A2 Religious Std Authorship of the Fourth Gospel

Internal, biblical evidence can also be used to support the claim. The most obvious evidence would be John 21:24 where the author suggests the author “is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.” The detailed accounts which the author of the Fourth Gospel points to also strengthen the argument that the Gospel must have been written by someone who knew Jesus well. Taking John 21:11 as an example: “Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn.” – such a level of detail suggests the author writes with first-hand experience hence even if it were not John, it had to be a disciple. Another proof of this would be the fact that the author narrates scenes which were limited and exclusive to those who were close to Jesus.  One of such scenes would be the Last Supper.

Barrett is one of the leading sceptics that the Gospel was written by one who was closed to and knew Jesus. He stated that the Fourth Gospel “was drawn up, edited and published by persons who had no personal historical contact with Jesus, and perhaps no contact with Palestine; certainty not by an apostle”. First, Barrett raises his concern that the language of the Gospel doesn’t fit in with the time it was set to be written in. He states that “The history of the Fourth Gospel in the second century is extremely difficult to read” and that it was no plain tale of unquestioned reverence unhesitatingly accorded to an apostle book”. This theory is backed up by Hunter who questions the inconsistency in the style of writing as there is a lack of parables in the Fourth Gospel.  Barrett goes further to questioning Irenaeus’ claims by stating Polycarp never literally said it was John who wrote the Gospel; this means that it might have been written in John’s authority instead. John’s age by the time of the reign of Trajan also raises concern about whether he was alive at the time, as there is a traditional that John was murdered four years after Jesus’ death. However, even if John was alive and his health condition and memory did not prevent him from writing the Gospel; the fact that he was poorly educated raises points against him being the author of the Gospel. Dodd pointed out that the discourses in the Gospel are revolved around complex themes which support the claim about John’s lack of academic qualifications. Other doubts are also raised suggesting the Gospel was not written by someone who knew Jesus. First of all, the sequence of events in the Gospel differs with that of other Gospels therefore suggesting the author did not have to be an eyewitness. The inaccuracy in detail is also reinforced by the fact that some facts are wrong with the author using the term “Sea of Tiberius” instead of “Sea of Galilee” as a clear example. One may also point to the Gnostic influences on the Fourth Gospel where there are shared ideas of the existence of entities such as light, evil, physical and spiritual. However the belief that those who had “divine light” would reach the spiritual world was not stated in the Gospel which does not agree that knowledge alone is sufficient in getting us into heaven.