The Circumstantial Case For John’s Authorship

I am a big fan of Sententias, the ministry of Max Andrews, although I’ll admit there are times when I have to stop and read (and re-read) his blog posts to get my hands around his impressive reasoning skills. Max recently wrote a post that even I could quickly understand and appreciate, and he did an excellent of illustrating the process and power that results from assembling a circumstantial case. 

Max focused on the case for the authorship of John’s gospel. He correctly noted that Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215) attributed the authorship of the fourth gospel to someone named John: “John, last of all … composed a spiritual Gospel” (quoted by Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 6.14.7). But who is this “John” described by Clement? As Max writes, “Those who doubt apostolic authorship take their point of departure from a quote of Papias (c. 60–130) by Eusebius (c. 260–340). Papias 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).”

Max then takes the time to assemble the evidence related to the authorship of this gospel, making the case in a fashion very similar to how I might make a case for a particular point in a criminal trial. Check out his reasoning:

1. The author identified himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (21:20, 24), a prominent figure in the Johannine narrative (13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20).

2. The author used the first person in 1:14, “we have seen his glory,” revealing that he was an eyewitness to the accounts contained in his Gospel.

3. The “we” of 1:14 refers to the same people as does 2:11, Jesus’ disciples. Thus the writer was an apostle, an eyewitness, and a disciple of Jesus.

4. Since the author never referred to himself by name, he cannot be any of the named disciples at the Last Supper: Judas Iscariot (13:2, 26–27), Peter (13:6–9), Thomas (14:5), Philip (14:8–9), or Judas the son of James (14:22).

5. The  disciple that Jesus loved is also one of the seven mentioned in the last chapter: “Simon Peter, Thomas (called ‘Twin’), Nathanael from Cana of Galilee, Zebedee’s sons, and two other of his disciples” (21:2; see 21:7).

6. Peter and Thomas have already been eliminated. Nathanael is also ruled out as a possible author since the author remains unnamed in John’s Gospel.

7. The author must be either one of “Zebedee’s [two] sons” or one of the “two other of [Jesus’] disciples.”

8. Of the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, James can safely be ruled out since he was martyred in the year 42 (see Acts 12:2).

9. This leaves John the son of Zebedee as the probably author of the Gospel. Irenaeus (c. 130–200): “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).

Well done. Circumstantial cases are not built on a singular piece of direct evidence. Instead, they are assembled from a collection of reasonable inferences. In our state of California, jurors are instructed, “If a witness testifies he saw it raining outside before he came into the courthouse, that testimony is direct evidence that it was raining.” In essence, this testimony (if it is trustworthy) is enough, in and of itself, to prove that it is raining. But you can also conclude it’s raining on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Jurors are also instructed, “For example, if a witness testifies that he saw someone come inside wearing a raincoat covered with drops of water, that testimony is circumstantial evidence because it may support a conclusion that it was raining outside.”

Max has done a good job of assembling facts that reasonably demonstrate the Apostle John is the author of the fourth gospel. Is the available evidence “complete”? No, but I’ve never worked a case where every piece of possible piece of evidence was available for consideration. While potentially incomplete, the case for John’s authorship is none-the-less sufficient. It’s reasonable. It’s reliable. It meets the standard I’m most concerned about: beyond a reasonable doubt. Good job Max, you’re a fine circumstantial case maker. 

Comments

[Doug]

How about Jesus brother James
http://jamestabor.com/2012/08/20/who-was-the-mysterious-disciple-whom-jesus-loved/

[Sam]

It seems to me that if you're going to make a circumstantial case for any point of view, you have to account for all of the evidence. If you just cherry pick what evidence you're going to consider, you could get a distorted picture of what actually happened. I think all of those nine points are relevant to the question of who wrote John, but they appear to be cherry picked since there is a lot more that goes on in discussions about the authorship of John.

[Louis Kuhelj]

The problem is that if you hinge your claims of authorship on the basis of other documents that do not declare who the author is, it would seem to be problematic. There is an awful lot hinging on the authorship of the gospels. If the writers were not the apostles, we can pretty well chuck much of the claims we make for them. That they included embarrassing details would pretty much go out the window if you cannot establish authorship. There are many an atheist that will look at circumstantial evidence presented by witnesses as nothing more than hearsay that no one should take too seriously. While there may indeed be circumstantial evidence to point to John's authorship, for some folks this is simply not going to be enough. They will simply insist that no deceleration of authorship is made in the manuscripts and therefore, no one knows who wrote them. The rest is just idle conjecture.

[Sam]

That they included embarrassing details would pretty much go out the window if you cannot establish authorship.

I don't agree with that. There are details in the gospel that would be embarrassing to anybody who is a follower of Christ. For example, Jesus not knowing the day or hour of his return. That's embarrassing even to people today who say Jesus was God. It's embarrassing that Jesus was crucified in light of him being the messiah. We've got to account for that. It's embarrassing that Jesus' own brothers and sisters thought he was crazy. It's embarrassing that Jesus was from Nazareth instead of Bethlehem since the messiah was supposed to be from Bethlehem. None of these embarrassments depend on knowing who the authors of the gospels are, and none of them depend on the authors being original disciples of Jesus.

[Louis Kuhelj]

Sam

The usual argument is that the original author would suffer public embarrassment and that speaks to the honesty of the reports since no one would be lying in such a way as to make himself look bad. But if there was someone else who was gossiping about Jesus and the apostles that does nothing to confirm honest reporting. Their reputation would not be on the line so, why not just make things up that gossipers would love to hear and pass on? This would be especially so if the one who did the writing was actually not a follower of Jesus. Surely there were plenty of folks looking to discredit the church. So, since we have no signed authorship...well, you can't make all sorts of claims about honest reporting. At least that could be a line of reasoning offered.

[John M]

Here's another viable and well-thought out discussion on the "Beloved Disciple" by Bible scholar Ben Witherington.

Lazarus

[Jason Engwer]

It's highly probable that the elder Papias refers to is the apostle, the son of Zebedee. See here.

I've argued against Ben Witherington's theory that Lazarus wrote the fourth gospel here.

Much more could be said about John's authorship of the fourth gospel. I'll just add a few points to what J. Warner Wallace has outlined above.

The fourth gospel portrays its author, the beloved disciple, as having an unusually close relationship with Peter. The other gospels, Acts, and Galatians identify John, the son of Zebedee, as having such a relationship with Peter. The other gospels identify John, son of Zebedee, as a fisherman. And the beloved disciple is portrayed as a fisher in the fourth gospel.

In addition to the patristic witnesses to John's authorship of the gospel, keep in mind that we also have corroboration of that attribution from early heretical and non-Christian sources (Ptolemy, Marcion, etc.). And the earliest manuscripts of John that include the document's title name John as the author. In other words, it's not just the church fathers who identify John as the author, but also a wide variety of early heretics, non-Christians, and manuscripts.

[Jason Engwer]

One of my links in the post above is wrong. The article arguing against Lazarus as the author of the fourth gospel is found here.

[Jason Engwer]

In a previous post, I referred to early support for the traditional authorship attribution of the fourth gospel in heretical sources, non-Christian sources, and early manuscripts. For those interested in reading more about the subject, including evidence pertaining to the authorship of the other three gospels, see here and here.

[John M]

Good stuff, Jason. Nice work.

[Louis Kuhelj]

Jason

Thank you for the links. I certainly find them useful and I am sure that others here will as well. This is certainly an area that I needed to work on in my own studies and the sources you have provided are very interesting reads. At least I can see now how an argument can be formed to support a stronger view of correct traditional attribution of the gospels to those we hold to be their authors. One more arrow in my quiver to help me get to the heart of the matter.

[Amy]

Jason, thanks for posting the link to your argument against Lazarus. I was thinking of that post and wanted to post a link but hadn't had a chance to look for the URL yet. Thanks!