Is the Gospel of John reliable?

[Elijah John]

1) Is the Gospel of John a good, reliable account of the historical Jesus?
2) Did Jesus say everything in that Gospel that was attributed to him?
3) Without the Gospel of John, how can a person make a good case be made that Jesus claimed to be God?

[marco]

One has Caesar speaking at the first blow, one has Caesar silent. One account has as many as eighty senators involved another only names a handful. They contain the supernatural and so on. Using your reasoning at least one of those accounts of Caesar must be unhistorical.

Suetonius was born more than 100 years after Caesar died. In what way does his history compare with John's account if John is claimed to have been an eye witness?
We EXPECT differences from various historians writing in different periods. We should expect John to give a vividly accurate account. Suetonius and the others were educated, and they often put gossip over fact; John was able to tell one fish from another but would hardly distinguish one Greek verb from another.

[marco]

You might be seeing more depth and philosophical sophistication in comments like "I am the gate of the sheep" than I do.

No, I am seeing more philosophical thought in John's Prologue where he uses light in a Platonic sense. The balance of his ideas expressed in the Prologue, at least in translation, is masterly.

When you quote:

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."
you are, by your own proposition, quoting Christ, for John is the witness to what Christ said and did. Therefore any flaws in this reported narrative are Christ's.

Jesus is a 'good' shepherd, was it? And he... don't tell me... does he lay down his life?

You do understand you are reinforcing the view that Jesus never uttered these words? They were constructed by someone claiming to be John.

Your reasoning seems fallacious on both counts, both praise for the content of the gospel and disdain for the intelligence of those not well-educated in childhood, and while I'm surely open to correction on the former the latter will never be sound; even if only one in a thousand fishermen ever achieve literacy in a foreign language, that does nothing to change or refute the evidence indicating that John was one of those few.

I am certainly not claiming that illiterates can find literacy in another language. I am saying, and I think quite clearly and correctly, that somebody raised to fish all his life, and described as stupid, almost as a matter of course, MIGHT pick up enough Greek to make himself understood. He would not start a narrative: 'In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God.' I have a good idea how difficult it is to compose in another language, when one is of average intelligence. You may reduce the gospel to pedestrian stuff to suit your point of view, but it is of sufficient quality to disqualify an uneducated man from having written it.

In saying all this I am not making some universal statement about the impossibility of poor Tom rising to be Chaucer or Einstein; that happens not infrequently. I just don't believe it happened in the case of poor John.

We must simply agree to disagree.

[Mithrae]

You might be seeing more depth and philosophical sophistication in comments like "I am the gate of the sheep" than I do.

No, I am seeing more philosophical thought in John's Prologue where he uses light in a Platonic sense. The balance of his ideas expressed in the Prologue, at least in translation, is masterly.

I would guess he was more indebted to folk like Isaiah and Philo Judaeus than Plato for the core ideas there.

When you quote:
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."
you are, by your own proposition, quoting Christ, for John is the witness to what Christ said and did. Therefore any flaws in this reported narrative are Christ's.

Jesus is a 'good' shepherd, was it? And he... don't tell me... does he lay down his life?

You do understand you are reinforcing the view that Jesus never uttered these words? They were constructed by someone claiming to be John.

Which is it? Am I quoting Jesus, or am I reinforcing the view that Jesus never uttered those words? I certainly understand the view that I have expressed more than once in this thread; that "John should not be treated as a reliable source... [regarding] the exact words John puts in Jesus' mouth, those rambling monologues being one of the biggest reasons for concluding that historical accuracy was not the author's main focus." It's not so easy to understand what kind of criticism you're making here.

Your reasoning seems fallacious on both counts, both praise for the content of the gospel and disdain for the intelligence of those not well-educated in childhood, and while I'm surely open to correction on the former the latter will never be sound; even if only one in a thousand fishermen ever achieve literacy in a foreign language, that does nothing to change or refute the evidence indicating that John was one of those few.

I am certainly not claiming that illiterates can find literacy in another language. I am saying, and I think quite clearly and correctly, that somebody raised to fish all his life, and described as stupid, almost as a matter of course, MIGHT pick up enough Greek to make himself understood.

Saying that a fellow who'd lived two or three decades, met his teacher, then spent another fifty-odd years communicating the good news about his teacher in Palestine and beyond was "raised to fish all his life" is not a claim which I would describe as 'correct' by any definition of the word. Nor is the assumption that John was illiterate purely based on his family's trade: Writing the words of the covenant is commanded in what has become one of the central prayers of Judaism, the Shema (Deut. 6:9, 11:20), and while perhaps many were lax in that observance it's specifically reported that a carpenter John met from a similar region and social stratum was literate (Luke 4:17). Indeed it's entirely possible that Jesus or John or both had picked up some Greek in towns like Sepphoras or Tiberias even before they met - there are arguably suggestions of Cynic philosophy in Jesus' teachings, for example.

In saying all this I am not making some universal statement about the impossibility of poor Tom rising to be Chaucer or Einstein; that happens not infrequently. I just don't believe it happened in the case of poor John.

We must simply agree to disagree.

It's certainly hard to argue with your beliefs, particularly when you present no evidence to support them. You agree that there are frequent examples of folk excelling despite lacking the best childhood education... you simply choose in this case not to believe that such one such person put culturally-appropriate theological concepts into mediocre writing in a foreign tongue. And who knows? As I've already noted, even a solid balance of evidence supporting Johannine authorship still leaves plenty of possibility that he was not the author.

[polonius]

Peace to you,

1) Is the Gospel of John a good, reliable account of the historical Jesus?

I am not a fan of the term "historical Jesus', because he has become a patchwork of whatever some people want to make him.

But as to your question:

The Gospel of "John" was written by an apostle (the disciple Christ loved) and an eyewitness to Christ (Jaheshua), so yes, his testimony would be reliable. If his testimony is not reliable, how could the musings of people two thousand years later be reliable?

RESPONSE: The gospel we call John's contains internal evidence the "disciple whom Jesus loved" was not the Apostle John.

Hint. The beloved disciple is not John, but in another section of John's gospel the beloved disciple is identified by Jesus.

[Goose]

One reason is that we can make a solid historical case that the Gospel of John has the authority of an eyewitness standing behind it.

That's a curious thing to say. fSomeone pretending to be John would give details that suggest he was an eye witness.

Pure speculation. And circular speculation to boot. I wonder, do you assume the same treachery when other secular works give details that suggest the author was an eye witness? Or is that uncharitable assumption reserved just for the Gospel of John?

A rather astonishing fact is that John alone recounts the story of the raising of Lazarus. Surely this astounding event would not have been overlooked by the others, were it true. It has the merit of pushing claims for Christ's divinity. John also includes the disputed "woman taken in adultery" tale that seems to place Jesus in conflict with the law.

I have no idea how any of this has any bearing on the authorship of John.

As for the account of Lazarus being overlooked. The Gospels record different resurrections. No reason to expect Mark to mention Lazarus’ resurrection anymore than we should expect John to mention Mark’s resurrection of the young girl. The point wasn’t who was raised. The point was that Jesus had the power to raise the dead.

In Acts we learn John is uneducated and perhaps stupid.

No we don’t learn that in Acts 4. As Mithrae already correctly pointed out, we learn what some Jewish leaders perceived about John (and Peter). I will add to that, this perception the Jewish leaders had of John (and Peter) was based on a speech given by Peter. Hardly good grounds to infer John was an illiterate peasant.

To push the claim that John was the author we have to ignore this statement...

No we don’t ignore it. We just take Acts 4 in its proper context.

...yet it is what we might expect of a humble fisherman.

John may have been a fisherman but let’s not forget he was a fisherman who came from a family wealthy enough to own a fishing boat and have hired servants (Mark 1:19-20). It doesn’t seem much of a stretch to argue if John’s family could afford hired hands, they could afford to have John educated.

[marco]

One reason is that we can make a solid historical case that the Gospel of John has the authority of an eyewitness standing behind it.

That's a curious thing to say. Someone pretending to be John would give details that suggest he was an eye witness.

Pure speculation. And circular speculation to boot.

You do realise we are all deep in speculation when discussing John. If John is John, then perhaps we will note the artlessness of his writing and, as you say, we might find elements that suggest he was an eye witness. If he was not John we will find elements that cannot, barring miracles, have been written by him and we would speculate - dread word! - that the writer wishes to add local colour. If the colour is lurid, as is Lazarus, we might speculate that the other writers would certainly not have overlooked that story with its ghastly details of resurrection.

Hardly good grounds to infer John was an illiterate peasant.

It is likely that John the fisherman was a simple soul. If we have people not in the biased fellowship of the apostles expressing this view also, it adds to our conviction. You have no reason to suppose otherwise except that you have a thesis to support. This is circular, the word you erroneously used earlier.

The statement in John: "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true." does not indicate (a) who the beloved disciple is nor (b) that this disciple is the writer. The writer is basing his account on what the beloved disciple allegedly wrote down. And he is anonymous unless we wishfully wish. Of course it is attractive and cosy to believe the man Jesus loved is really writing. Lions and tigers and bears, O my!


Biblical scholars have "speculated" (dread word) on the differences between the synoptics and John and have noted that the writer is keen to impose a theology not mentioned in the synoptics, namely that Christ is a deity. And those who want Jesus to be God must honour John as author. They cannot reliably get that information from Matthew, Mark or Luke.

[marco]

Which is it? Am I quoting Jesus, or am I reinforcing the view that Jesus never uttered those words? I certainly understand the view that I have expressed more than once in this thread; that "John should not be treated as a reliable source...

Then why are we arguing about John's linguistic accomplishments? One would suppose the intellectually resurrected John would accurately report the words of the physically resurrected Christ. Why not?

Indeed it's entirely possible that Jesus or John or both had picked up some Greek in towns like Sepphoras or Tiberias even before they met - there are arguably suggestions of Cynic philosophy in Jesus' teachings, for example.

They may well have "picked up" some Greek. I have "picked up" elements of a dozen languages but I cannot sit down and write an entire gospel, however rudimentary.


But we seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing since we probably share the same view that John wasn't the author. He waited, in the view of some scholars, nearly half a century before writing his magnum opus. Age, unfortunately, does not enhance whatever skills one has picked up. Nor does it have much patience with memory.

Go well.

[Mithrae]

Biblical scholars have "speculated" (dread word) on the differences between the synoptics and John and have noted that the writer is keen to impose a theology not mentioned in the synoptics, namely that Christ is a deity. And those who want Jesus to be God must honour John as author. They cannot reliably get that information from Matthew, Mark or Luke.

They can get it from Matthew at least as reliably as from John, as I pointed out in post #9 and more extensively in post #21, and there is no clear difference even between Mark's super-human forgiver of sins/Lord of the seventh day of creation/master of angels and John's sub-divine servant who acts only as commanded by the Father (John 8:28, 10:18, 12:49-50, 14:31, 20:17; the only likely exception being 1:1).


Among the four gospels - which Goose has persuasively argued elsewhere all stack up fairly well in terms of authorial attribution against a contemporary work such as Tacitus' Histories - John has both the clearest direct claims of authorship (1:14, 19:35, 1 John 1:1-3), the strongest internal hints (eg. the otherwise inexplicable omission of John and his brother James, two-thirds of Jesus' inner inner circle) and the strongest external attributions (very early in the appendix 21:24, in the mid second century by the unorthodox Valentinians Ptolemy and Heracleon, and in the late second century by orthodox Irenaeus and numerous other sources which Goose has enumerated elsewhere).

But since you raise the point it's worth noting that those who want a more comfortable, relatable human Jesus - or simply want to claim that all his miracles and his resurrection are nothing more than hearsay - presumably "must" reject John as author. And as we see, it's then a relatively simple matter to delude oneself into imagining that Jesus' divinity is not taught in Matthew or Mark, since they do place less emphasis on it and in Mark's case express it less overtly than John. The fact that this always seems to be one of the main focal points in discussion of the fourth gospel is perhaps telling: I don't think I've ever seen anyone argue that John must be an apostle's work because it proclaims that Jesus has all authority on earth and in heaven, but among those who reject apostolic authorship that supposed difference in theology - all the more striking for being imaginary in itself! - seems to be a regular bone of contention.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 38 by Mithrae]

Those Synoptic passages that you suggest are Jesus' (implicit?) claims to Divinity...couldn't they reasonably, (arguably more so) be interpreted as authority given to Jesus by God? So the words and claims of Jesus are really the words of an agent of God as opposed to the words and claims of God incarnate.

[Mithrae]

[Replying to post 38 by Mithrae]

Those Synoptic passages you suggest are Jesus' implicit claims to Divinity...couldn't they reasonably, (arguably more so) be interpreted as authority given to Jesus by God? So the words and claims of Jesus are really the words of an agent of God as opposed to the words and claims of God incarnate.

Mark has John the Baptist (the 'greatest of those born among women') abjectly abasing himself even before Jesus was baptised; Matthew has Jesus being worshiped in his cradle. So exactly when do you suppose that Jesus' command over the angels and Lordship over the seventh day of creation were given to him? The synoptic gospels don't say, but the one written by Jesus' disciple says it was "in the beginning." If you see some kind of meaningful distinction between Jesus being God eternal and 'merely' being begotten/created as a secondary god or something along those lines, then as I've said numerous times I think the latter would be the most compatible with all four gospels (John 1:1 being the only problematic verse I know of, and there's ways around that) - even John has plenty of other verses suggesting Jesus' subservience to God.

Mind you, a 'secondary god' or any being besides Yahweh accepting people's worship (as Jesus does in both John and the synoptics) is arguably even more problematic given a foundational assumption of monotheism than trinitarianism is: So I guess it's a question of whether to retain strict monotheism and take some scissors to both John and the synoptics, perhaps dismissing Jesus as insane or his biographers as liars; or to accept the gospels first and foremost despite the doctrinal problems of a semi-divine Christ; or to compromise between the gospels and monotheism with a trinitarian view, losing the absolute unity of God and 'reinterpreting' all the verses which put Jesus below God, but retaining worship of God alone and all the verses in which Jesus is worshiped, forgives sins etc. etc.