Making Uncomplicated Things Complicated

[Denise]

ON THE AUTHENTICITY OF ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL
The Jesus Seminar: Making Uncomplicated Things Complicated

November 2000
By William T. Galey

William T. Galey, who is now retired, is a lifelong student of Christianity. He taught Literary Aspects of the Gospels at Sandhills Community College in Pinehurst, North Carolina. This article is adapted from a series of articles that appeared in The Pilot, a newspaper of Southern Pines, North Carolina.

Modern biblical scholarship has, with very little reason, doubted the authenticity of the fourth Gospel, the Gospel According to St. John. There was a time when critics saw an effort in John to combat the Gnostics of the second century. This would have put the date of writing too late for it to have been written by the Apostle John. But the discovery in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls of writings about the logos has rebuffed this challenge to the Gospel's authorship. Still doubt persists.

For example, in their book Five Gospels, the Jesus Seminar prints what they regard as authentic sayings of Jesus in red ink, possibly by Jesus in pink, doubtful in blue, and all others in black. John's Gospel has one saying in red and one in pink, while all the rest are in black. By contrast, in their "fifth Gospel," the noncanonical Gospel of Thomas, red or pink ink appears on nearly every page.

The tradition that the Gospel of John was written by John the Apostle goes back to a very early time. It is attested to by Polycarp (c. 150), Melito of Sardis (c. 160), Clement of Alexandria (c. 200), and many others. They all confirm that the author was, in the words of St. Irenaeus (late 2nd century), "John, the disciple of the Lord, the same who rested upon Christ's breast."

So what are we to think? A touch of common sense will go a long way toward answering the question of authorship to the satisfaction of most open-minded people.

To begin with, the Gospel of John does not once mention John the Apostle, son of Zebedee, nor for that matter James his brother, nor their father, Zebedee (save only a reference to "the sons of Zebedee" in the final chapter), nor their mother, Salome. Whenever the name John appears it refers to the Baptist. It is significant that the Synoptic Gospels — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — refer to him as John the Baptist to differentiate between the two Johns. No such distinction is made in the Gospel of John.

Now, after Peter, John is the most prominent of all the Apostles in the Synoptic Gospels, and again in the first third of the Book of Acts (up to the time Acts turns its attention to the missionary activities of Paul). So it does not make sense that the early Church would admit into the canon of Scripture a Gospel that does not mention John the Apostle, unless he had indeed written it.

Furthermore there is an unnamed disciple that does figure prominently in this Gospel. He is referred to as "the other disciple" and "the disciple whom Jesus loved." And in the second verse of chapter 20 we learn that he is one and the same person:

So she [Mary Magdalene] ran, and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him" (italics added).

It is interesting that Peter is named in 13 places in Mark's Gospel, while John is named in eight. In John's Gospel, Peter is also named in 13 places, and in eight places we find "the other disciple" or "the disciple whom Jesus loved" or both.

In the Gospel of John are many passages that have the sound of an eyewitness: for example, the continuation of the one quoted above from chapter 20, with its seemingly insignificant details about which disciple reached the tomb first, and where the burial cloths lay; or the passage beginning at 1:35 about the disciples' first meeting with Jesus, with trivial details such as the time of day.

The eminent novelist Reynolds Price, in a wonderful book entitled Three Gospels (1996) calls attention to what he sees in chapter 21 as "a patently seamless web of story — the large amount that is said so quickly, the larger amount that goes unsaid.... Nothing that I have encountered elsewhere, in a lifetime's reading, surpasses the simple conviction, the pure water flow of the last scene of John."

This Gospel must have been written by an eyewitness, and that eyewitness must have been the unnamed "beloved disciple," and that beloved disciple must have been John.



The Teaching

Critics have not only attacked the authorship of the fourth Gospel, they also question whether it represents authentic teaching by and about Christ. Rudolf Bultmann, a leader of the so-called Form Criticism school, puts it very bluntly: "The Gospel of John cannot be taken into account at all as a source for the teaching of Jesus" (Jesus and the Word, 1934).

Bultmann is not alone. Many other scholars, noting the great differences in style and content between John and the Synoptics, have concluded that the Gospels are incompatible with each other. But are they?

Let's begin with John's Christology (teaching about Christ): It is profound, and it is set forth in the Prologue:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him.... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us....

Clearly we are in the presence of something vastly different from the Synoptic Gospels. But is it so different from what was developing elsewhere in the early Church? Paul has two similar passages:

He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible... (Col. 1:15&16).

...who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men (Phil. 2:6&7).

So in the teaching about Jesus, John is not outside that of the early Church.

Now what about the teaching of Jesus found in John? In the Synoptics, Jesus is usually talking to the crowds. In John, Jesus' major discourses are to His disciples, or to individuals like Nicodemus or to the Jewish teachers. Thus the content is more profound. But there is one instance quoted by both Matthew (12:25-27) and Luke (10:21&22), where the language is much like that in John. In Luke, Jesus is talking to the Seventy-Two on their return from their missionary journey:

...he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will. All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

It has been well said that throughout the ages, the words of Jesus at the Last Supper as recorded in John, chapters 14-17, have excited the admiration and wonder of the deepest thinkers as well as the most devout mystics, and speak as well to the ordinary Christian. Knowing what we do about Jesus and John from the Synoptic Gospels, who is more likely to have produced such words — Jesus, who always found the words for what He wanted to convey, or John? Is it more likely that John remembered Jesus' wonderful words, or that he made them up? Indeed, it's a no-brainer.

Also, there is almost a complete lack of moral teaching in John's Gospel beyond the exhortation that His disciples love one another. In contrast, the Synoptics are where we find the moral discourses of Christ. (John reported Christ's saying, "If you love me, keep my commandments," while specific commandments are almost completely lacking in this Gospel. They were already contained in the Synoptics.) John's Gospel is really about who Jesus is, that He is "the way, the truth, and the life," "the light of the world," "the Logos," "the only son of the Father." It is as though John saw what the other Gospels reported about Christ and His teachings, and set out to tell us who it really is that gave them to us.



History

John's is a spiritual Gospel dominated by theological concerns. But it also contributes much information of historical and topographical importance that is not found in the Synoptic Gospels.

John captures the true significance of John the Baptist. It is very interesting that John twice interrupts his paean to the Eternal Word with ordinary prose about the Baptist: "There was a man sent from God...that all might believe through him" (1:6) and "John bore witness to him..." (1:15). Incidentally, this is a powerful indicator that whoever wrote this Gospel must have been a disciple of the Baptist. It is most unlikely that someone a generation or more removed would have said this.

But it appears that fully half of the Apostles were drawn from the ranks of those loyal Israelites whose hearts and minds had been prepared by the Baptist to accept Jesus as the Messiah. Andrew and the "other disciple" (John) were the first. Andrew went and found his brother Peter, and it must be presumed that John did the same for his brother James. John goes on to relate that Jesus found Philip, and Philip found Nathanael (whom scholars identify as Bartholomew).

John's account of this original encounter also explains how Peter and Andrew and James and John "immediately" left their fishing nets at the mere nod of Jesus, "as he walked by the sea of Galilee," as recounted in Matthew (4:18) and Mark (1:16).

It is an arresting thought that without John the Baptist's providential work of preparation, the mission of Jesus Christ might never have taken root among His people. And this may explain why Jesus said that "among those born of women none is greater than John [the Baptist]" (Lk. 7:28).

John reports that Jesus was active for some time, both in Judea and Galilee, before the imprisonment of John the Baptist, a period ignored by the others. John also recounts at least four visits to Jerusalem, to the Synoptics' one; and this included three separate Passovers. A persuasive chronology of the public life can be drawn from John's Gospel, something that is impossible with the Synoptics.

John A.T. Robinson, a renowned Scripture scholar, points out in his book The Priority of John (1985), that "the Synoptists are saying to us in all sorts of subtle ways, of Jesus in Jerusalem, ‘He has been here before.'" Robinson lists a number of things that are inexplicable otherwise, including the fact that there is a family in Bethany with whom He can always make His home; and a man with the colt of an ass who will yield it for the triumphal entry; and a man with an upper room, who in the darkest hour is willing to provide it for the Passover meal; and Joseph of Arimathea, who might otherwise have lacked impetus for faith.

"Most obviously," Robinson goes on, "is this true of the apostrophe of Jerusalem, firmly anchored in the double tradition (Mt. 23:37; Lk. 13:34) ‘How often have I longed....' It would be strange indeed if he who wept over the city had never sought to win it."

So John's chronology, showing Jesus in Jerusalem for three separate Passovers, is highly plausible.

The Gospel of St. John, then, is definitely a work of history, and the history underlies its theological exposition. Because he was an intimate witness of Christ and His life, John was in position to draw the theological conclusions set forth in his Gospel.

Those who try to spin out theories opposing John's authorship are doing a great injustice to the truth and the cause of Christ.

[KarlB]

For example, in their book Five Gospels, the Jesus Seminar prints what they regard as authentic sayings of Jesus in red ink, possibly by Jesus in pink, doubtful in blue, and all others in black. John's Gospel has one saying in red and one in pink, while all the rest are in black. By contrast, in their "fifth Gospel," the noncanonical Gospel of Thomas, red or pink ink appears on nearly every page

Yep.. that's typical of the Jesus Seminar.. virtually all of the more 'doubtful' sayings proclaiming the Divine Jesus of the Trinity.. all the most 'reliable' that of a gifted historical rabbi of no Divine presumption.

I remember a monk at Benedictine monastary in Mission BC, near where i live, commenting on the Seminar, that this is what happens to people who lose their faith, they end up living in a world of no certitude or substance, where everything.. material, moral and spiritual.. is permeated by doubt.