A Hypothesis on the Gospel of John

[James Hannam]

I’d like to present a hypothesis which I think takes in all the evidence that we have regarding the authorship of John's Gospel. It is based on the work of Raymond Brown with a few additions from other sources although I am slightly more conservative than he.

The Apostle John was growing very old. He had preached all his life and now settled down to a quiet retirement in Ephesus (passages in Iraeneus, Justin Martyr) although he didn’t involve himself with the church there (not mentioned by Ignatius). He had with him some followers who had soaked up his teaching over the years.

Polycarp, Bishop of Symrna, had been a disciple of John the Apostle and Iraeneus in turn had heard Polycarp as a child. It is from Iraeneus that we hear that John survived at Ephesus until the riegn of Trajan that began in 95AD. This means that the Apostle must have lived until he was about 85 which, although very old, is not impossible ancient.

Once there he wrote a short (about as long as Mark) memoir of his own about Jesus’ life and teachings. He didn’t use the other Gospels as sources and indeed it is likely that they were not all widely circulating yet. His work was in simple Greek but profound in meaning. In it Jesus preaches John's own theology as it had developed over the intervening five decades. His hatred of the Jewish establishment that had killed his brother shone through as did his deep understanding and interpretation of Old Testament thought.

John's brother James was killed on the orders of Herod Agrippa II in about 42AD as recorded in Acts 12:2. Unlike some of his name sakes, this Herod ruled with the support of the Jewish establishment and hence they were all stained by James's blood.

The memoir of John contained several eye witness details, sometimes only recently confirmed:

Archaeology has confirmed features of pre-revolt like the stone pavement (19:13) and the five porticoes (5:2).

Only John tells us that Jesus was nailed to the cross, the robbers' legs were broken, Jesus was speared in the side and the sign on the cross was in three languages. That nails were used and the legs of crucifixion victims broken was only confirmed in 1970 when a crucified man was discovered.

John gets the date of the crucifixion right (it was the day before Passover) as confirmed by astronomy although this contradicts the synoptics.

The familiar language used by Jesus at the wedding of Cana (2:4).

John the Apostle then probably died or at least was no longer able to write. His memoir was taken up by one of his disciples, also called John and known as the Elder to differentiate him (Papias as explained by Dionysus of Alexandria and Eusebius). The Elder added editorial comment to the memoir such as adding ‘the one Jesus loved’ at 20:2. It was he who coined the beloved disciple as an identifier of his own master. But the Elder also added chapters 15, 16 and 17 (14:31 makes it obvious these are insertions but also shows the Elder had a very light editorial pen). He is probably also responsible for the first 16 verses of the Gospel as we now have it.

It was the Elder who wrote the letters attributed to John. The first of these shows a remarkable similarity to the parts of John’s Gospel he also wrote. The other two are two short to identify by style or subject matter. I have no comment on Revelation having never studied it.

The final stage of the writing of the Gospel was when another disciple without the literary merit of either of the Johns added chapter 21 as a sort of postscript immediately before publication. This was intended to identify the beloved disciple as the author and also includes another story that he no doubt heard the Apostle tell a few times over the years. Note the exact number of fishes at 21:11.

So we have been left an eye witness memoir, a piece of profound theology and in chapter 21 the identity of the writer and the fate of Peter.

I present this hypothesis purely as a possibility but one I think the general pattern of which is highly likely to be true.

Best wishes

James

[sandwiches]

I am reading "What have they done with Jesus?" by Ben Witherington.

His theory is that Lazarus was the Beloved Disciple. As appears from the blog below this is quite an ancient theory but he seems (to my untutored eye) to make an initially convincing case. In particular it explains the concentration on Judea and the lack of Galilean stories (that one would expect if the Gospel was based on the reminisciences of John of Zebedee). Also Lazarus is referred to explicitly as ‘the one whom you love’ (John 11:3). THe Gospel was written by John the Elder but based on the momories of Lazarus?

benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/01/was-lazarus-beloved-disciple.html

What do you think?

[hawkinthesnow]

It seems unlikely from internal evidence that John's gospel was written by John the brother of James.

The gospel betrays no knowledge of the conflict between Jesus and the various Jewish groups. They are all lumped together as "the Jews". This seems strange if the author was actualy a contemporary and eyewitness to teh ministry of Jesus.

All the events recorded in the other gospels in which John son of Zebedee plays a significant role role are absent from this gopsel. (Mk 1:19 - call of the sons of Zebedee, Mk 1:29 healing of Peter's mother in law, Mk 3:13, choosing the 12, Mk 5:37, healing of Jairus' daughter, Mark 9:2 - the transfiguration, Mark 10:35, request for places in the kingdom at Jesus side and prediction of martydom.

John's brother James is never mentioned.

Althoguh John was supposedly from Galilee, all interest in Galilee is lacking.

According to Acts 4:13, James and John were unlettered men, yet John's gospel is written in good Greek.

Additionally, some ancient martyrologies mention the martydom of John. (Which would seem to corroborate Jesus prediction, and rule out John having died of old age.

The plain fact is we do not know who wrote the gospel "according to John", and we do not know who the "beloved disciple" was. Acording to some theologians, the beloved disciple was a literary invention of the gowpel writer who was supposed to represent the ideal follower of Jesus.

[Anonymous]

Briefly...

>The gospel betrays no knowledge of the conflict between Jesus and the various Jewish groups. They are all lumped together as "the Jews". This seems strange if the author was actualy a contemporary and eyewitness to teh ministry of Jesus.

I don't find this argumentum ex silentio relevant to the gospel's sources and authorship. As I read it, lumping all the Jewish groups together (e.g. using the terms "Jews," "Pharisees," and "scribes" in ch. 7) is a literary trick familiar to anyone who's read the stichomythia exchanges in Greek tragedy. It artificially bipolarizes the characters between our heroes and the villains to raise dramatic tension throughout the work. But it's hard to infer authors' historical knowledge from literary tricks.

>All the events recorded in the other gospels in which John son of Zebedee plays a significant role role are absent from this gopsel. (Mk 1:19 - call of the sons of Zebedee, Mk 1:29 healing of Peter's mother in law, Mk 3:13, choosing the 12, Mk 5:37, healing of Jairus' daughter, Mark 9:2 - the transfiguration, Mark 10:35, request for places in the kingdom at Jesus side and prediction of martydom.

>John's brother James is never mentioned.

(1) Cf. John 21.1 and the "sons of Zebedee" being present at the miraculous catch of fishes. I agree with James that ch. 21 is a redactor's addition. (2) John actually has very few pericopes in common with the synoptics. The feeding of the 5000, Jesus' walking on the sea of Galilee, the crucifixion and resurrection are the only ones that come to mind. (Some have taken the healing of the centurian's son at the end of ch. 4 to have synoptic parallels, but there are numerous discrepancies.) Absence of a few particular pericopes and an emphasis on different disciples than the synoptics shouldn't surprise anyone. (3) The end of John 1 (I don't remember the exact verse) should be considered a separate tradition for the calling of the beloved disciple (if he is to be identified with John the son of Zebedee). Notice that Jesus calls two disciples at the beginning of the pericope but only names Andrew. Who was the other? I suggest a veiled reference to the source for the gospel's traditions. (4) Doesn't the very absence of such a prominent character in the NT as John in itself say something? (Remember that in Galations 1-2 Paul calls John one of the three reputed pillars of the Jerusalem church, along with Peter and James the brother of Jesus, and that in the first few chapters of Acts John is constantly at Peter's side.)

>Althoguh [sic] John was supposedly from Galilee, all interest in Galilee is lacking.

Ch. 6 and other parts do happen in Galilee. But as a Galilean, wouldn't Judea, and particularly the holy city of Jerusalem, have just been more interesting to John? Besides which, the gospel depicts a controversy over which community (Jesus' or "the Jews'") the God of Moses favors. The setting in the city of David heightens the tension stemming from this controversy. Uninterest does not equal unfamiliarity.

>According to Acts 4:13, James and John were unlettered men, yet John's gospel is written in good Greek.

(1) The fourth gospel is written in grammatically sound but stylistically idiosyncratic Greek, even within the New Testament. I've read John several times in Greek--and I've read a lot of other ancient Greek authors, from Homer, through Herodotus, Thucydides and Plato, to Eusebius and John Chrysostom. So I can say that John is touchingly weird. It exhibits very simple syntax with a tiny vocabulary; it eschews the hypotaxis of "good" Greek. It's also quite consistent in its language. I do think that its form of Greek was a conscious choice. (But then again, so do the synoptics for the most part. E.g. Luke goes out of his way to imitate the Hebraically literal translational style of the Septuagint, even after he proves in his prologue that he can write periodic rhetorical Greek.) (2) "Unlettered" could also mean "not schooled in high literature"--and John is _not_ high literature by any ancient standard. (3) The beloved disciple (whether we equate him with John or not) needn't have written it himself, and James' scenario doesn't have him doing so.

>Additionally, some ancient martyrologies mention the martydom of John. (Which would seem to corroborate Jesus prediction, and rule out John having died of old age.

True; Jesus' prediction in Mark 10 is the best argument against the "Johannine" origin of John. (Martyrologies are not to be trusted without corroboration, though Clement of Alexandria does say John was martyred, and he might have known something.) But the Beloved Disciple needn't have been John the son of Zebedee.

What matters most is the proximity between the reputed source of the gospel and Jesus. And James Hannam has outlined, in my opinion, a plausible scenario for its composition that explains much of the evidence. In addition to Brown, though, I'd recommend reading Martin Hengel's book on the Johannine works. It's about 140 pages and dense, but accounts for _all_ the evidence (including loads of second-century testimonia) and comes to a similar conclusion.

[James Hannam]

It's nice to have some support from someone who is clearly more knowledgeable than me!

A general point, I agree with anon that an analysis of a text based on what it does not say is much less convincing than an analysis of what it does say. That GJohn has little on Galilee or certain other episodes we associate with the sons of Zebedee can be explained in so many ways, it is hardly worth doing.

Silence can be confirmatory, but it is usually most significant indirectly when it denies us multiple attestation. If X says something happened and Y doesn't, Y's silence is relevant because it means we have no independent corroboration of what happened. It doesn't tell us anything about Y.

It seems unlikely that the BD is a literary construct of the perfect disciple because he doesn't actually do anything. There is not enough material to form an opinion on his character. If he was supposed to be an exemplary follower of Jesus we would see him doing a few exemplary things. Liberal scholars tend to see literary constructs wherever they look, but I have yet to see concrete examples where we can say for sure that a person in an ostensibly historical document was deliberately created for literary reasons.

On the Lazarus question, I remain unconvinced for four reasons (without having had a chance to review Witherington's thesis. One is the way that GJohn mentions Lazarus by name but then also calls him the BD. Two, I tend to equate the BD with the 'other disciple'. Three, Lazarus doesn't get a look in in the other Gospels. And four, the redactor of chapter 21 seems to believe the BD is John or James (IIRC). Perhaps Witherington has solutions to these queries and I will need to have a look over his work if I possibly can.

Best wishes

James

[hawkinthesnow]

I don't know what writers Hengel cites, never having read him, however, Irenaeus was writing towards the end of the 2nd century. From what I have read there is no earlier evidence that John son of Zebedee lived and died at a great age in Ephesus. With regard to his statement about Polycarp being a disciple of the Apostle John (presumably the son of Zebedee), there were several Johns, including John the Elder. Maybe Irenaeus was confusing him with the apostle.

Apart from the added on chapter 21, GJohn appears to be the work of one hand. There is a unity of thought and theme. I think it highly unlikely that any of it was written by John son of Zebedee. What would a northern Galilean fisherman known about Greek tragedy? The subtlety and irony displayed in the gospel would appear to be beyond the capacity of an ordinary working man, unless you want to invoke the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

I don't think that the Beloved Disciple and John son of Zebedee are the same person. John 21 distinguishes between the sons of Zebedee and this shadowy character. It is not certain that the author of the gospel is the Beloved Disciple. 21:24 appears to have been written by someone other than the BD ("we know that his testimony is true") If the BD wrote anything, it may well have just been chapter 21. And in any event, since chapter 21 was added to the orignal gospel, it may have just have been an attempt by an unknown author to link the gospel with the BD, who appears to have been a figure of some authority in the early church. However I see no reason to identify him with John the son of Zebedee.

It is not James' hypothesis I take issue with so much as the unreliability of the evidence it is based on.

With regard to James'comment about BD being a literary construct, I think I read that idea in a study of John by a Catholic scholar called Henry Wansborough. I think he was proposing the idea, although I may be mistaken. It was several years ago that I read his study, and I don't possess it any more. However, in a gospel full of symbolism, it does not seem out of place that an author as clever as "John" could create a symbolic disciple as a symbol of the ideal relationship between the believer and Christ. However, having read the passages relating to the BD again, it does seem more natural to take the BD as a historical person.

[Petersean]

I appreciate this topic because I am presently finishing off Richard Bauckham's "Jesus and the Eyewitneses" and this topic allows me to interact with Bauckham's arguments.

Bauckham's argument is that the Gospels, which have been traditionally thought to be based on eyewitness testimony and which themselves attest to being based on eyewitness testimony, contain internal clues that showing that they are based on eyewitness testimony.

Among Bauckham's argument is the similarity of the Gospels to historical texts of the time which had a practice of "footnoting" their source by identifying various stories with various individuals. In light of that practice, the variance among the Gospels about who gets named in what story - and who gets dropped in later Gospels from particular stories, and who is anoymous in earlier Gospels but gets identified in John, i.e, Lazarus - is best explained as indicating who was around when a particular Gospel to confirm the story.

Bauckham argues that a convention of historical writing of the period was to use an "inclusio" format, whereby the principal eyewitness was introduced at the beginning of the point where his eyewitness testimony began and mentioned a final time at the point where his eyewitness testimony ended. This can apparently be seen in writings by Lucian and Porphyry.

The inclusio technique can apparently be found in the Gospels. In Mark, for example, Peter is introduced early and identified late, which is consistent with the tradition of Mark being based on Peter's recollections.

Bauckham claims that GJohn has a similar "inclusio" for John. The first two disciples mentioned are Andrew and an unnamed disciple. (1:35). Bauckham finds it significant that the Beloved Disciple is portrayed as the ideal witness to Jesus (p. 127) and that the Gospel lays down the criteria for witnessing as, "you are able to testify concerning me because you have been with me from the beginning." (John 15:27). Bauckham also notes that when the anonymous disciple is introduced "Jesus turned and saw them following" (1:37) and that the Beloved Disciple's last appearance is introduced as "Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following...." (21:20.)

I normally find this kind of happenstance parallelism unconvincing, but if someone was intentionally attempting an inclusio, they might engage in deliberate parallelism of that kind.

Bauckham also argues that the Gospel of John was produced - if not actually physically written by the "Beloved Disciple" and that the Epilogue was intended by the author of the GJohn as part of the plan of the Gospel from the beginning. Hence, accourding to Bauckham, it is not accidental that that the Prologue projects the story back to the beginning ("In the beginning....") while the Epilogue runs to the paousia ("Until I come..."), which pretty much covers all relevant history.

Likewise, according to Bauckham the prologue consists of 496 syllable and the Epilogue consists of 496 words. 496 is "both a triangular number and a perfect number" per Bauckham and the difference between "words" and "syllables" stems from the prologue being a bit of poetry and the epilogue a bit of prose.

The "496" factoid seems odd, but other passages in the Bible reveal a similar commitment to numbers.

Likewise, John 21 explicitly says as part of this arguably intended intended epilogue that the disciple whom Jesus loved "has written" "these things." The "these things" that the testimonial attestation are provided for are presumably the stories of Jesus throughout GJohn, but the epilogue itself contains a story of Jesus which requires testimonial attestion.

Hence, Bauckham's argument is tha the Gospel of John "was originally designed to end just as it does in the version we have and never existed without the claim about its authorship that 21:24 makes."

I'm not a Gospel scholar, so I don't have the background to verify Bauckham's claims, but I think that Bauckham's entire book is more consistent with the fact that the Gospels were produced in too short a time to accommodate the lengthy evolutionary development argued for by Crossan and Brown.

I thought I'd toss Bauckham's theory out and see how badly they fare.

[hawkinthesnow]

I am slowly reading through "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses" and have not yet reached the chapters on John. It is an interesting study, but I am not convinced by any of his arguments so far. Based on your summary, I don't think that the original author intended John 21 as part of the whole plan. John 20:30 does appear to be the end of the original gospel (but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.) The original ending is echoed in 21:35. Whatever the merits of his arguments about the other gospels, I think Bauckham is definitely wrong about John.

[Petersean]

Jun 4, 2008 20:16:14 GMT hawkinthesnow said:

I am slowly reading through Jesus and the Eyewitnesses and have not yet reached the chapters on John. It is an interesting study, but I am not convinced by any of his arguments so far.

Really? That's interesting.

In what way do you find Bauckham's arguments unconvincing?

[hawkinthesnow]

Without going into great detail, I find his arguments ad hoc and naive. It seems to me that he has a theory that he wants to defend, and is looking for any evidence he can to defend it. He relies heavily on writers like Eusebius, who is reporting at second or third hand, and whose writings are open to interpretation anyway. Most scholars treat these writings with caution, and very few would actually use them as evdience for authorship.

Bauckham clearly wants to believe that Mark is based on Peter's recollections although the internal evidence of the gospel indicates that it was written by someone who knew very little about the geography of Palestine or it's customs. The notion that the use of inclusion shows that Peter is the source of the gospel does not follow. The writer of Mark may have used this literary device in order to make his readers think that Peter was the source. Traditions that link the gospels to individual apostles notwithstanding, there is no clearly corroborated historical evidence that the four gospels were either written by, or based on the recollections of any of the apostles. I find the notion that some characters are not identified by name in order to protect them frankly bizarre.

Mark's gospel was not written until the late 60s early 70s AD. Matthew and Luke were not written until later. Most of the characters mentioned in the gospels would have been dead by then anyway, so what where they being protected from? The ones who were named were those who became important in the developing Jesus tradition.

[Petersean]

Bauckham clearly wants to believe that Mark is based on Peter's recollections although the internal evidence of the gospel indicates that it was written by someone who knew very little about the geography of Palestine or it's customs.

I would appreciate your expanding this concept when you have the opportunity.

I did some internet surfing and found sites indicating that Mark is considered to have had a good familiarity with Jewish customs and that his unfamiliarity with Palestinian geography amounts to a small percentage - 3 or 4 instances - out of all of his geographical refenences.

But, then, I'm a trial attorney and I have a high tolerance for how recollection and testimony can get garbled when it comes to precise chronologies, itineraries and that kind of thing.

The notion that the use of inclusion shows that Peter is the source of the gospel does not follow. The writer of Mark may have used this literary device in order to make his readers think that Peter was the source.

That's an interesting theory.

But if Mark was attempting to dupe readers, why not come out and call his gospel, the "Gospel of Peter" or include a prologue like Luke's or an epilogue like John's to make the connection clear.

Of course, we can never really know the answer to that question, but if we are speculating on deliberate deception, the use of an inclusio seems pretty weak.

Traditions that link the gospels to individual apostles notwithstanding, there is no clearly corroborated historical evidence that the four gospels were either written by, or based on the recollections of any of the apostles.

I think that the best evidence on this point is that each of the four gospels were universally and consistently given the names we know them by. If there wasn't a historical or traditional link of the gospels to the particular writers, then we ought to expect a single gospel to have been given a variety of names and we don't see that.

I mean I would think that if the Gospel of Mark wasn't associated with Mark, we ought to see it identified in one place as the Gospel of Mark and another as the Gospel of Bob or the Gospel of the Syrians or whatever.

Given Papias and the early universality of the names of the Gospels, isn't the burden of proof on those who deny the traditional linkage of the gospels with their putative authors?

I find the notion that some characters are not identified by name in order to protect them frankly bizarre.

I might have also if I hadn't recently noticed in the Gospel of John that there is a mention that the Jewish leaders were plotting to kill Lazarus as well as Jesus. John 12:10

When I read that I thought that was strange - giving such a prominent role to someone who I had considered to be a minor character.

On the other hand, it struck me as a particular moment of versimilitude; I can't imagine a writer simply sticking that in as a fictional device because it detracts from the main narrative, but if it was true, I imagine that it would be noted, and it does sound like the kind of thing that leaders would do to suppress a subversive movement.

The text suggests that Lazarus was a witness for Jesus and a danger to the Jewish leaders on that account. So, it seems that there is an explicit recognition that the importance of this particular person is that he is a witness to this particular event, which in itself indicates that the author of John (at least) knew that eyewitness testimony was valuable and how he ought to identify such testimonial support as part of the story.

Mark's gospel was not written until the late 60s early 70s AD. Matthew and Luke were not written until later. Most of the characters mentioned in the gospels would have been dead by then anyway, so what where they being protected from?

Isn't the dating of the Gospels a convention, rather than a verifiable historical fact?

I thought the purpose of dating the Gospels was supposed to indicate the general order in which scholars think they were composed and approximately when they might have been composed based on the destruction of Jerusalem.

So, saying that Mark was written in 60 A.D. only means that it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem and after Paul wrote his epistles. It doesn't mean that 60 AD is a hard number.

Hence if Mark wrote his Gospel during the time that Paul was writing his epistles, the dating of Mark's Gospel could go back to 40 or 50 AD, for example. Likewise, if Luke and Matthew's predictions about the destruction of Jerusalem - which is why they get the later dates - actually were prophetic rather than historical backfilling, then they could have an earlier date, as well.

I guess I'm dubious about basing arguments about the existence or absence of eye witnesses based on the conventions about the dating of the Gospels.

The ones who were named were those who became important in the developing Jesus tradition.

One of the interesting things I discovered in the Bauckham book was that some names are dropped from the same stories as the story progresses from Mark to Luke (or maybe they are added if the the progression is the other way ;D )

I don't understand why an author supposedly copying from another test would randomly drop names. There must have been some significance to the change, and the idea that they no longer served the role of testimonial support is thus far the only theory I've heard.

But I'm open to other explanations.

I also don't pretend to be a professional scholar.

[Anonymous]

Again, briefly...

First, thanks to hawkinthesnow for a respectful and stimulating discussion! I only have a couple of rejoinders to his responses.

>Apart from the added on chapter 21, GJohn appears to be the work of one hand. There is a unity of thought and theme. I think it highly unlikely that any of it was written by John son of Zebedee. What would a northern Galilean fisherman known about Greek tragedy? The subtlety and irony displayed in the gospel would appear to be beyond the capacity of an ordinary working man, unless you want to invoke the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

(1) Agreed on the unity of the work; this is actually my one objection to James' hypothesis (now that I have read it more carefully). Except for ch. 21, it's a stylistically unified, though edited (chs. 15-17 and possibly the transposition of chs. 5-6). And the unification of style is significant when _no one else_ (including ch. 21's redactor) wrote Greek like that!

(2) Of course John bar-Zebedee didn't know Greek tragedy, and I don't think the book's author did either. The comparison was illustrative, not causal. The point was that by conflating different Jewish groups the author presented a first-century Palestinian religio-political situation that was artificially bipolarized between two groups. The bipolarization frames an us-vs.-them ideology and forces the reader to choose between loyalty to "Jesus" and "the Jews"/"the world."

The most obvious ancient parallels that occurred to me were Greek tragedy and Thucydides (who was influenced by Euripides and Sophocles). But other parallels for such bipolarization are implicit in, say, Deuteronomy (ch. 4 is all about following the Torah or die), Proverbs (Wisdom vs. Folly), Isaiah (the contrast between idols and the invisible God in 40-55) and the Dead Sea Scrolls (the Damascus Document and War of the Sons of Light and Darkness). There are plenty of sources for such literary conflation of social outsiders that GJohn's author did have.

>John 21 distinguishes between the sons of Zebedee and this shadowy character.

True, John 21.1 puts the "sons of Zebedee" (are we sure there were just two?) and "two other disciples" at the Sea of Tiberias/Galilee. It could be any of these.

On the other hand, I suggest that the _absence_ of John the son of Zebedee from the Gospel is significant. John was one of the three pillars of the Jerusalem church according to Paul (Galatians--1.18?). He stands at Peter's side in the early chapters of Acts. He's the most prominent disciple after Peter (and perhaps Levi/Matthew) in the Synoptics. And GJohn on a wider variety of disciples than most of the synoptics: Thomas, Nathanael, Jude, and Philip, as well as Peter, are individuated to an extent that only Peter and John are in the Synoptics. Not that John knew the Synoptics, but why so silent about such a key figure? I speculate that GJohn's intended audience already knew its ultimate source's proximity to Jesus and didn't need to be reminded. (Admittedly, this is speculation; but it is a reason to identify the son of Zebedee with the gospel, and it's grounded in the text itself and in texts that are known to be near-contemporary--unless we adhere to Knox's speculations about a late Acts or van Mannen's speculations that Paul didn't even write Galatians.)

> If the BD wrote anything, it may well have just been chapter 21. And in any event, since chapter 21 was added to the orignal gospel, it may have just have been an attempt by an unknown author to link the gospel with the BD, who appears to have been a figure of some authority in the early church.

Ch. 21 is the one part of the gospel that separates narrator from BD ("This is the disciple...and we know that his testimony is true."). I agree that ch. 21 claims the authority of the BD; but there is no early record of exactly who the BD was outside the gospel (and I've read pretty much everything written by any Christians through 150 or so), so the intended audience must have known. I don't think the BD's authorit would have been terribly effective outside a fairly localized community.

> It is not James' hypothesis I take issue with so much as the unreliability of the evidence it is based on.

James' literary evidence should be thoroughly questioned, yes. James' archaeological evidence, however, does point to a source who knew Palestine from before AD 70 quite well. I haven't looked into James' astronomical evidence. But the archaeological evidence at the very least renders plausible a source close to Jesus, whether we call him John, the Beloved Disciple, or anything else.

Thanks again!

[hawkinthesnow]

Jun 5, 2008 15:50:11 GMT @Anonymous said:

Again, briefly...

First, thanks to hawkinthesnow for a respectful and stimulating discussion! I only have a couple of rejoinders to his responses.

And thank you. I have found your comments helpful and informative.

[hawkinthesnow]

Peter, I will get back to you when I can. You have raised some interesting points and they deserve a response. It may be a few days. Hope that's ok.

[Petersean]

Jun 5, 2008 18:42:55 GMT hawkinthesnow said:

Peter, I will get back to you when I can. You have raised some interesting points and they deserve a response. It may be a few days. Hope that's ok.

I look forward to it. ;D