Authorship of the Johannine works

The Johannine works are the Gospel of John, the first, second, and third epistles of John, and the Book of Revelation. All five show certain similarities in theological background, but also certain differences, leading to the current debate.

All of these books of the New Testament have traditionally been attributed to John the Apostle, assumed to be identical to John the Evangelist, except for 2 John, which was officially regarded as distinct since the Council of Rome; however, especially since the rise of higher criticism, the question of the authorship of the Johannine works has been disputed. Before the rise of higher criticism, the question of authorship of the five works was hardly breached. However, the decree of the Council of Rome (382) differentiates the Gospel, first epistle and Book of Revelation, which it attributes to John the Apostle, from the second and third epistle, which it attributes to "John, a priest". See John the Presbyter.

Today the texts continue to be approached separately; viewpoints on the issue of authorship in each of the Johannine works range from affirming the authorship of the Apostle, to affirming the authorship of another author, called "John" for convenience, to theories of group authorship.

History of use of the Johannine works

In the first two centuries of Christianity, the Gospel of Matthew was the primary instrument for catechesis. John was always considered the last to be written, traditionally given a date between 90 and 100, though modern scholars often suggest an even later date. Under the influence of Irenaeus' four-gospel "canon of truth", the Gospel of John became a cornerstone of baptismal catechesis in Rome. In the First Council of Nicaea, the Gospel was one of the major supports for the high Christology proposed by the council fathers.

On the one hand, several Church fathers of the 2nd century never quoted John, and on the other, the earliest extant written commentary on any book of the New Testament was that written on John by Heracleon, a disciple of the gnostic Valentinus. Texts of the Nag Hammadi library show that many of the Gospel of John's earliest readers responded to the text "in surprising and imaginative ways" (Pagels 2003 p 115 –117). Origen, Augustine, John Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria all provided commentaries on the Johannine works, with those of Augustine being the most numerous. In the Middle Ages, important mainstream commentaries were written by Rupert of Deutz and Thomas Aquinas.

Though apologists argue that most of the above is called into question due to Rylands Library Papyrus P52, which is probably dated to between 125 and 160 CE, and is viewed by apologists as a fragment of the Gospel of John, P52 contains only a few words, less than 50, almost none of which are whole and next to another, and we do not know what the vast majority of the document that P52 comes from actually said. P52 could equally be a quite different earlier document that was twisted into John by the fraudulent addition of fictional material, or that happened by chance to be similar to John in this small area of the text. Justin Martyr (c100AD to 165AD) also quoted from the gospel of John this would also support that the Gospel was indeed in existence by at the begin of the second century.

History of critical scholarship

The era of critical scholarship on the works opened with K.G. Bretschneider's 1820 work on the topic of Johannine authorship. Bretschneider called into question the apostolic authorship of the Gospel, and even stated on the basis of the author's unsteady grip on topology that the author could not have come from Palestine. He argued that the meaning and nature of Jesus presented in the Gospel of John was very different from that in the Synoptic Gospels, and thus its author could not have been an eyewitness to the events. Bretschneider cited an apologetic character in John, indicating a later date of composition.

Following from the philosophy of Hegel, F.C. Baur negated any historical value for the Fourth Gospel. He stated that it was solely a work of synthesis of thesis-antithesis according to the Hegelian model—synthesis between the thesis of Judeo-Christianity (represented by Peter) and the antithesis of Gentile Christianity (represented by Paul). He also cited in the epistles a synthesis with the opposing dualist forces of Gnosticism. As such, he assigned a date of 170 to the Gospel. Many modern critics follow him in this late dating.

The Gospel

Literary criticism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Although the critical movement reached almost complete agreement about the two-source hypothesis for the Synoptic Gospels, no agreement has been reached about the literary sources for the Johannine works. A perhaps typical example of a critical theory of the development of these was provided by Julius Wellhausen in 1908. He hypothesized a base document which was heavily modified by a later editor. He claimed to have been able to separate the base document from the editings, praising the base document, and condemning the later editor for his intrusion. Other critical scholars, such as E. Schwarz, listed dozens of "apories" or indications of rupture in the narratives and discourses.

Criticism in the early twentieth century centered on the idea of the Logos (word), which was perceived as a Hellenistic concept. Thus H. J. Holtzmann hypothesized a dependence of the work on Philo Judaeus; Albert Schweitzer considered the work to be a Hellenized version of Pauline mysticism, while R. Reitzenstein sought the work's origin in Egyptian and Persian mystery religions.

Rudolf Bultmann took a different approach to the work. He hypothesized a Gnostic origin (specifically Mandaeanism) for the work. He noted similarities with the Pauline corpus, but attributed this to a common Hellenistic background. He claimed that the many contrasts in the Gospel, between light and darkness, truth and lies, above and below, and so on, show a tendency toward dualism, explained by the Gnostic roots of the work. Despite the Gnostic origin, Bultmann commended the author for several improvements over Gnosticism, such as the Judeo-Christian view of creation and the demythologizing of the role of the Redeemer. He saw the Gospel as an investigation into a God who was wholly Other and transcendent, seeing no place in the vision of the author for a Church or sacraments.

Bultmann's analysis is still widely applied in German-speaking countries, although with many corrections and discussions. Wide-ranging replies have been made to this analysis. Today, most Christian exegetes reject much of Bultmann's theory, but accept certain of his intuitions. For instance, J. Blank uses Bultmann in his discussion of the Last Judgment and W. Thüsing uses him to discuss the elevation and glorification of Jesus.

In the English-speaking world, Bultmann has had less impact. Instead, these scholars tended to continue in the investigation of the Hellenistic and Platonistic theories, generally returning to theories closer to the traditional interpretation. By way of example, G.H.C. McGregor (1928) and W.F. Howard (1943) belong to this group.

More recent criticism

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran marked a change in Johannine scholarship. Several of the hymns, presumed to come from a community of Essenes, contained the same sort of plays between opposites—light and dark, truth and lies—that the Gospel contains. Thus the hypothesis that the Gospel relied on Gnosticism fell out of favor. Many suggested further that John the Baptist himself belonged to an Essene community, and if John the Apostle had previously been a disciple of the Baptist, he would have been affected by that teaching.

The resulting revolution in Johannine scholarship was termed the new look by J.A.T. Robinson, who coined the phrase in 1957 at Oxford. According to Robinson, this new information rendered the question of authorship a relative one. He considered a group of disciples around the aging John the Apostle who wrote down his memories, mixing them with theological speculation, a model that had been proposed as far back as Renan's Vie de Jésus ("Life of Jesus ", 1863). The work of such scholars brought the consensus back to a Palestinian origin for the text, rather than the Hellenistic origin favored by the critics of the previous decades.

In any case, the "Qumran fever" that was raised by the discovery of the Scrolls is gradually dying down, with theories of Gnostic influences in the Johannine works beginning to be proposed again, especially in Germany. Some recent views have seen the theology of Johannine works as directly opposing "Thomas Christians" (Riley 1995; Pagels 2003).

Hugh Schonfield, in The Passover Plot and other works, saw evidence that the source of this Gospel was the Beloved Disciple of the Last Supper and further that this person, perhaps named John, was a senior Temple priest and so probably a member of the Sanhedrin. This would account for the otherwise inexplicable knowledge of and access to the Temple which would not have been available to rough fishermen and followers of a distruptive rural preacher from the Gallilee, one who was being accused of heresy besides. And probably for the evanescent presence of the Beloved Disciple in the events of Jesus' Ministry. On this reading, the Gospel was written, perhaps by a student and follower of this Disciple in his last advanced years, perhaps at Patmos.

Historicity

With the exception of Renan's Vie de Jésus, which praised the historical and geographical details present in the Gospel, virtually all critical scholars before the 20th century denied any historical value of the work, largely basing their conclusions on seven particular theses: first, that the tradition of authorship by John the Apostle was created a posteriori to support the book's authority; second, that the book does not proceed even indirectly from an eyewitness account; third, that the book was intended as an apologetic work, not a history; fourth, that the Synoptic tradition was used and adapted very freely by the author; fifth, that these deviations are not due to the application of other sources unknown to the authors of the Synoptic gospels; sixth, that the discourses in the Gospel express not Jesus's words, but those of the evangelist; and therefore, that the fourth Gospel has no value in supplementing the Synoptics.

In favor of the historical and eyewitness character of the Gospel, a few passages are pointed to. In the second chapter, when Jesus cleanses the Temple, the Jews tell him that the Temple has been under construction for forty-six years. That construction had begun in 20 BC under Herod the Great, putting the cleansing of the Temple in AD 27, precisely when modern scholarship (see Chronology of Jesus' birth and death) places the beginning of Jesus's ministry. Similarly, John's chronology for the death of Jesus seems more realistic, because the Synoptic Gospels would have the trial before the Sanhedrin occurring on the first day of the Passover, which was a day of rest. However, this could simply be due to the authors of the gospels having a clearer and more neutral account of events than would be held by someone present at the time. Schonfield agrees that the Gospel was the product of the Apostle's great age, but further identifies him as the Beloved Disciple of the Last Supper, and so believes that the Gospel is based on first hand witness, though decades later and perhaps through the assistance of a younger follower and writer, which may account for the mixture is Hebraicisma (from the Disciple) and Greek idiom (the assistant).

Fredriksen 2002 (See also http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/apr1995/v52-1-article6.htm) sees the Fourth Gospel's unique explanation for Jesus' arrest and crucifixion as the most historically plausible: "The priests' motivation is clear and commonsensical: 'If we let ^* go on.... the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.' Caiaphas continues, 'It is expedient that one man should die for the people, that the whole nation not perish' (11:48,50)".

Authorship

Early criticism

According to some scholars, the first persons to use the Gospel of John were Gnostics in the early to mid second century, referring to commentary made on John by the Gnostics Ptolemy and Heracleon, as quoted by Irenaeus and Origen. Some go further and claim that the author himself was a Gnostic, citing cited similarities with the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip.

The first certain witness to Johannine theology among the Fathers of the Church is in Ignatius of Antioch, whose Letter to the Philippians is founded on John 3:8 and alludes to John 10:7-9 and 14:6. This would indicate that the Gospel was known in Antioch before Ignatius' death (probably 107). Polycarp of Smyrna (c 80 AD to 167 AD) quotes from the letters of John. As does Justin Martyr(c 100 AD to 165 AD).

The earliest testimony to the author was that of Papias, preserved in fragmentary quotes in Eusebius's history of the Church. This text is consequently rather obscure. Eusebius says that two different Johns must be distinguished, John the Apostle, and John the Presbyter, with the Gospel assigned to the Apostle and the Book of Revelation to the presbyter.

Irenaeus's witness based on Papias represents the tradition in Ephesus, where John the Apostle is reputed to have lived. Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, thus in the second generation after the apostle. He states unequivocally that the apostle is the author of the Gospel. Some critics reject the reference of Ignatius of Antioch as referring to the Gospel and cite Irenaeus as the first to use it. Some of these go as far as to claim that Irenaeus was the author (or at least final editor) of the book. These scholars claim that the theory of Johannine authorship was created by the early Church to give more authority to the work which they were using to combat Gnosticism.

The recent discovery of Rylands Library Papyrus P52, typically dated to around 100-150 (but sometimes as late as 175), suggests, according to Christian apologists, that the text of the Gospel of John spread rapidly through Egypt. However, the fragment contains only about 50 words, no two of which are together complete, and it only demonstrates the presence of a part of a form of the Gospel of John, not the whole of the form we have now. Epiphanius claimed that Roman Caius believed that Cerinthus, a gnostic, was the author of the Apocalypse ^* .

Clement of Alexandria (c 150 AD to 211 AD) mentions John the Apostle's missionary activity in Asia Minor, and continues, "As for John, the last, upon seeing that in the Gospels they had told the corporal matters, supported by his disciples and inspired by the Holy Spirit, he wrote a spiritual Gospel." (Quis dives salvabitur 42,1). Origen responded, when asked how John had placed the cleansing of the Temple first rather than last, "John does not always tell the truth literally, he always tells the truth spiritually" (Commentary on John 10.4.6). In Alexandria, the authorship of the Gospel and the first epistle was never questioned. Bruce Metzger stated "One finds in Clement's workcitations of all the books of the New Testament with the exception of Philemon, James, 2 Peter, and 2 and 3 John."

Rome was the home to the only early rejection of the fourth Gospel. The adversaries of Montanism were responsible. Irenaeus says that these persons tried to suppress the teaching about the Holy Spirit in order to put down Montanism, and as a result denied the authorship of the Gospel and its authority. Later Epiphanius called this group, who were followers of the priest Caius, the alogoi in a wordplay between "without the Word" and "without reason".

Modern criticism

The documentation of the traditional authorship of the Gospel has certain weak points that have been exploited by critics. Ireneus is accused of having made Papias into a disciple of John the Apostle to provide support for his own theories: Eusebius later showed that Papias was a disciple of John the Presbyter. But even Eusebius does not escape without criticism. His citing of John the Presbyter seems to be motivated by his arguments for the authorship of the Book of Revelation. Ireneus's memories of Polycarp's testimony are childhood memories, and lack clarity. For instance, he cites relationships between Polycarp and a "John", but doesn't specify which John.

The Gospel of John states explicitly in its text that it was written by the "disciple whom Jesus loved", so that a great deal of effort has been put into determining who this person might be. Traditionally he is identified as John the Apostle, since otherwise, one of the most important apostles in the other Gospels would be entirely missing in the fourth gospel. However, critical scholars have suggested some other possibilities. Filson and Sanders suggest Lazarus, since John 11:31 and 36 specifically indicates that Jesus "loved" him, and it is implied in the Secret Gospel of Mark. However, the fact that Lazarus is never mentioned in the Galilean ministry, and that there is no widespread tradition of Lazarus's apostolic activity after Jesus's death, throws this theory into doubt. Parker suggested that this disciple might be John Mark; nonetheless, the Acts of the Apostles indicate that John Mark was very young and a late-comer as a disciple. J. Colson suggested that "John" was a priest in Jerusalem, explaining the priestly mentality in the fourth gospel. R. Schnackenburg suggested that "John" was an otherwise unknown resident of Jerusalem who was in Jesus's circle of friends. The Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary identify Mary Magdalene as the disciple whom Jesus loved, a connection that has been analyzed by Esther de Boer (in Meyer 2004) and made notorious in the fictional The Da Vinci Code. Finally, a few authors, such as Loisy and Bultmann and Hans-Martin Schenke, see "John" as a purely symbolic creation, an idealized pseudonym for the group of authors.

Many critical scholars today conclude (with the tradition) that the "disciple whom Jesus loved" was intended to be understood as John the Apostle, though after the discovery of the Secret Gospel of Mark a few have considered that it refers to the youth found semi-naked with Jesus during his arrest, and also the youth found in the tomb (as the same person); however, there remains the question of whether this apostle was actually the author of the texts. Various objections to John the Apostle's authorship have been raised. First of all, the Gospel of John is a highly intellectual account of Jesus' life, requiring a good level of education. But the Synoptic Gospels are united in identifying John as a fisherman, whom one would not picture as well-educated. Against this objection, might be noted that John was not a hired fisherman, but rather someone who could afford to own a boat, and may thus have had access to sufficient income to pay for teaching. However, the Acts of the Apostles refers to John as "without learning" or "unlettered".

A second objection to John the Apostle's authorship is the importance that he gives to the traditions of Jerusalem, which would be unusual for a Galilean. The response usually given to this objection is that the knowledge of Jerusalem shown in the text is no more than a yearly pilgrim might pick up. John's interest in Jerusalem seems to be totally dependent on his interest in Jesus.

Finally, it is objected that the "disciple whom Jesus loved" is not mentioned before the Last Supper, so that this disciple would not have been an eyewitness to the earlier events of the Gospel. However, tradition has identified this disciple with the unnamed disciple of the first chapter. The structure of the Gospel also partially explains the "disappearance" of the disciples from the center of the action. The first twelve chapters, the "Book of Signs", concerns Jesus's preaching and miracles among the Jewish people, while the relation of the Last Supper concentrates on his relation to the disciples in particular.

Most scholars posit a community of writers rather than a single individual that gave final form to the work. In particular, Chapter 21 is very different stylistically from the main body of the Gospel, and is thought to be a later addition (known as the appendix), and the last few verses of the chapter are yet again different, and thought to be an even later addition (known as the appendix to the appendix). Among many Christian scholars the view has evolved that there were multiple stages of development involving the disciples as well as the apostle; R.E. Brown (1970) distinguishes four stages of development: traditions connected directly with the apostle, partial editing by his disciples, synthesis by the apostle, and additions by a final editor.

Most scholars date the writing of the Gospel to the last four or five years of the first century. If this is the case, and John the Apostle is the principal author, he would have been some 90 years old at the time of composition, which was a very remarkable age in the first century, when life expectancies were much shorter. On the other hand, if the apostle had actually lived to such an age, it would explain the tradition reported in John 21, that many believed that Jesus had said the apostle would not die (which may have lead to the legend of Prester John).

However, as noted above, a few choose a much later date, typically around the time of Irenaeus - circa 180AD. Irenaeus was one of the first people to quote extensively from the Gospel, and hence one of the first witnesses to its existence. Many parts of the Gospel seem to be directly targeting various heresies such as Arianism, which is directly refuted in the opening sentence, docetism, and various more specific gnostic beliefs. However, the heresies in question only arose around the time of the mid second century, and it would be scientifically unlikely for the gospel to be targeting heresies that didn't exist when it was written, and similarly unusual for the heresies to arise when they were so clearly refuted by something that had been circulating for 50 years.

Consequently several scholars have proposed that the Gospel was deliberately written in the late second century to explicitly oppose those heresies, when the synoptic Gospels fail to do so. Some scholars have even proposed that Irenaeus himself, who had a similar writing style, theology, and knowledge of literary Greek, was the author. Even in the early church there was a large doubt over its authenticity, and both Marcion and Celsus heavily criticized it as a clear forgery.

First epistle

The phraseology of the first letter of John is very similar to that of the fourth gospel, so that the question of authorship is often connected to the question of authorship of the gospel. There are several turns of phrase that occur only in the Gospel and First Epistle and nowhere else in the New Testament, such as "have a sin", "do the truth", "remain" in some mystical state (in the Father, in the Son, in my love), and so forth. Both works have a very Semitic flavor to the Greek -- many sentences begin with "all" or with "and", use of "literary inclusion" (the repetition of a phrase to indicate that the material between the inclusions belongs together), minimal use of the Greek illative particles. Both works have the same basic concepts that are being explored: the Word, the Only Begotten, the incarnation, the passing from death to life, the truth and lies, etc.

The book was not among those whose canonicity was in doubt, according to Eusebius; however, it is not included in an ancient Syrian canon. Theodore of Mopsuestia also presented a negative opinion toward its canonicity. Outside of the Syrian world, however, the book has many early witnesses, and appears to have been widely accepted.

Given the similarity with the Gospel, most critical scholars assign the same authorship to the epistle that they assign to the Gospel. Most refer to a Johannine school from which the letter stemmed, possibly even from the hand of the apostle himself.

Second and third epistles

While tradition normally assigns the second and third epistles to John the Apostle, the fact that the author identifies himself as "the presbyter" (or "the priest") cast doubt on this assignment, even within the early Church. There are enough literary and theological similarities with the first epistle that these two are normally assumed to have stemmed from the same circle of theologians. Thus most scholars assume that some personality in the circle of disciples of John was the author of these books. The similarities between the two books make it unlikely that they have two separate authors. This hypothetical author is usually called "John the Presbyter" to distinguish him from the apostle.

Medieval legend, on the other hand, equated "John the Presbyter" with "John the Apostle", and since some read chapter 21 of the Gospel as indicating that John the Apostle never died, produced the story of Prester John, who was said to be the apostle, still alive and writing in the Middle Ages.

Revelation

The author of the Book of Revelation identifies himself as "John", so that the book has been traditionally credited to John the Apostle. Evidence of this identification is found as early as Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Tryphon. Other witnesses to this tradition are Ireneus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian.

The first doubts about the apostolic authorship of the book came in the third century. The priest Caius of Rome (one of Epiphanius's "alogoi") identified the author as Cerinthus, whom he considered a heretic. Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria rejected apostolic authorship, but accepted the book's canonicity. More radically, in the fourth century, much of the Eastern Church rejected the book's canonicity. This viewpoint was shared by several Fathers of the Church, such as Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzus, John Chrysostom, and Theodoret. It was also rejected in Syria.

The question of canonicity was reopened in the West by the Reformers. The Roman Catholic Council of Trent, on the other hand, reaffirmed its canonicity. Most Christians today accept the book as part of the canon.

There are various affinities between the book and the Fourth Gospel: use of allegory, symbolism, and similar metaphors, such as "living water", "shepherd", "lamb", and "manna". However, the differences between the two are perhaps even more notable. The Book of Revelation does not go into several typically Johannine themes, such as light, darkness, truth, love, and "the world" in a negative sense. The eschatologies of the two works are also very different.

Precise identification of an author is near impossible given the lack of evidence. Nonetheless, the work is normally assigned to the circle of disciples around the Apostle John. The date of composition is widely disputed. Ireneus cited the end of the reign of Domitian (this is repeated by Eusebius and Jerome). This is the most common opinion among those modern critics who consider the work to have been written as a whole. Nonetheless, Epiphanius cited composition in the reign of Claudius, and the Muratorian fragment suggests composition at the time of Nero.

Some exegetes (Touilleux, Gelin, Feuillet) distinguish two dates: publication (under Domitian) and date of the visions (under Vespasian). Various editors would have a hand in the formation of the document, according to these theories. The dating of the work is still widely debated in the scholarly community.

References

de Boer, Esther, 2004. Essay in Marvin Meyer, The Gospels of Mary HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 0-06-072791-8
Denzinger, Heinrich and Rahner, Karl. Enchiridion Symbolorum Definitionum et Declarationum. 28th Edition. Herder: Freiburg, 1952.
George, Augustin and Grelot, Pierre. Introducción Crítica al Nuevo Testamento. Herder: Barcelona, 1992. ISBN 8425412773
Pagels, Elaine, Johannine Gospels in Gnostic Exegesis
Pagels, Elaine, 2003. Beyond BeliefISBN 0-375-70316-0
Riley, Gregory J., 1995. Resurrection Reconsidered: Thomas and John in Controversy (Minneapolis)
Wijngaards, John. Handbook to the Gospels. ISBN 0892831367
Wiles, Maurice F., 1960. The Spiritual Gospel: The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel in the Early Church, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)