The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (71 page)

External Evidence
During the second half of the second century, Irenaeus (c. 130–200) attributed John's Gospel to John the apostle: “John the disciple of the Lord, who leaned back on his breast, published the Gospel while he was a resident at Ephesus in Asia” (
Against Heresies
3.1.2). Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215) followed suit: “John, last of all…composed a spiritual Gospel” (quoted by Eusebius,
Eccl. Hist.
6.14.7). From this point forward, the church unanimously attributed authorship to the apostle John for almost 18 centuries with virtually no dissent.

Those who doubt apostolic authorship take their point of departure from a quote of Papias (c. 60–130) by Eusebius (c. 260–340), in which the former appeared to refer to a John other than the apostle:

And if anyone chanced to come who had actually been a follower of the elders, I would enquire as to the discourses of the elders, what Andrew or what Peter said, or what Philip, or what Thomas or James, or what
John
or Matthew or any other of the Lord's disciples; and the things which Aristion and
John the Elder
, disciples of the Lord, say (Eusebius,
Eccl. Hist.
3.39.4–5, emphasis added).

If these two Johns were different people, the Gospel bearing that name could have been penned by either one. But it is more likely that Papias referred to John the son of Zebedee by two different names, distinguishing between deceased eyewitnesses of Jesus' ministry and those who were still alive in his day.
²⁰
The Papias quote wanes in importance when set in the context of other early evidence.

Reaching back further than Irenaeus, C. Hill, in a recent monograph, persuasively argued that first-century believers used John's Gospel widely and authoritatively. By a
scrupulous examination of the primary data, Hill was able to refute the previous notion (which he called “orthodox Johannophobia”) that early orthodox Christians avoided John's Gospel while the early Gnostics embraced it and that John's Gospel was not regarded as orthodox until the time of Irenaeus.
²¹
To the contrary, Hill demonstrated that John's Gospel was in all probability known by Polycarp (c. 69–155), Ignatius (c. 35–110), and the
Shepherd of Hermas
(early second century?), and that the first use of John's Gospel is likely found as early as in 1 John (as well as possibly 2 and 3 John). One important implication of Hill's work is that the alleged nonuse of John in the first half of the second century can no longer be legitimately used as an argument against its apostolic authorship.
²²

The Synoptic Gospels and Paul's letters also provide corroborating data for John's authorship. The author of John's Gospel consistently shows “the disciple Jesus loved” to be a close companion of Peter (13:23–24; 18:15–16; 20:2–9; 21:7,20–23), while other NT writers also note the close companionship of the apostles John and Peter (Luke 22:8; Acts 1:13; 3:1–4:23; 8:14–25; Gal 2:9). Taken by itself, this connection may be inconclusive. In conjunction with the internal and external evidence adduced above, however, it further confirms the likelihood of John's authorship, since, as the “disciple Jesus loved,” John was the most likely close companion of Peter and thus the author of the Fourth Gospel.

Therefore, a close examination of all the available internal and external evidence provides plausible grounds for the following three conclusions about the authorship of John's Gospel:
²³
(1) the author is an apostle and eyewitness (1:14; see 2:11; 19:35); (2) he is one of the Twelve (13:23; see Mark 14:17; Luke 22:14); (3) he is John, the son of Zebedee (the strongest candidate on the basis of the above-adduced internal and external evidence). While the hypothesis of the apostolic authorship of the Fourth Gospel is regularly the object of derision in recent Johannine scholarship, the hypothesis has never been decisively refuted and continues to be at least as plausible as alternative explanations.
²⁴

Date

The date that John wrote his Gospel depends on a complex matrix of questions regarding the author, his original audience, his purpose, his occasion for writing, and other factors.
In the quest for the most likely date of composition, 65 and 135 serve, respectively, as the
terminus a quo
and the
terminus ad quem
(the earliest and the latest plausible dates).
²⁵
The first of these dates is established by John's reference to Peter's martyrdom (21:19), which occurred in 65 or 66, and by John's depiction of Jesus as the replacement of the temple, whose destruction took place in the year 70.
²⁶
The second date is determined by the twentieth-century discovery of the earliest NT manuscript to date (P
⁵²
, c. 135), containing John 18:31–32, 37–38.

Within this time frame John most likely wrote his Gospel in the mid 80s or early 90s based on the following evidence.
²⁷
First, although the Synoptics and Pauline letters refer to Jesus' divinity, John's language seems closer to the “less restrained language of Ignatius [c. 35–110]—in particular the ease and frequency with which Ignatius refers to Jesus as God.”
²⁸
In other words, it seems that sufficient time needed to elapse after Jesus' resurrection in order for John to articulate his theology in those terms.

Second, if the reconstruction of John's occasion for writing—the destruction of the temple—below is correct, the Gospel was most likely written 10 to 20 years after the year 70, since a certain amount of time had to pass between the temple destruction and its composition: “[It is] hard to believe that…the date was
immediately
after AD 70 [the destruction of the temple].…The reverberations around the Empire, for both Jews and Christians, were doubtless still too powerful. A little time needed to elapse…before a document like the Fourth Gospel could be free
not
to make an
explicit
allusion to the destruction of the temple.”
²⁹

Third, John's Gospel lacks reference to the Sadducees.
³⁰
Since they play such an important role in the Synoptics (written prior to John) and since they were less influential after the destruction of the temple, their omission in John makes sense if he wrote subsequent to the temple's demise.

Fourth, John's use of the designation “Sea of Tiberias” in clarifying the “Sea of Galilee” (6:1; 21:1) suggests a mid-80/early 90 date of composition. Herod Antipas founded the
city of Tiberias on the Galilean seashore around AD 17–18 (Josephus,
Ant
. 18.2.3 §36). Gradually, the Sea of Galilee took on the name “Sea of Tiberias.” On a popular level this shift probably took place in the 80s or 90s.
³¹

Fifth, if Thomas's confession of Jesus as “my Lord and my God” is intended to evoke associations of emperor worship under Domitian (81–96), this would seem to require a date subsequent to 81.
³²

Thus a date of composition in the mid-80s or early 90s best fits all the evidence. This date also allows plenty of time for the Gospel to gain the popularity needed for a copy (P
⁵²
) to make it to Egypt by c. 135.

Provenance

Early patristic testimony lends support to the notion that John wrote his Gospel in Ephesus.
³³
Eusebius stated that after the Jewish War (66–73) dispersed the early apostles, John went to serve in Asia (
Eccl. Hist.
3.1.1), which placed him in or near Ephesus during the 80s and 90s. Irenaeus wrote that “John, the disciple of the Lord…published the gospel while living in Ephesus in Asia” (
Against Heresies
3.1.2 [c. 130–200]). However, some who believe that John's Gospel and the book of Revelation were written by different authors allege that Eusebius mistook the writer of the Gospel for the author of the Apocalypse .
³⁴

Opponents of the Ephesian provenance of John's Gospel set forth three major alternatives. First, some propose an Alexandrian provenance because John seems to bear affinities to Philo.
³⁵
Second, others suggest an Antiochian origin because they see affinities between John's Gospel and Ignatius, bishop of Antioch (c. 35–110), as well as with the
Odes of Solomon
, presumably written in Syria (of which Antioch was the capital).
³⁶
Third, still others maintain that John's Gospel originated in Palestine because of apparent cultural influences and John's familiarity with certain topographical details.
³⁷

But these proposals are not without problems. For example, Philo was read outside of Alexandria as well; the literary influence of Ignatius and the
Odes of Solomon
in all likelihood reached beyond Antioch; and John was probably aware of, and influenced by,
Palestinian culture dating back to his role in the ministry of Jesus and thereafter.
³⁸
Overall, then, Eusebius and Irenaeus provided the most reliable, albeit less than conclusive, data available. Thus John most likely wrote in Ephesus in the province of Asia Minor.

Destination

Since John does not explicitly identify his audience, ascertaining his intended destination is inexorably related to the above arguments regarding authorship and provenance. If Irenaeus and others are correct that John was the author of the Gospel and that he wrote in Ephesus (see above), it is reasonable to assume that people living in and around Ephesus, primarily Diaspora Jews and Gentiles, were at least part of his intended readership.
³⁹

Beyond this, John's Gospel, like the other canonical Gospels, was likely written for “all Christians” rather than for readers in only one geographical location.
⁴⁰
If so, John most likely wrote with Diaspora Jews, proselytes, and other Gentiles in mind without intending to limit his audience exclusively to any one group. This is also indicated by the genre of John's book: “After all, John's Gospel is a
Gospel
, heralding the universal good news of salvation in Christ.”
⁴¹

Occasion

The destruction of the Jerusalem temple in the year 70 was a traumatic event that left Judaism in a national and religious void and caused Jews to look for ways to continue their ritual and worship.
⁴²
The temple's destruction likely served as one of the major catalysts for John to write his Gospel. The destruction of the temple threw late first-century Jews into turmoil since their faith was inextricably connected with the temple through the sacrificial system and the priesthood. In the same way that the Babylonian exile (586 BC) precipitated a deep crisis in Jewish worship removed from the first temple, the destruction of the second temple required a major reorientation of Jewish ritual. In the wake of the temple's destruction, John likely saw a window of opportunity for Jewish evangelism, seeking to encourage fellow believers to reach out to their Jewish and Gentile neighbors in the Diaspora.
⁴³
He did so by arguing that the crucified and risen Messiah providentially replaced the temple (2:18–22; see 1:14; 4:21–24) and fulfilled the symbolism inherent in Jewish festivals (esp. 5–12).
⁴⁴

SIDEBAR 7.2: TEXTUAL ISSUES IN JOHN'S GOSPEL

John's Gospel raises several important textual issues.
¹
One of them pertains to the variant readings in 1:18. Some versions have
monogenēs huios
(“One and Only Son”), while others have
monogenēs theou
(“One and Only, [himself] God”). The discovery of P
⁶⁶
and P
⁷⁵
, both of which read
monogenēs theos
, now seems to favor this “harder” reading. Most likely, John intended to open and close his prologue with references to Jesus as God (an
inclusio)
, and the reading “one-of-a-kind Son” was introduced by scribes who were familiar with the reading at 3:16,18 (a scribal assimilation).

Another interesting textual issue is raised in 1:34, where some early manuscripts read “the Son of God” (the reading adopted in the NIV, NASB, NRSV, NKJV, ESV, NLT, and HCSB), while others (such as the Codex Sinaiticus and the recently published papyrus P
¹⁰⁶
) have “the Chosen One of God” (adopted by the TNIV). The former reading used to be the consensus view; but now the latter reading is favored by major commentators such as L. Morris, D. A. Carson, C. K. Barrett, R. Brown, R. Schnackenburg, and others.
²

John 5:3b-4, which describes the periodic stirring of the water by a descended angel and the resulting healing of the first to enter the pool, also raises an interesting set of text-critical issues. The passage is clearly inauthentic, that is, was written not by the author of John's Gospel but added by a later hand, perhaps to elaborate on the passing reference to the stirring of the water in verse 7. The early attestion of this verse is poor, and there are as many as seven non-Johannine words in this one sentence.
³

The most significant textual issue in John's Gospel is doubtless the
pericope adultera
, the story of the adulterous woman (7:53–8:11). There are serious doubts regarding the original inclusion of this passage in John's Gospel. As a result, virtually all modern translations place the pericope in square brackets. In terms of internal evidence, virtually every verse of this account features Greek words not found elsewhere in the Gospel. Conversely, much standard Johannine vocabulary is absent from the pericope. To this should be added different style characteristics and syntactical constructions.

On a literary level this pericope interrupts the narrative flow from 7:52 to 8:12 and breaks up the literary unit 7:1-8:59. On a historical level the setting of 7:53-8:1 suggests most plausibly Jesus' pattern during the week before his passion (Mark 11:11,19; 13:3; and esp. Luke 21:37). Thus the preponderance of the internal evidence, including vocabulary, style, syntax, and literary flow, speaks decisively against the notion that the author of John's Gospel penned the pericope and included it at 7:52 in his Gospel.