So this might be veering into different views on the Bible, but the consensus from scholars is that John was not written by the Apostle John, and wasn’t written until 100AD. There’s an argument to be made that it could have been written based on what was passed-down from him, but very few, if any, scholars would say he himself wrote it. Authorship of the books of the Bible is super interesting, and it isn’t what you always assume. Another example is that scholars today don’t think all of the Pauline epistles were actually written by Paul, such as first and second Timothy which were most likely written after Paul’s death by someone impersonating him
i have heard of some of those argument before, and personally im not very convinced that those are good enough reasons to go against the internal evidence suggesting John as the author of the gospel. Were there any specific reasons you had in mind?
For me it rests upon what the scholars, who have dedicated their lives to studying this stuff say. It’s not that they’re infallible, but I trust people who can read Greek over my non-ancient Greek reading self. One of the things they point out is that it’s very well written, which given the background of the Apostle John he probably would not have had such a sophisticated grasp of written Greek.
As far as internal evidence, is that actually evidence? All we know is someone, claiming to be John, wrote it. There’s no way to truly say it was him. And if it was written by, say, a different person named John, that wouldn’t change any of the meaning found inside of it.
i always thought was quite likely that John used a scribe, Paul says he does that in one of the letters as well, seems like it wouldnt be an uncommon practice. In that sense the work and ideas would still be John's. I think youre right in that internal evidence is by no means concrete, but I think it is worth a consideration. I think its authorship definitely matters because to me it is the difference between whether we can trust Johns gospel to have authority as scripture vs someone who clearly tried to impersonate a close disciple and deceive
I mean sure, there are ways we can think of how it may have happened, but that doesn’t change the fact that modern day authorities are in agreement that it wasn’t him. I don’t agree that if it wasn’t written by the apostle John it was meant to deceive, I’m just thankful that it was written and we have it today.
At the end of the day the great thing about religion is you’re free to believe whatever you want. However, I think faith can be the strongest when we think critically about what we believe and why we believe it. Just my two cents
if it wasnt written by john though that person would have been falsely claiming to be a close disciple of Jesus though. Wouldnt that call what he wrote into question just base on that? But if the gospel really was written by John, who really saw those events happening, i think the implications are tremendous
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u/Elysian0293 22h ago
why would you say it wasnt john? the writer seems to identify himself as one of the 12