11 - The gospel merely distinguishes between Christianity and Judaism - historical & interpretive, average
    E ~ Anachronistic; Christians 'put out of the synagogue' - interpretive & historical, average
    . . . . . . The gospel distinguishes between Christianity and Judaism - historical & interpretive, average
    12 - It may reflect local tensions or the division from the council of Jamnia - interpretive, average
    F ~ It was used by gnostics (attributed to Cerinthus 3rd-4th century) - interpretive & historical, weak
    G ~ It's unorthodox, anti-ritual; it omits Jesus' baptism and Lord's supper - interpretive, weak
    . . . . . . John was at Ephesus - historical (Polycarp/Irenaeus), weak
    13 - He wrote the gospel against Cerinthus - historical & interpretive, average
    14 - Jesus' baptism and last supper support Cerinthian doctrine**; hence omitting those specific stories - interpretive & historical, weak
    
    Summary of main positive evidence:
    Eyewitness claims in 1 John 1:1-3, John 1:14 & John 19:35 (contrast 21:24) - interpretive, average
    The appendix was written shortly after disciple's death (21:22-23) - interpretive, strong
    The appendix confirms it was written by a disciple - historical, strong
    John was alive at Ephesus - historical (Polycarp/Irenaeus), weak
    15 - Quotation by Justin Martyr - historical, average
    16 - Attribution by Irenaeus - historical, weak
    17 - Attribution by Heracleon and the Valentinians - historical, average
  
  * I don't have a proper source for this yet, but I think Student is reliable: "As for Johns Greek, according to Wallace [Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament; p.30], the range of literary levels of the NT authors is as follows: Most semitic / vulgar : Revelation, Mark, John, 1-3 John, 2 Peter." This may also confirm that the epistles were written by the same author.
  
  ** One of the doctrines of Cerinthus was Jesus was a good human, son of Joseph and Mary, but that the Christ came down on him (as a dove) when he was baptised, and departed before his crucifixion. If one primary Christian ritual (baptism) was the time of the Christ's descent, the other (Lord's Supper) may well have been considered the time of the Christ's departure. The gospel does mention these two rituals in different manner and places, but the fact that it departs from the synoptic norm on those two points is arguably (interpretive, weak) further evidence that it was written against Cerinthus - whereas if it had been a Cerinthian/gnostic work, they would probably have been emphasised.
  
  
  
  Any comments/disagreements/criticisms would be welcome. Do you believe that John's presumed illiteracy after Jesus' death (point C) is actually a strong argument, for example? Or is my interpretation of the gospel's appendix (point 4) only an average argument - is there a more reasonable view on the matter? Or perhaps you'd claim that Irenaeus' attribution of the gospel (point 16) should actually be considered evidence of average strength?
  
  Like I say, it's more for the purpose of clarifying my own thoughts, but I figured it might be interesting to others also.

Overall, I'd say there's a very solid balance of evidence favouring Johannine authorship

It seems you are taking a contrary position from mainstream biblical scholarship. And, it isn't the 'Ireanus's claim alone, but the fact that there is a very strong contention between various early church fathers that are contradictory.

One point you seem to have missed was from that page from Early Christian writings..


Helms argues: "So the gospel attributed, late in the second century, to John at Ephesus was viewed as an anti-gnostic, anti-Cerinthean work. But, very strangely, Epiphanius, in his book against the heretics, argues against those who actually believed that it was Cerinthus himself who wrote the Gospel of John! (Adv. Haer. 51.3.6). How could it be that the Fourth Gospel was at one time in its history regarded as the product of an Egyptian-trained gnostic, and at another time in its history regarded as composed for the very purpose of attacking this same gnostic? I think the answer is plausible that in an early, now-lost version, the Fourth Gospel could well have been read in a Cerinthean, gnostic fashion, but that at Ephesus a revision of it was produced (we now call it the Gospel of John) that put this gospel back into the Christian mainstream."


This difference of opinion so early in the time frame tells me that there was disagreement about that right from the beginning , which makes me feel that the side of 'it was John the apostle is a very weak case.

Another point you fail to address is


If the author of the Gospel of John were an eyewitness, presumably the author would have known that Jesus and his compatriots were permitted to enter the synagogues. But at one several points it is stated that those who acknowledged Jesus as the Christ during the life of Jesus were put out of the synagogue. This anachronism is inconceivable as the product of an eyewitness.

[Mithrae]

Another point you fail to address is

If the author of the Gospel of John were an eyewitness, presumably the author would have known that Jesus and his compatriots were permitted to enter the synagogues. But at one several points it is stated that those who acknowledged Jesus as the Christ during the life of Jesus were put out of the synagogue. This anachronism is inconceivable as the product of an eyewitness.

Hi Goat, thanks for the reply

I did comment on that - I even made a little smiley face to mock the claim that it's inconceivable for an eyewitness to be inaccurate The gospel was written sometime after the Jewish revolt, which obviously had massive implications for Jews and to a lesser extent for Christians also (particularly Jewish Christians). Many Christians no doubt felt they had good reason to show that their Christ was not connected with any Jewish Messianic aspirations associated with the revolt, and as the article mentions it's believed that around this time Jewish leaders began to more formally dissociate from Jewish Christians (the hypothetical Council of Jamnia). If John had been accustomed to worshiping in the local synagogue at Ephesus, being refused that right may well have had a profound effect on him; or else his writing may simply be reflecting the broader themes of his time.

Either way, it's one of the most basic principles of new testament criticism that we can often learn or infer as much (and sometimes more) about the author's own time and concerns as about the time and events he's attempting to portray. An argument which flatly denies this principle is, in my opinion, rather weak.

It seems you are taking a contrary position from mainstream biblical scholarship. And, it isn't the 'Ireanus's claim alone, but the fact that there is a very strong contention between various early church fathers that are contradictory.

One point you seem to have missed was from that page from Early Christian writings..

Helms argues: "So the gospel attributed, late in the second century, to John at Ephesus was viewed as an anti-gnostic, anti-Cerinthean work. But, very strangely, Epiphanius, in his book against the heretics, argues against those who actually believed that it was Cerinthus himself who wrote the Gospel of John! (Adv. Haer. 51.3.6). How could it be that the Fourth Gospel was at one time in its history regarded as the product of an Egyptian-trained gnostic, and at another time in its history regarded as composed for the very purpose of attacking this same gnostic? I think the answer is plausible that in an early, now-lost version, the Fourth Gospel could well have been read in a Cerinthean, gnostic fashion, but that at Ephesus a revision of it was produced (we now call it the Gospel of John) that put this gospel back into the Christian mainstream."

This difference of opinion so early in the time frame tells me that there was disagreement about that right from the beginning , which makes me feel that the side of 'it was John the apostle is a very weak case.

I answered that point also, but perhaps not very clearly. Epiphanius wrote at the end of the fourth century CE, so it's not a difference of opinion early in the time-frame. The opinions of fourth-century Gnostics are no more a valid source of historical information on John than the opinions of fourth-century orthodox Christians are. It's interesting how well Helms glosses over that minor detail, describing it simply as "at one time in its history" and putting the fourth-century information first!

And of course, I even pointed out that second-century Gnostics apparently attributed the gospel to John also, which not only completely invalidates that argument but provides strong additional support for the orthodox view. Irenaeus (c. 180CE) quotes a text of the Valentinians as follows:

• 5. Further, they teach that John, the disciple of the Lord, indicated the first Ogdoad, expressing themselves in these words: John, the disciple of the Lord, wishing to set forth the origin of all things, so as to explain how the Father produced the whole, lays down a certain principle,"that, namely, which was first-begotten by God, which Being he has termed both the only-begotten Son and God...

And in fact, from Irenaeus' quotation we can even get a hint of the minor differences between John as the Gnostics used it and our canonical John:

• Thus, then, did John by these words reveal both other things and the second Tetrad, Logos and Zoe, Anthropos and Ecclesia. And still further, he also indicated the first Tetrad. For, in discoursing of the Saviour and declaring that all things beyond the Pleroma received form from Him, he says that He is the fruit of the entire Pleroma. For he styles Him a light which shineth in darkness, and which was not comprehended by it, inasmuch as, when He imparted form to all those things which had their origin from passion, He was not known by it. He also styles Him Son, and Aletheia, and Zoe, and the Word made flesh, whose glory, he says, we beheld; and His glory was as that of the Only-begotten (given to Him by the Father), full of grace and truth. (But what John really does say is this: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.) Thus, then, does he [according to them] distinctly set forth the first Tetrad, when he speaks of the Father, and Charis, and Monogenes, and Aletheia. In this way, too, does John tell of the first Ogdoad, and that which is the mother of all the ons. For he mentions the Father, and Charis, and Monogenes, and Aletheia, and Logos, and Zoe, and Anthropos, and Ecclesia. Such are the views of Ptolemus.

Similarly, quoting a disciple of Valentinus, we find in Origen's work preserved fragments of Heracleon's (c. 170CE) Commentary on John:

• The words, No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known, were spoken, not by the Baptist, but by the disciple.

It seems that even before the first extant orthodox attribution of the gospel to John by Irenaeus, the Gnostics likewise recognised that he was the one who'd written it. In my opinion, this is rather strong evidence further confirming the claim by the gospel itself and by the author of the appendix.

[Goat]

Another point you fail to address is

If the author of the Gospel of John were an eyewitness, presumably the author would have known that Jesus and his compatriots were permitted to enter the synagogues. But at one several points it is stated that those who acknowledged Jesus as the Christ during the life of Jesus were put out of the synagogue. This anachronism is inconceivable as the product of an eyewitness.

Hi Goat, thanks for the reply

I did comment on that - I even made a little smiley face to mock the claim that it's inconceivable for an eyewitness to be inaccurate The gospel was written sometime after the Jewish revolt, which obviously had massive implications for Jews and to a lesser extent for Christians also (particularly Jewish Christians). Many Christians no doubt felt they had good reason to show that their Christ was not connected with any Jewish Messianic aspirations associated with the revolt, and as the article mentions it's believed that around this time Jewish leaders began to more formally dissociate from Jewish Christians (the hypothetical Council of Jamnia). If John had been accustomed to worshiping in the local synagogue at Ephesus, being refused that right may well have had a profound effect on him; or else his writing may simply be reflecting the broader themes of his time.

Either way, it's one of the most basic principles of new testament criticism that we can often learn or infer as much (and sometimes more) about the author's own time and concerns as about the time and events he's attempting to portray. An argument which flatly denies this principle is, in my opinion, rather weak.

It seems you are taking a contrary position from mainstream biblical scholarship. And, it isn't the 'Ireanus's claim alone, but the fact that there is a very strong contention between various early church fathers that are contradictory.

One point you seem to have missed was from that page from Early Christian writings..

Helms argues: "So the gospel attributed, late in the second century, to John at Ephesus was viewed as an anti-gnostic, anti-Cerinthean work. But, very strangely, Epiphanius, in his book against the heretics, argues against those who actually believed that it was Cerinthus himself who wrote the Gospel of John! (Adv. Haer. 51.3.6). How could it be that the Fourth Gospel was at one time in its history regarded as the product of an Egyptian-trained gnostic, and at another time in its history regarded as composed for the very purpose of attacking this same gnostic? I think the answer is plausible that in an early, now-lost version, the Fourth Gospel could well have been read in a Cerinthean, gnostic fashion, but that at Ephesus a revision of it was produced (we now call it the Gospel of John) that put this gospel back into the Christian mainstream."

This difference of opinion so early in the time frame tells me that there was disagreement about that right from the beginning , which makes me feel that the side of 'it was John the apostle is a very weak case.

I answered that point also, but perhaps not very clearly. Epiphanius wrote at the end of the fourth century CE, so it's not a difference of opinion early in the time-frame. The opinions of fourth-century Gnostics are no more a valid source of historical information on John than the opinions of fourth-century orthodox Christians are. It's interesting how well Helms glosses over that minor detail, describing it simply as "at one time in its history" and putting the fourth-century information first!

And of course, I even pointed out that second-century Gnostics apparently attributed the gospel to John also, which not only completely invalidates that argument but provides strong additional support for the orthodox view. Irenaeus (c. 180CE) quotes a text of the Valentinians as follows:

• 5. Further, they teach that John, the disciple of the Lord, indicated the first Ogdoad, expressing themselves in these words: John, the disciple of the Lord, wishing to set forth the origin of all things, so as to explain how the Father produced the whole, lays down a certain principle,"that, namely, which was first-begotten by God, which Being he has termed both the only-begotten Son and God...

And in fact, from Irenaeus' quotation we can even get a hint of the minor differences between John as the Gnostics used it and our canonical John:

• Thus, then, did John by these words reveal both other things and the second Tetrad, Logos and Zoe, Anthropos and Ecclesia. And still further, he also indicated the first Tetrad. For, in discoursing of the Saviour and declaring that all things beyond the Pleroma received form from Him, he says that He is the fruit of the entire Pleroma. For he styles Him a light which shineth in darkness, and which was not comprehended by it, inasmuch as, when He imparted form to all those things which had their origin from passion, He was not known by it. He also styles Him Son, and Aletheia, and Zoe, and the Word made flesh, whose glory, he says, we beheld; and His glory was as that of the Only-begotten (given to Him by the Father), full of grace and truth. (But what John really does say is this: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.) Thus, then, does he [according to them] distinctly set forth the first Tetrad, when he speaks of the Father, and Charis, and Monogenes, and Aletheia. In this way, too, does John tell of the first Ogdoad, and that which is the mother of all the ons. For he mentions the Father, and Charis, and Monogenes, and Aletheia, and Logos, and Zoe, and Anthropos, and Ecclesia. Such are the views of Ptolemus.

Similarly, quoting a disciple of Valentinus, we find in Origen's work preserved fragments of Heracleon's (c. 170CE) Commentary on John:

• The words, No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known, were spoken, not by the Baptist, but by the disciple.

It seems that even before the first extant orthodox attribution of the gospel to John by Irenaeus, the Gnostics likewise recognised that he was the one who'd written it. In my opinion, this is rather strong evidence further confirming the claim by the gospel itself and by the author of the appendix.

If you are scorning a 4th century attribution, certainly a very late 2nd century attribution is not that much more accurate.

I would say that I will have to agree with modern scholarship, and the claim of 'who wrote' john is very much in the air. I mean, those sources attributed the Gospel of Matthew to Matthew, and no credible biblical scholar believes that these days.

One of the main things that convinces me that it was not the Apostle John is the exclusive use of the Septuagint as a source. Through out the entire work, John uses the term 'I am' to donate a connection to divinity. Someone familar with the Hebrew and Aramaic would realize that would be a mistranslation of Genesis, and would know that it was referring to 'I will be what i will be' , not "I am what I am".

There are also some concepts and language that would be very outrageous for any Jewish person of that time frame (I am the bread of life statements is very non-Jewish and very Pagan). While I would expect any new writing breaking with tradition would have changes, I would expect to see some kind of connection with the person's original tradition.. and in this case, the tradition appears to be Pagan, not Jewish.

There is also the connection to the very Hellenistic concepts (Philo's Logos for example) , rather than the Jerusalem traditions

[Mithrae]

And of course, I even pointed out that second-century Gnostics apparently attributed the gospel to John also, which not only completely invalidates that argument but provides strong additional support for the orthodox view. Irenaeus (c. 180CE) quotes a text of the Valentinians as follows:

• 5. Further, they teach that John, the disciple of the Lord, indicated the first Ogdoad, expressing themselves in these words: John, the disciple of the Lord, wishing to set forth the origin of all things, so as to explain how the Father produced the whole, lays down a certain principle,"that, namely, which was first-begotten by God, which Being he has termed both the only-begotten Son and God...

And in fact, from Irenaeus' quotation we can even get a hint of the minor differences between John as the Gnostics used it and our canonical John:

• Thus, then, did John by these words reveal both other things and the second Tetrad, Logos and Zoe, Anthropos and Ecclesia. And still further, he also indicated the first Tetrad. For, in discoursing of the Saviour and declaring that all things beyond the Pleroma received form from Him, he says that He is the fruit of the entire Pleroma. For he styles Him a light which shineth in darkness, and which was not comprehended by it, inasmuch as, when He imparted form to all those things which had their origin from passion, He was not known by it. He also styles Him Son, and Aletheia, and Zoe, and the Word made flesh, whose glory, he says, we beheld; and His glory was as that of the Only-begotten (given to Him by the Father), full of grace and truth. (But what John really does say is this: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.) Thus, then, does he [according to them] distinctly set forth the first Tetrad, when he speaks of the Father, and Charis, and Monogenes, and Aletheia. In this way, too, does John tell of the first Ogdoad, and that which is the mother of all the ons. For he mentions the Father, and Charis, and Monogenes, and Aletheia, and Logos, and Zoe, and Anthropos, and Ecclesia. Such are the views of Ptolemus.

Similarly, quoting a disciple of Valentinus, we find in Origen's work preserved fragments of Heracleon's (c. 170CE) Commentary on John:

• The words, No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known, were spoken, not by the Baptist, but by the disciple.

It seems that even before the first extant orthodox attribution of the gospel to John by Irenaeus, the Gnostics likewise recognised that he was the one who'd written it. In my opinion, this is rather strong evidence further confirming the claim by the gospel itself and by the author of the appendix.

If you are scorning a 4th century attribution, certainly a very late 2nd century attribution is not that much more accurate.

Hi Goat, figured I should get 'round to replying to your comments at some point

Hopefully without nitpicking too much, I'd say that c170CE for Heracleon or perhaps as early as 140-160CE for the Ptolemaeus quoted by Irenaeus is closer to mid-second century than late (or certainly very late). Irenaeus himself claimed that while young he'd heard from Polycarp, who had allegedly known the apostle John. Even if true that's hardly water-tight verification of any whispers passed along that chain, but even if false it's obviously a lot better than anything from another two hundred years later.

I would say that I will have to agree with modern scholarship, and the claim of 'who wrote' john is very much in the air. I mean, those sources attributed the Gospel of Matthew to Matthew, and no credible biblical scholar believes that these days.

True in the case of Irenaeus, but regarding Matthew there's two very good reasons for that (and some lesser ones):

Firstly, the generally-accepted fact that 'Matthew' copies the account of his own call by Jesus from Mark's account. It would seem strange if a disciple had nothing much to add in the way of content or perspective regarding the turning point of his whole life, even if the earlier account came second hand from Peter. Secondly, the earliest reference to a gospel by Matthew is from Papias, but it refers to the "sayings of Jesus" written in the tongue of the Hebrews. Since neither of these criteria fit canonical Matthew, we have early historical evidence against its apostolic authorship. Incidentally, I'm partial to the theory that the sayings source Q was the gospel Papias knew of, and canonical Matthew may have been written by a follower of Matthew - seems the best explanation for the misattribution, to my mind.

Contrasted with this in the case of John, I've found no early historical evidence disputing its apostolic authorship, and even before Irenaeus we have the belief that it was written by John found even among non-orthodox Christians. Justin Martyr does not name an author for any gospel, but quotes John alongside the other three. Moreover, though it's quite possible that John knew of Luke, the fourth gospel seems to very much reflect the author rather than the source/s. Self-reference is made in the form of the 'beloved disciple,' and his dead brother is not named either - very curious that two of Jesus' top three would be omitted, unless it was indeed the work of John. Both historical evidence and the character of the work seem to suggest that it was written by the apostle.

One of the main things that convinces me that it was not the Apostle John is the exclusive use of the Septuagint as a source. Through out the entire work, John uses the term 'I am' to donate a connection to divinity. Someone familar with the Hebrew and Aramaic would realize that would be a mistranslation of Genesis, and would know that it was referring to 'I will be what i will be' , not "I am what I am".

A good point (which I'll take your word on for now). But I wonder if John's readers were familiar with the Hebrew and Aramaic scriptures? If I had been raised an independent Baptist on the good ol' KJV morning noon and night, would my use of the NKJV or NIV in posting on discussion forums suggest that I had not, in fact, been immersed in the KJV while younger?

In fact in this case not only would it make some sense to use the Septuagint version his readers were familiar with - avoiding all the puzzled expressions when Jesus proudly declares "when Abraham was, I WILL BE" - but it'd also save John himself the effort of translating each passage of choice into Greek. I don't think we can reasonably infer, from the use of a bible version which local Christian gatherings at Ephesus probably used, that the author must not have been Galilean.

There are also some concepts and language that would be very outrageous for any Jewish person of that time frame (I am the bread of life statements is very non-Jewish and very Pagan). While I would expect any new writing breaking with tradition would have changes, I would expect to see some kind of connection with the person's original tradition.. and in this case, the tradition appears to be Pagan, not Jewish.

There is also the connection to the very Hellenistic concepts (Philo's Logos for example) , rather than the Jerusalem traditions

I agree that the early Christians were breaking from mainstream Jewish tradition, and I'd say that there are many connections with Jewish tradition in the gospel as well as some non-Jewish. Whether we might infer from this that the author had Pagan roots or Jewish roots would be a rather subjective judgement call in my opinion. However I've noted a couple of points on this issue already in this thread:

• Religion: Out of the Desert (Time magazine, 1957)
  The Essene scrolls are closer in feeling and language to the Gospel of St. John than to any other part of the New Testament. And words that seem almost like a paraphrase of John's famous Prologue occur in the Rule of the Community: "And by His knowledge, everything has been brought into being. And everything that is, He established by His purpose; and apart from Him nothing is done." Professor William F. Albright of Johns Hopkins has pointed out that many phrases are duplicated in both, and in both the dualistic coupling of opposites recurs again and again " light and darkness, truth and error, spirit and flesh, death and life. The parallels and similarities are, in fact, so numerous and conclusive that they seriously challenge the theory that the Gospel of John was the latest to be written and that it shows marked Greek influence. Instead, many modern scholars now view John as thoroughly Jewish and his Gospel perhaps the earliest of the four.
  
  From a post by Student:
  As for Johns Greek, according to Wallace [Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament; p.30], the range of literary levels of the NT authors is as follows: Most semitic / vulgar : Revelation, Mark, John, 1-3 John, 2 Peter...

John's gospel, more than the others, names several of the Jewish feasts. In chapter 2 the author suggests it was some 46 years between the beginning of construction on Herod's temple to the beginning of Jesus' ministry (c18 BCE to 29CE), a curious bit of trivia for a gentile writing decades after its destruction. In chapter 4 the author knows of hostility between Jews and Samaritans, whilst acknowledging similarities in the origins of their culture/religion. In chapter 5 the author is apparently accurate in his description of the healing pool of Bethesda. Accurate? Relevant as far as implying the author's cultural heritage? Like I say, we might choose to stack all those tidbits on one side or the other, but one way or the other I'm not sure it could ever be particularly convincing as an argument unto itself.

On this topic however, for a long time I've been interested in the outlandish theory that the opening verses of the gospel may in fact be based on Hindu scriptures, with an appropriate shift in theological emphasis. From the Tandya Maha Brahmana, or Pancavimsa Brahmana 20.14.2:

• Prajapati (at the beginning) was alone this (universe) ;
  In the beginning was the Word,
  
  the Word was his only (possession) : the Word was the second (that existed).
  and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
  
  He thought : Let me emit this Word, it will pervade this whole (universe) '. He emitted the Word and it pervaded this whole (universe).
  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

There's actually much closer translations floating around the internet too, as these things do, but I haven't found them referenced more specifically than to 'the Vedas.' The earliest such reference I've found comes from Garland of Letters; Studies in the Mantra Sastra, by Sir John Woodroffe (1922). There's a pdf version here, though it's worth noting the author also refers to the Pancavimsa Brahmana passage separately:

• These are the very words of Veda. Prajpatir vai
  ida m st: In the beginning was Brahman. Tasya vg
  dvity st; with whom was Vk or the Word; ... Vg vai paramam
  Brahma; and the word is Brahman.

You've no doubt come across claims that the apostle Thomas or even Jesus himself traveled to India in their day. As far as I know it's all rather inconclusive, but it is an interesting basis for speculation. If by some chance it were the case that the author of John adapted a Hindu passage for his own uses, I'd suggest that far from casting any particular doubt on his Jewish identity (for surely in no scenario would we say the author was Indian!) it could instead suggest in the wake of his Messiah's advent and the temple's destruction a rather broad-minded approach to faith; a sense of wonder in finding elements of Jehovah's truth in many cultures and faiths.

[S-word]

....You've no doubt come across claims that the apostle Thomas or even Jesus himself traveled to India in their day. As far as I know it's all rather inconclusive, but it is an interesting basis for speculation. If by some chance it were the case that the author of John adapted a Hindu passage for his own uses, I'd suggest that far from casting any particular doubt on his Jewish identity (for surely in no scenario would we say the author was Indian!) it could instead suggest in the wake of his Messiah's advent and the temple's destruction a rather broad-minded approach to faith; a sense of wonder in finding elements of Jehovah's truth in many cultures and faiths.

Matthew 10: 1-4; Among the Apostles, is James the son of Zebedee, who was put to death by Herod Agrippa who succeeded Herod Antipas the son of Herod the Great, and Herod Agrippa ruled from 37 to 44 AD.

The other James who was an Apostle named in Matthew 10: 1-4; is James the son of Alpheaus/Cleophas, who Paul names as the brother of the Lord and the only exception of all the Apostles that he saw when he returned to Jerusalem. And of James the son of Alpheaus, who was the first to sit on the Episcopal throne of the Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, we learn from Josephus, Eusebius, and Hegesippus, that he was murdered in 62 AD, at the instigation of one of the same Sadducee sect that had his brother Jesus murdered, and that James the righteous was succeeded by Simeon the son of Cleophas/Alpheaus.

The Greek "Cleophas=Of a renown father." The Aramaic "Alpheaus=Of a renown father, are one and the same person. Alpheaus, who is the father of the apostle James, who Paul calls the Lord's brother, is Cleophas the father of James the younger of Mary'e three biological sons, who are Jesus, Joseph, and James the younger, who was sired by Alpheaus/Cleophas. Simeon and Jude, the sons of Alpheaus/Cleophas are the half brothers to James the younger and the step brothers to Jesus and Joseph.

Simeon the son of Cleophas/Alpheaus was succeeded by 13 other Bishops of the circumcision, among who, several others, like Simeon and James, appear to have been blood relatives of Jesus.

In 132 AD, with the second Jewish revolt, the line was extinguished. Epiphanius of Salamis, in his Panarion, mentions Judah Kyriakos, the great grandson of Jude, (Son of Alpheaus/Cleophas and halfbrother to James the brother of the Lord) as the last Jewish Bishop of Jerusalem that lived beyond Bar Kokhbas revolt.

Thomas means TWIN in Aramiac, as does Didymus mean TWIN in Greek. A local tradition of eastern Syria identifies the Apostle Jude with Jude Thomas (The Twin, Aramaic 'Tau'ma') .

Hegesippus, mentions descendants of Jude living in the reign of Domitian, 81-96 AD.
In his book, Historia Ecclesiae Eusebius wrote; But when the same Domitian had commanded the descendants of David should be slain, and ancient tradition says that some of the heretics brought accusations against the descendants of Jude (Said to have been a brother of the saviour according to the flesh) on the grounds that they were of the lineage of David and were related to Christ himself.

Hegesippus relates these facts in the following words; Of the family of the Lord there were still living the grandchildren of Jude (The Twin) who is said to have been the Lords brother according to the flesh.

Matthew 13: 55; "Isn't he the carpenter's son? Isn't Mary his mother, and aren't James, Joseph, Simon and Judas his brothers?

Knowing that in ART, Thomas Didymus Jude, the son of Alpheaus/Cleophas, is depicted with a carpenters rule and square, we must ask the question, "Who is the Carpenter to whom Mary was married at that time, when her family consisted of James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Was it Joseph the son of Jacob from the tribe of Judah, who was her first husband, or was it Alpheaus/Cleophas the second husband of Mary and the Father of James the biological son of Mary and the youngest boy in the family, plus Simon and Jude, who is also called Judas Thomas, meaning twin?

In "The Acts of Thomas, sometime called by its full name, "The Acts of Judas Thomas," 2nd-3rd century CE, "The Apostles cast lots as to where they should go, and to Judas Thomas, twin to Jesus fell India. Judas Thomas was taken to King Goddophares the ruler of Indo-Pathian Kingdom as an architect and carpenter by Habban.

[S-word]

Another point you fail to address is

If the author of the Gospel of John were an eyewitness, presumably the author would have known that Jesus and his compatriots were permitted to enter the synagogues. But at one several points it is stated that those who acknowledged Jesus as the Christ during the life of Jesus were put out of the synagogue. This anachronism is inconceivable as the product of an eyewitness.

Hi Goat, thanks for the reply

I did comment on that - I even made a little smiley face to mock the claim that it's inconceivable for an eyewitness to be inaccurate The gospel was written sometime after the Jewish revolt, which obviously had massive implications for Jews and to a lesser extent for Christians also (particularly Jewish Christians). Many Christians no doubt felt they had good reason to show that their Christ was not connected with any Jewish Messianic aspirations associated with the revolt, and as the article mentions it's believed that around this time Jewish leaders began to more formally dissociate from Jewish Christians (the hypothetical Council of Jamnia). If John had been accustomed to worshiping in the local synagogue at Ephesus, being refused that right may well have had a profound effect on him; or else his writing may simply be reflecting the broader themes of his time.

Either way, it's one of the most basic principles of new testament criticism that we can often learn or infer as much (and sometimes more) about the author's own time and concerns as about the time and events he's attempting to portray. An argument which flatly denies this principle is, in my opinion, rather weak.

It seems you are taking a contrary position from mainstream biblical scholarship. And, it isn't the 'Ireanus's claim alone, but the fact that there is a very strong contention between various early church fathers that are contradictory.

One point you seem to have missed was from that page from Early Christian writings..

Helms argues: "So the gospel attributed, late in the second century, to John at Ephesus was viewed as an anti-gnostic, anti-Cerinthean work. But, very strangely, Epiphanius, in his book against the heretics, argues against those who actually believed that it was Cerinthus himself who wrote the Gospel of John! (Adv. Haer. 51.3.6). How could it be that the Fourth Gospel was at one time in its history regarded as the product of an Egyptian-trained gnostic, and at another time in its history regarded as composed for the very purpose of attacking this same gnostic? I think the answer is plausible that in an early, now-lost version, the Fourth Gospel could well have been read in a Cerinthean, gnostic fashion, but that at Ephesus a revision of it was produced (we now call it the Gospel of John) that put this gospel back into the Christian mainstream."

This difference of opinion so early in the time frame tells me that there was disagreement about that right from the beginning , which makes me feel that the side of 'it was John the apostle is a very weak case.

I answered that point also, but perhaps not very clearly. Epiphanius wrote at the end of the fourth century CE, so it's not a difference of opinion early in the time-frame. The opinions of fourth-century Gnostics are no more a valid source of historical information on John than the opinions of fourth-century orthodox Christians are. It's interesting how well Helms glosses over that minor detail, describing it simply as "at one time in its history" and putting the fourth-century information first!

And of course, I even pointed out that second-century Gnostics apparently attributed the gospel to John also, which not only completely invalidates that argument but provides strong additional support for the orthodox view. Irenaeus (c. 180CE) quotes a text of the Valentinians as follows:

• 5. Further, they teach that John, the disciple of the Lord, indicated the first Ogdoad, expressing themselves in these words: John, the disciple of the Lord, wishing to set forth the origin of all things, so as to explain how the Father produced the whole, lays down a certain principle,"that, namely, which was first-begotten by God, which Being he has termed both the only-begotten Son and God...

And in fact, from Irenaeus' quotation we can even get a hint of the minor differences between John as the Gnostics used it and our canonical John:

• Thus, then, did John by these words reveal both other things and the second Tetrad, Logos and Zoe, Anthropos and Ecclesia. And still further, he also indicated the first Tetrad. For, in discoursing of the Saviour and declaring that all things beyond the Pleroma received form from Him, he says that He is the fruit of the entire Pleroma. For he styles Him a light which shineth in darkness, and which was not comprehended by it, inasmuch as, when He imparted form to all those things which had their origin from passion, He was not known by it. He also styles Him Son, and Aletheia, and Zoe, and the Word made flesh, whose glory, he says, we beheld; and His glory was as that of the Only-begotten (given to Him by the Father), full of grace and truth. (But what John really does say is this: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.) Thus, then, does he [according to them] distinctly set forth the first Tetrad, when he speaks of the Father, and Charis, and Monogenes, and Aletheia. In this way, too, does John tell of the first Ogdoad, and that which is the mother of all the ons. For he mentions the Father, and Charis, and Monogenes, and Aletheia, and Logos, and Zoe, and Anthropos, and Ecclesia. Such are the views of Ptolemus.

Similarly, quoting a disciple of Valentinus, we find in Origen's work preserved fragments of Heracleon's (c. 170CE) Commentary on John:

• The words, No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known, were spoken, not by the Baptist, but by the disciple.

It seems that even before the first extant orthodox attribution of the gospel to John by Irenaeus, the Gnostics likewise recognised that he was the one who'd written it. In my opinion, this is rather strong evidence further confirming the claim by the gospel itself and by the author of the appendix.

If you are scorning a 4th century attribution, certainly a very late 2nd century attribution is not that much more accurate.

I would say that I will have to agree with modern scholarship, and the claim of 'who wrote' john is very much in the air. I mean, those sources attributed the Gospel of Matthew to Matthew, and no credible biblical scholar believes that these days.

One of the main things that convinces me that it was not the Apostle John is the exclusive use of the Septuagint as a source. Through out the entire work, John uses the term 'I am' to donate a connection to divinity. Someone familar with the Hebrew and Aramaic would realize that would be a mistranslation of Genesis, and would know that it was referring to 'I will be what i will be' , not "I am what I am".

There are also some concepts and language that would be very outrageous for any Jewish person of that time frame (I am the bread of life statements is very non-Jewish and very Pagan). While I would expect any new writing breaking with tradition would have changes, I would expect to see some kind of connection with the person's original tradition.. and in this case, the tradition appears to be Pagan, not Jewish.

There is also the connection to the very Hellenistic concepts (Philo's Logos for example) , rather than the Jerusalem traditions

Because of the maturity of James the younger, the brother of Jesus the biological son of Joseph the Levite son of Heli, it becomes apparent that Mary must have Married Cleophas/Alpheaus shortly after she had given birth to her second son, "Joseph," who is not the son of Cleophas/Alpheaus, so we can be reasonably certain that the Joseph, of who we are told so little, must have been the son of Joseph from the tribe of Judah, who we are told, had no sexual relations with Mary until she had given birth to her firstborn son, Jesus the son of Joseph the Levite, and neither would they have consummated their union, until Mary had performed the ceremony of the purification of the loss of her blood, which was, according to the law of Moses, 41 days after the birth of Jesus.

Although Luke recounts an event which happen when Jesus was about 12 years old, where we are told that the parents of Jesus searched three days for Jesus who they had mislaid, Luke does not mention the name of his father, but when Mary his mother, said to him, Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been terribly worried trying to find you. But his parents, knowing who his biological father was, did not have a clue as to what he was on about, when he answered, Why did you have to look for me? Didnt you know I had to be in my Fathers house? They didnt understand his answer, but his mother kept all these things in her memory.

Bear with me here, we WILL get to John the author of the Gospel of John.

I believe that the mother of James and John the sons of Zebedee, is Salome the oldest of the sisters of Jesus, who are mentioned in Matthew 13: 55; and that it was his sister Salome who asked her brother Jesus, if James and John could sit on the right and left of his throne. As Mary was only 14 when she fell pregnant with Jesus, if Salome was the about the same age when she birthed her first son James, he would have been about 16 I suppose when Jesus was 33, and John his beloved nephew and disciple would have been around 14 years old.

I believe that there is enough circumstantial evidence in scripture to support the belief that Joseph the son of Jacob from the tribe of Judah divorced his wife Mary after she had given birth to his son, and that he then raised his son, Joseph, by himself or with another wife, in the town of Arimathea.

The gospel stories are too condensed to be bothered adding trivia, such as, Joseph of Arimathea, buried Jesus in HIS OWN FAMILY TOMB THAT HAD NEVER BEEN USED. Unless it was placed there as a key to unlock another secret that is hidden in the word of God.

Knowing from scripture that Mary had remarried and had bore James the younger of her three biological sons, to Alpheaus/Cleophas, we must now ask the question, did Joseph, Marys first husband and Father to young Joseph the second son of Mary of whom we know so little, DIE, or was he still alive at the time of the death of Jesus, the son of Joseph the son of Heli, from the tribe of Levi?

If this was the case, and the Joseph of Arimathea, who is believed to be the half-brother of Jesus, who laid the body of his brother in his own family tomb which had never been used, which would suggest that his father was still alive, then we would be faced with the fact that Joseph must have divorced Mary at some period, issuing her with a bill of divorce, a copy of which, would have been kept in the filing systems of the scribes in the Temple, and it would appear that Joseph had raised his son by himself: this being the reason why so little is known of Joseph the son of Mary.

But if Mary had remarried while her past husband was still alive, which was absolutely legal according to the law of Moses, she would have been seen to be living in a state of adultery according to the new and controversial teaching of Jesus, which stated that anyone who remarries while their current spouse is still alive, they are committing adultery, and the Jewish authorities would have been right onto him.

This of course is exactly what we see in scripture. The religious authorities of those days were always looking for ways that they might trap Jesus according to his own teaching and then accuse him to the people, and it was after Jesus had been preaching that if a divorced person remarried while their original spouse was still alive, they were committing adultery, that the hypocritical priests having access to the documents in the Temple, thought that they had the means whereby they could make Jesus appear to the people to have one law for himself and another for everyone else.

Pointing to his mother, who was among the crowd who were listening to the great teacher who was setting Israel on fire, they said to Jesus in their most patronising voice, Teacher, this woman has been caught in the very act of adultery. (This was according to the new teaching of Jesus) In our law Moses commanded that such a woman must be stoned to death. Now, what do you say? They said this in order to trap Jesus and accuse him to the people.

Jesus knew what those hypocrites were up to, those hypocrites who thought nothing of stoning the innocent Stephen to death, were bound by the law of Moses to stone this woman to death if she had indeed been caught in the very act of sexual intercourse with a man other than He, to who she was legally married at that time, which was not the case, as she was guilty of no crime according to the temporal laws of the land.

Jesus turned the tables on them by saying, He who is without sin may cast the first stone. Then he bent down and wrote something in the dust, Perhaps he may have written, As ye judge, so shall ye be judged. Most men in those days, who had been given by Moses the right to issue their wives with a bill of divorce, had done so and taken younger wives, and according to the new teaching of Jesus would have been as guilty as the woman that they were accusing, and the hypocrites knowing full well that the woman had not broken the Law of Moses and was innocent of any crime according to their own teachings, they were forced to walk away with their tails between their legs, thereby admitting to the people that they were not without sin.

Jesus then turned to his mother and asked, Is there no one left to condemn you? No one Lord she answered. Well then, said Jesus, I do not condemn you either. Go, but dont sin again, and it was for this reason that the mother of Jesus chose to remain separate from her husband Cleophas and his children, Simeon, Judas, and James the younger: and this is the reason why, on the cross, Jesus entrusted his mother, Mary the wife of Cleophas, into the care of his beloved disciple an nephew the young lad, John.

Her husband Cleophas/Alpheaus and his sons, James, Simeon and Jude, did not abandon Mary, but rather, it was she who abandoned them, in obedience to her firstborn.

Young John, who Jesus had surnamed Son of Thunder, Is identified with young John who was surnamed, Mark, which name means Hammer, or the Hammerer. After the death of Jesus, Joseph the Levite who had come from Cyprus, who had a half sister by the name Mary, the mother of John, who was surnamed Mark and he, Joseph the son of Heli the father of Mary, took his half sister and young John up north into the land of Pamphylia, where today, in the town of Ephesus, you can visit the ancient grave sites of Mary and John, from whose written memoirs the Gospel of John was written.

[S-word]

And of course, I even pointed out that second-century Gnostics apparently attributed the gospel to John also, which not only completely invalidates that argument but provides strong additional support for the orthodox view. Irenaeus (c. 180CE) quotes a text of the Valentinians as follows:

• 5. Further, they teach that John, the disciple of the Lord, indicated the first Ogdoad, expressing themselves in these words: John, the disciple of the Lord, wishing to set forth the origin of all things, so as to explain how the Father produced the whole, lays down a certain principle,"that, namely, which was first-begotten by God, which Being he has termed both the only-begotten Son and God...

And in fact, from Irenaeus' quotation we can even get a hint of the minor differences between John as the Gnostics used it and our canonical John:

• Thus, then, did John by these words reveal both other things and the second Tetrad, Logos and Zoe, Anthropos and Ecclesia. And still further, he also indicated the first Tetrad. For, in discoursing of the Saviour and declaring that all things beyond the Pleroma received form from Him, he says that He is the fruit of the entire Pleroma. For he styles Him a light which shineth in darkness, and which was not comprehended by it, inasmuch as, when He imparted form to all those things which had their origin from passion, He was not known by it. He also styles Him Son, and Aletheia, and Zoe, and the Word made flesh, whose glory, he says, we beheld; and His glory was as that of the Only-begotten (given to Him by the Father), full of grace and truth. (But what John really does say is this: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.) Thus, then, does he [according to them] distinctly set forth the first Tetrad, when he speaks of the Father, and Charis, and Monogenes, and Aletheia. In this way, too, does John tell of the first Ogdoad, and that which is the mother of all the ons. For he mentions the Father, and Charis, and Monogenes, and Aletheia, and Logos, and Zoe, and Anthropos, and Ecclesia. Such are the views of Ptolemus.

Similarly, quoting a disciple of Valentinus, we find in Origen's work preserved fragments of Heracleon's (c. 170CE) Commentary on John:

• The words, No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known, were spoken, not by the Baptist, but by the disciple.

It seems that even before the first extant orthodox attribution of the gospel to John by Irenaeus, the Gnostics likewise recognised that he was the one who'd written it. In my opinion, this is rather strong evidence further confirming the claim by the gospel itself and by the author of the appendix.

If you are scorning a 4th century attribution, certainly a very late 2nd century attribution is not that much more accurate.

Hi Goat, figured I should get 'round to replying to your comments at some point

Hopefully without nitpicking too much, I'd say that c170CE for Heracleon or perhaps as early as 140-160CE for the Ptolemaeus quoted by Irenaeus is closer to mid-second century than late (or certainly very late). Irenaeus himself claimed that while young he'd heard from Polycarp, who had allegedly known the apostle John. Even if true that's hardly water-tight verification of any whispers passed along that chain, but even if false it's obviously a lot better than anything from another two hundred years later.

I would say that I will have to agree with modern scholarship, and the claim of 'who wrote' john is very much in the air. I mean, those sources attributed the Gospel of Matthew to Matthew, and no credible biblical scholar believes that these days.

True in the case of Irenaeus, but regarding Matthew there's two very good reasons for that (and some lesser ones):

Firstly, the generally-accepted fact that 'Matthew' copies the account of his own call by Jesus from Mark's account. It would seem strange if a disciple had nothing much to add in the way of content or perspective regarding the turning point of his whole life, even if the earlier account came second hand from Peter. Secondly, the earliest reference to a gospel by Matthew is from Papias, but it refers to the "sayings of Jesus" written in the tongue of the Hebrews. Since neither of these criteria fit canonical Matthew, we have early historical evidence against its apostolic authorship. Incidentally, I'm partial to the theory that the sayings source Q was the gospel Papias knew of, and canonical Matthew may have been written by a follower of Matthew - seems the best explanation for the misattribution, to my mind.

Contrasted with this in the case of John, I've found no early historical evidence disputing its apostolic authorship, and even before Irenaeus we have the belief that it was written by John found even among non-orthodox Christians. Justin Martyr does not name an author for any gospel, but quotes John alongside the other three. Moreover, though it's quite possible that John knew of Luke, the fourth gospel seems to very much reflect the author rather than the source/s. Self-reference is made in the form of the 'beloved disciple,' and his dead brother is not named either - very curious that two of Jesus' top three would be omitted, unless it was indeed the work of John. Both historical evidence and the character of the work seem to suggest that it was written by the apostle.

One of the main things that convinces me that it was not the Apostle John is the exclusive use of the Septuagint as a source. Through out the entire work, John uses the term 'I am' to donate a connection to divinity. Someone familar with the Hebrew and Aramaic would realize that would be a mistranslation of Genesis, and would know that it was referring to 'I will be what i will be' , not "I am what I am".

A good point (which I'll take your word on for now). But I wonder if John's readers were familiar with the Hebrew and Aramaic scriptures? If I had been raised an independent Baptist on the good ol' KJV morning noon and night, would my use of the NKJV or NIV in posting on discussion forums suggest that I had not, in fact, been immersed in the KJV while younger?

In fact in this case not only would it make some sense to use the Septuagint version his readers were familiar with - avoiding all the puzzled expressions when Jesus proudly declares "when Abraham was, I WILL BE" - but it'd also save John himself the effort of translating each passage of choice into Greek. I don't think we can reasonably infer, from the use of a bible version which local Christian gatherings at Ephesus probably used, that the author must not have been Galilean.

There are also some concepts and language that would be very outrageous for any Jewish person of that time frame (I am the bread of life statements is very non-Jewish and very Pagan). While I would expect any new writing breaking with tradition would have changes, I would expect to see some kind of connection with the person's original tradition.. and in this case, the tradition appears to be Pagan, not Jewish.

There is also the connection to the very Hellenistic concepts (Philo's Logos for example) , rather than the Jerusalem traditions

I agree that the early Christians were breaking from mainstream Jewish tradition, and I'd say that there are many connections with Jewish tradition in the gospel as well as some non-Jewish. Whether we might infer from this that the author had Pagan roots or Jewish roots would be a rather subjective judgement call in my opinion. However I've noted a couple of points on this issue already in this thread:

• Religion: Out of the Desert (Time magazine, 1957)
  The Essene scrolls are closer in feeling and language to the Gospel of St. John than to any other part of the New Testament. And words that seem almost like a paraphrase of John's famous Prologue occur in the Rule of the Community: "And by His knowledge, everything has been brought into being. And everything that is, He established by His purpose; and apart from Him nothing is done." Professor William F. Albright of Johns Hopkins has pointed out that many phrases are duplicated in both, and in both the dualistic coupling of opposites recurs again and again " light and darkness, truth and error, spirit and flesh, death and life. The parallels and similarities are, in fact, so numerous and conclusive that they seriously challenge the theory that the Gospel of John was the latest to be written and that it shows marked Greek influence. Instead, many modern scholars now view John as thoroughly Jewish and his Gospel perhaps the earliest of the four.
  
  From a post by Student:
  As for Johns Greek, according to Wallace [Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament; p.30], the range of literary levels of the NT authors is as follows: Most semitic / vulgar : Revelation, Mark, John, 1-3 John, 2 Peter...

John's gospel, more than the others, names several of the Jewish feasts. In chapter 2 the author suggests it was some 46 years between the beginning of construction on Herod's temple to the beginning of Jesus' ministry (c18 BCE to 29CE), a curious bit of trivia for a gentile writing decades after its destruction. In chapter 4 the author knows of hostility between Jews and Samaritans, whilst acknowledging similarities in the origins of their culture/religion. In chapter 5 the author is apparently accurate in his description of the healing pool of Bethesda. Accurate? Relevant as far as implying the author's cultural heritage? Like I say, we might choose to stack all those tidbits on one side or the other, but one way or the other I'm not sure it could ever be particularly convincing as an argument unto itself.

On this topic however, for a long time I've been interested in the outlandish theory that the opening verses of the gospel may in fact be based on Hindu scriptures, with an appropriate shift in theological emphasis. From the Tandya Maha Brahmana, or Pancavimsa Brahmana 20.14.2:

• Prajapati (at the beginning) was alone this (universe) ;
  In the beginning was the Word,
  
  the Word was his only (possession) : the Word was the second (that existed).
  and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
  
  He thought : Let me emit this Word, it will pervade this whole (universe) '. He emitted the Word and it pervaded this whole (universe).
  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

There's actually much closer translations floating around the internet too, as these things do, but I haven't found them referenced more specifically than to 'the Vedas.' The earliest such reference I've found comes from Garland of Letters; Studies in the Mantra Sastra, by Sir John Woodroffe (1922). There's a pdf version here, though it's worth noting the author also refers to the Pancavimsa Brahmana passage separately:

• These are the very words of Veda. Prajpatir vai
  ida m st: In the beginning was Brahman. Tasya vg
  dvity st; with whom was Vk or the Word; ... Vg vai paramam
  Brahma; and the word is Brahman.

You've no doubt come across claims that the apostle Thomas or even Jesus himself traveled to India in their day. As far as I know it's all rather inconclusive, but it is an interesting basis for speculation. If by some chance it were the case that the author of John adapted a Hindu passage for his own uses, I'd suggest that far from casting any particular doubt on his Jewish identity (for surely in no scenario would we say the author was Indian!) it could instead suggest in the wake of his Messiah's advent and the temple's destruction a rather broad-minded approach to faith; a sense of wonder in finding elements of Jehovah's truth in many cultures and faiths.

In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and was God. The same was in the beginning with the singularity that is God. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was Life, (A supreme personality of Godhead) and that life was the light of Man, (All the wisdom, knowledge, and insight gained from the body of mankind, The Son of Man, who descended to the beginning of time, when the previous world was condensed back into the infinitely dense, infinitely hot infinitesimally small singularity of origin.

Universe after universe is like an interminable succession of wheels forever coming into view, forever rolling onwards, disappearing and reappearing; forever passing from being to non being, and again from non being to being. In short, the constant revolving of the wheel of life in one eternal cycle, according to fixed and immutable laws, is perhaps after all the sum and substance of the philosophy of Buddhism. And this eternal wheel has so to speak, six spokes representing six forms of existence. ---- Mon. Williams, Buddhism, pp. 229, 122.

The days and nights of Brahma are called Manvantara or the cycle of manifestation, The Great Day, which is a period of universal activity, that is preceded, and also followed by Pralaya, a dark period, which to our finite minds seems as an eternity. Manvantara, is a creative day as seen in the six days of creation in Genesis, Pralaya, is the evening that proceeds the next creative day. The six periods of Creation and the seventh day of rest in which we now exist are referred to in the book of Genesis as the generations of the universe.

The English word Generation, is translated from the Hebrew toledoth which is used in the Old Testament in every instance as births, or descendants, such as These are the generations of Adam, or these are the generations of Abraham, and Genesis 2: 4; These are the generations of the Universe or the heavens and earth, etc. And the Great Day in which the seven generations of the universe are eternally repeated, is the eternal cosmic period, or the eighth eternal day in which those who attain to perfection are allowed to enter, where they shall be surrounded by great light and they shall experience eternal peace. While those who do not attain to perfection are cast back into the refining fires of the seven physical cycles that perpetually revolve within the eighth eternal cosmic cycle.

The first day, or rather the first generation of the universe as we know it today, was only Light. Massive first generation stars, and evening descended when those stars imploded in upon themselves and the gravitational holes swallowed each other and were condensed back into the infinitely dense, infinitely hot, infinitesimally small singularity of origin, which singularity, would later be spatially separated once again and the second generation of the universe would come into existence etc.

He who had ascended to the ends of the heavens, has chosen we of his resurrected glorious body of Light, even before we were born into this world.

A series of worlds following one upon the other,-- each world rising a step higher than the previous world, so that every later world brings to ripeness the seeds that were imbedded in the former, and itself then prepares the seed for the universe that will follow it. Every universe from the first to the last, from the smallest to the greatest, which have been created throughout the aeons of eternity, still exist in their independent Space-Time positions within the eternal and boundless cosmos.

The New international Version, the Scofield Referrence Bible, and the Companion Bible, all note that the phase in Genesis 1: 2; The earth was formless and void (Having neither shape or mass) should be correctly translated, The earth became without form and void. The Hebrew word Hayah translated was, means To become, occur, come to pass, Be. (Vines Complete Expository of Old and New Testament Words, 1985. To Be.)

But Im getting to old to be sitting up to this hour every night, Im off to bed, catch youse all later.

BTW, you do know that scripture tells us that it was the custom of the apostles, after the death of Jesus, to gather with the women and the mother of Jesus in prayer, and the night that Peter was miraculously released from prison, he ran straight to the house where he knew the followers would be gathered in prayer for his safe deliverance. Straight to the house of Mary, the mother of young John who had been surnamed "Mark, the Hammer" from whose memoirs, the gospel of John was written, got to stick with the OP. Night, night mates.

[S-word]

And of course, I even pointed out that second-century Gnostics apparently attributed the gospel to John also, which not only completely invalidates that argument but provides strong additional support for the orthodox view. Irenaeus (c. 180CE) quotes a text of the Valentinians as follows:

• 5. Further, they teach that John, the disciple of the Lord, indicated the first Ogdoad, expressing themselves in these words: John, the disciple of the Lord, wishing to set forth the origin of all things, so as to explain how the Father produced the whole, lays down a certain principle,"that, namely, which was first-begotten by God, which Being he has termed both the only-begotten Son and God...

And in fact, from Irenaeus' quotation we can even get a hint of the minor differences between John as the Gnostics used it and our canonical John:

• Thus, then, did John by these words reveal both other things and the second Tetrad, Logos and Zoe, Anthropos and Ecclesia. And still further, he also indicated the first Tetrad. For, in discoursing of the Saviour and declaring that all things beyond the Pleroma received form from Him, he says that He is the fruit of the entire Pleroma. For he styles Him a light which shineth in darkness, and which was not comprehended by it, inasmuch as, when He imparted form to all those things which had their origin from passion, He was not known by it. He also styles Him Son, and Aletheia, and Zoe, and the Word made flesh, whose glory, he says, we beheld; and His glory was as that of the Only-begotten (given to Him by the Father), full of grace and truth. (But what John really does say is this: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.) Thus, then, does he [according to them] distinctly set forth the first Tetrad, when he speaks of the Father, and Charis, and Monogenes, and Aletheia. In this way, too, does John tell of the first Ogdoad, and that which is the mother of all the ons. For he mentions the Father, and Charis, and Monogenes, and Aletheia, and Logos, and Zoe, and Anthropos, and Ecclesia. Such are the views of Ptolemus.

Similarly, quoting a disciple of Valentinus, we find in Origen's work preserved fragments of Heracleon's (c. 170CE) Commentary on John:

• The words, No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known, were spoken, not by the Baptist, but by the disciple.

It seems that even before the first extant orthodox attribution of the gospel to John by Irenaeus, the Gnostics likewise recognised that he was the one who'd written it. In my opinion, this is rather strong evidence further confirming the claim by the gospel itself and by the author of the appendix.

If you are scorning a 4th century attribution, certainly a very late 2nd century attribution is not that much more accurate.

Hi Goat, figured I should get 'round to replying to your comments at some point

Hopefully without nitpicking too much, I'd say that c170CE for Heracleon or perhaps as early as 140-160CE for the Ptolemaeus quoted by Irenaeus is closer to mid-second century than late (or certainly very late). Irenaeus himself claimed that while young he'd heard from Polycarp, who had allegedly known the apostle John. Even if true that's hardly water-tight verification of any whispers passed along that chain, but even if false it's obviously a lot better than anything from another two hundred years later.

I would say that I will have to agree with modern scholarship, and the claim of 'who wrote' john is very much in the air. I mean, those sources attributed the Gospel of Matthew to Matthew, and no credible biblical scholar believes that these days.

True in the case of Irenaeus, but regarding Matthew there's two very good reasons for that (and some lesser ones):

Firstly, the generally-accepted fact that 'Matthew' copies the account of his own call by Jesus from Mark's account. It would seem strange if a disciple had nothing much to add in the way of content or perspective regarding the turning point of his whole life, even if the earlier account came second hand from Peter. Secondly, the earliest reference to a gospel by Matthew is from Papias, but it refers to the "sayings of Jesus" written in the tongue of the Hebrews. Since neither of these criteria fit canonical Matthew, we have early historical evidence against its apostolic authorship. Incidentally, I'm partial to the theory that the sayings source Q was the gospel Papias knew of, and canonical Matthew may have been written by a follower of Matthew - seems the best explanation for the misattribution, to my mind.

Contrasted with this in the case of John, I've found no early historical evidence disputing its apostolic authorship, and even before Irenaeus we have the belief that it was written by John found even among non-orthodox Christians. Justin Martyr does not name an author for any gospel, but quotes John alongside the other three. Moreover, though it's quite possible that John knew of Luke, the fourth gospel seems to very much reflect the author rather than the source/s. Self-reference is made in the form of the 'beloved disciple,' and his dead brother is not named either - very curious that two of Jesus' top three would be omitted, unless it was indeed the work of John. Both historical evidence and the character of the work seem to suggest that it was written by the apostle.

One of the main things that convinces me that it was not the Apostle John is the exclusive use of the Septuagint as a source. Through out the entire work, John uses the term 'I am' to donate a connection to divinity. Someone familar with the Hebrew and Aramaic would realize that would be a mistranslation of Genesis, and would know that it was referring to 'I will be what i will be' , not "I am what I am".

A good point (which I'll take your word on for now). But I wonder if John's readers were familiar with the Hebrew and Aramaic scriptures? If I had been raised an independent Baptist on the good ol' KJV morning noon and night, would my use of the NKJV or NIV in posting on discussion forums suggest that I had not, in fact, been immersed in the KJV while younger?

In fact in this case not only would it make some sense to use the Septuagint version his readers were familiar with - avoiding all the puzzled expressions when Jesus proudly declares "when Abraham was, I WILL BE" - but it'd also save John himself the effort of translating each passage of choice into Greek. I don't think we can reasonably infer, from the use of a bible version which local Christian gatherings at Ephesus probably used, that the author must not have been Galilean.

There are also some concepts and language that would be very outrageous for any Jewish person of that time frame (I am the bread of life statements is very non-Jewish and very Pagan). While I would expect any new writing breaking with tradition would have changes, I would expect to see some kind of connection with the person's original tradition.. and in this case, the tradition appears to be Pagan, not Jewish.

There is also the connection to the very Hellenistic concepts (Philo's Logos for example) , rather than the Jerusalem traditions

I agree that the early Christians were breaking from mainstream Jewish tradition, and I'd say that there are many connections with Jewish tradition in the gospel as well as some non-Jewish. Whether we might infer from this that the author had Pagan roots or Jewish roots would be a rather subjective judgement call in my opinion. However I've noted a couple of points on this issue already in this thread:

• Religion: Out of the Desert (Time magazine, 1957)
  The Essene scrolls are closer in feeling and language to the Gospel of St. John than to any other part of the New Testament. And words that seem almost like a paraphrase of John's famous Prologue occur in the Rule of the Community: "And by His knowledge, everything has been brought into being. And everything that is, He established by His purpose; and apart from Him nothing is done." Professor William F. Albright of Johns Hopkins has pointed out that many phrases are duplicated in both, and in both the dualistic coupling of opposites recurs again and again " light and darkness, truth and error, spirit and flesh, death and life. The parallels and similarities are, in fact, so numerous and conclusive that they seriously challenge the theory that the Gospel of John was the latest to be written and that it shows marked Greek influence. Instead, many modern scholars now view John as thoroughly Jewish and his Gospel perhaps the earliest of the four.
  
  From a post by Student:
  As for Johns Greek, according to Wallace [Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament; p.30], the range of literary levels of the NT authors is as follows: Most semitic / vulgar : Revelation, Mark, John, 1-3 John, 2 Peter...

John's gospel, more than the others, names several of the Jewish feasts. In chapter 2 the author suggests it was some 46 years between the beginning of construction on Herod's temple to the beginning of Jesus' ministry (c18 BCE to 29CE), a curious bit of trivia for a gentile writing decades after its destruction. In chapter 4 the author knows of hostility between Jews and Samaritans, whilst acknowledging similarities in the origins of their culture/religion. In chapter 5 the author is apparently accurate in his description of the healing pool of Bethesda. Accurate? Relevant as far as implying the author's cultural heritage? Like I say, we might choose to stack all those tidbits on one side or the other, but one way or the other I'm not sure it could ever be particularly convincing as an argument unto itself.

On this topic however, for a long time I've been interested in the outlandish theory that the opening verses of the gospel may in fact be based on Hindu scriptures, with an appropriate shift in theological emphasis. From the Tandya Maha Brahmana, or Pancavimsa Brahmana 20.14.2:

• Prajapati (at the beginning) was alone this (universe) ;
  In the beginning was the Word,
  
  the Word was his only (possession) : the Word was the second (that existed).
  and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
  
  He thought : Let me emit this Word, it will pervade this whole (universe) '. He emitted the Word and it pervaded this whole (universe).
  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

There's actually much closer translations floating around the internet too, as these things do, but I haven't found them referenced more specifically than to 'the Vedas.' The earliest such reference I've found comes from Garland of Letters; Studies in the Mantra Sastra, by Sir John Woodroffe (1922). There's a pdf version here, though it's worth noting the author also refers to the Pancavimsa Brahmana passage separately:

• These are the very words of Veda. Prajpatir vai
  ida m st: In the beginning was Brahman. Tasya vg
  dvity st; with whom was Vk or the Word; ... Vg vai paramam
  Brahma; and the word is Brahman.

You've no doubt come across claims that the apostle Thomas or even Jesus himself traveled to India in their day. As far as I know it's all rather inconclusive, but it is an interesting basis for speculation. If by some chance it were the case that the author of John adapted a Hindu passage for his own uses, I'd suggest that far from casting any particular doubt on his Jewish identity (for surely in no scenario would we say the author was Indian!) it could instead suggest in the wake of his Messiah's advent and the temple's destruction a rather broad-minded approach to faith; a sense of wonder in finding elements of Jehovah's truth in many cultures and faiths.

Prajapati (at the beginning) was alone this (universe) ;
In the beginning was the Word,

the Word was his only (possession) : the Word was the second (that existed).
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

He thought : Let me emit this Word, it will pervade this whole (universe) '. He emitted the Word and it pervaded this whole (universe).
All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.


These are the very words of Veda. Prajpatir vai
ida m st: In the beginning was Brahman. Tasya vg
dvity st; with whom was Vk or the Word; ... Vg vai paramam
Brahma; and the word is Brahman.

PRAJAPATI IS Lord of Creatures, and Brahman is the essential divine reality of the universe; the eternal evolving spirit (Information) from which all being originates and to who all returns. The root to the word Brahman is believed to have originally meant Speech Like the word Logos which is translated Word, both, are to be seen as all the information(Invisible spirit) that is gathered in each period of universal activity and which, in the resurrection of the universal body that must return to Brahman, or, all of creation that God is calling back to himself, that gathered spirit is not expressed as the spoken word or speech, but as the re-creation of the universal body from which that information/spirit had been gathered.

At the close of this cycle of universal activity, Krishna, who is the eighth manifestation of Vishnu the saviour, enters into Brahman as the supreme personality of Godhead, and it will be He, who in the next cycle of universal activity, who will be the life and light of man within the Speech=Brahman.