Featured “The Gospel of John” has an anonymous author

Scooter said:

Multicolored Lemur said:

On this I remember it’s the YouTube publisher “Paulogia” who likes to describe himself as “a former Christian looking at the claims of Christians.”

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Your supporting evidence is a YouTuber named Paulogia. Not a recognized Bible scholar or theologian. A YouTuber. I'm sorry, I just cannot place much faith in a random YouTuber who claims to be a former Christian when such a being does not exist.

Here is a site with supporting evidence for John being the author. And this is an actual theological academic site: https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/who-wrote-the-gospel-of-john

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Yet only one—the Gospel of John—claims to be an eyewitness account, the testimony of the unnamed “disciple whom Jesus loved.” (“This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true” [John 21:24]).

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We do know that John is a gospel apart, however. Early Matthew, Mark and Luke are so alike in their telling that they are called the Synoptic Gospels, meaning “seen together”—the parallels are clear when they are looked at side by side.
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John, however, does not include the same incidents or chronology found in the other three Gospels, and the fact that it is so different has spurred a debate over whether John’s Gospel is historical or not

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Multicolored Lemur said:

On the emotional Richter scale, it can be a big deal. Plus, you’re wondering, why didn’t my preacher tell me this before?

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AgnosticBoy said:

Here's a short article with an easy answer on this topic... from the Biblical Archaeology Society:

Yet only one—the Gospel of John—claims to be an eyewitness account, the testimony of the unnamed “disciple whom Jesus loved.” (“This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true” [John 21:24]).

Click to expand...

We do know that John is a gospel apart, however. Early Matthew, Mark and Luke are so alike in their telling that they are called the Synoptic Gospels, meaning “seen together”—the parallels are clear when they are looked at side by side.
...
John, however, does not include the same incidents or chronology found in the other three Gospels, and the fact that it is so different has spurred a debate over whether John’s Gospel is historical or not

Click to expand...

I will also look for a source that's pro-Christian but still a good source.

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The Gospel of John doesn’t explicitly name its author. At every mention of himself, the author states that he is “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (e.g., John 13:23). The author was an eyewitness to the events (see John 21:24), and, based on the fact that he was the disciple “leaning back against Jesus” at the Last Supper (John 13:25), he was likely one of Jesus’ inner circle, with Peter and James. Peter is mentioned as separate from the author (John 21:20), and James was martyred early in the history of the church (Acts 12:2). That leaves John as the remaining disciple of the inner three and, thus, the author.

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Apart from the internal clues, the early church uniformly affirmed the authorship of John. Church fathers like Irenaeus plainly spoke of John writing an epistle. Besides Irenaeus, writers like Tatian, Theophilus, Clement, and Tertullian attributed the fourth Gospel to John. John’s Gospel was more theological because he sought to address the theological issues faced by the newer generation of Christians as the apostolic age ended. False teachers had sprung up, questioning core beliefs of Christianity, such as Jesus’ humanity (see 1 John). As a counter, John began his Gospel by introducing the Word who was God and who became flesh (John 1:1, 14).

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Polycarp, a significant figure in 2nd-century Christianity, is renowned for his devout faith and leadership as the bishop of Smyrna. His connections with the original disciples of Jesus, particularly the Apostle John, have intrigued scholars and historians for centuries.

Did Polycarp really interact with John and other early disciples? This question remains a topic of fascinating debate. In this article, we will explore Polycarp’s life, his writings, and the accounts about him,

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Polycarp was born in 69 CE, probably in Smyrna in the Roman province of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) and died in that same city in 155 CE. We know that he was a bishop of Smyrna and wrote an important epistle to the Philippian church. However, like many ancient writers, Polycarp doesn’t give us a lot of autobiographical details in his own writing. For that reason, we have to rely on other ancient writers who wrote to him or about him for facts about his life.
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In addition to Against Heresies, we have a work called The Martyrdom of Polycarp, which of course is about Polycarp’s death for his faith in the year 155 CE. It is written by someone named Evaristus, although it’s impossible to know if this was the letter’s composer or merely the scribe who took dictation. However, it is a fascinating piece of writing, the first account of Christian martyrdom outside the New Testament, in fact. But is it history? Let’s look at its contents.

Scholars have made various estimates about when The Martyrdom of Polycarp was written. Some believed it was written somewhere between 155 and 160 CE, in other words, right after the events it describes. Others believed it was written between 167-177 CE, based on references to it in the writings of Eusebius.

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As a young man, Irenaeus apparently heard Polycarp preach. He believed that Polycarp had actually known the Apostle John, son of Zebedee, and had heard him preach. Was this true?

It’s impossible to know for certain but consider this: Polycarp was born in the year 69 CE, about 40 years after the death of Jesus. If we assume that John was a young adult – let’s say he was 20 – when he knew Jesus, this would have made him 60 when Polycarp was born.

If Polycarp then heard John preach, even at the tender age of 20, John would have already been at least 80 years old. Hardly anyone in the ancient world lived past the age of 65. Of course, it’s possible that Polycarp heard John preach, but probably unlikely. Remember also that John was a Galilean peasant who spoke only Aramaic. Polycarp was a Roman citizen who seems to have spoken only Greek.

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