That’s an astonishing assertion. I can’t think of any serious New Testament scholars who would say that.
Scroll down a bit, brother: *A significant minority consider the traditional account of John the Apostle’s authorship to be genuine. Scholars have argued that the stylistic unity of John is a significant barrier to theories of multiple stages of editing, with D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo arguing that “stylistically it is cut from one cloth”.[17] In addition, the ancient external attestation for Johannine authorship is strong and consistent. As Craig Blomberg has noted, “No orthodox writer ever proposes any other alternative for the author of the Fourth Gospel and the book is accepted in all of the early canonical lists, which is all the more significant given the frequent heterodox misinterpretations of it.”[18]
A significant minority consider the traditional account of John the Apostle’s authorship to be genuine. Scholars have argued that the stylistic unity of John is a significant barrier to theories of multiple stages of editing, with D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo arguing that “stylistically it is cut from one cloth”.[17] In addition, the ancient external attestation for Johannine authorship is strong and consistent. As Craig Blomberg has noted, “No orthodox writer ever proposes any other alternative for the author of the Fourth Gospel and the book is accepted in all of the early canonical lists, which is all the more significant given the frequent heterodox misinterpretations of it.”[18]
Raymond E. Brown said that that Gospel is based upon the recollections of that Apostle.
The Gospels, the first four books of the New Testament, tell the story of the life of Jesus. 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]). “Who wrote the Gospel of John?” is a question that remains unanswered, though noted theologians throughout the ages maintain that it was indeed the disciple John who penned the famous Biblical book.
*
All in all, there are many excellent reasons—both external and internal—for acceptance of the fourth gospel as having been authored by John the apostle.*
Maybe my math is off, but as far as I can tell:
≠
“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God.”
“Vas you dere, Johnny?”
So, I take the side of a significant minority of Biblical Scholars. It certainly isnt settled.
Oh, I see. Well, good for you. That’s different, though, isn’t it?
That’s one of the many Problems in your question. Ecumenism does not mean “bringing together of all faiths” in the sense of “we are all equal”. In many cases, it’s a practical Approach. You can see it with extremists: many of the fundies who insist that every other Group outside their very very very specific Interpretation of the Bible is damned and goes to hell, only they are the Real True Christians (most extreme: Phelps Fred Phelps - Wikipedia which is basically a big Family Group with lots of media Attention and lawyers) - even those band together to “fight abortion”*.
And you can see it with normal, that is average-liberal-moderate Christians who come together because “we may have theological differences about transsubstitution during mass, or the authority of the Pope, but we all agree that feeding the hungry is A Good Thing, so lets work together to do it”.
Another part of ecumenism is to say “Instead of insisting that we are right and you are wrong so you have to convert or die” which was done ** in previous centuries “let’s start talking with each other about what we do agree on , and where our differences are (because talking with each other is much better than talking about straw caricatures of each other)” and “We are pretty sure still that we are right and you are wrong - but God’s way are ineffable, and so we can never be 100% percent sure we are right, until we die and talk to God directly, so using force is less acceptable”.
And talking to People who don’t agree with you, but in a friendly atmosphere, can help clarify and think over your own Position, far better than talking in your own echo chamber of People who agree with you. Maybe you can even consider what positions are still necessary, and which have changed because of Society or new biblical scholarship. Many of the Protestant Groups follow Luther’s Dictum of “Ecclesia semper reformanda est” = the church is always in the act of reforming; because there is only scripture, not an infallible Pope, our (human, therefore Imperfect) understanding of scripture can Change, and therefore the structure and beliefs of the Church must Change. Like making women priests. Like using the local language instead of Latin. And so on.
- that the way they go about it Shows that it’s not about using proven methods to reduce abortion by good birth control, proper sex ed., and proper protection laws of mothers, childcare free of Charge, Food programs for mothers with children etc, but rather about “punishing women for having sex with babies” is another seperate point
** Again, things like 30 years war was not really about protestants vs. Catholics; it was a power struggle with a justification from some grab bag. If not this, another cause would have been found.
Because in science, esp. in history, nothing is ever settled. Among thousands of scholars, there will always be a minority opinion.
That doesn’t mean you can pass it off as accepted truth without challenge. You can believe what you want, but you Need to make it clear when your interpretations differ from the majority.
Sage Rat has posted many interpretations here, those so far from the majority they arent even considered by serious Biblical Scholars.
For the OP: one of the many aspects where more Ecumenism would be useful is Easter.
All Christian Groups agree that Easter is theologically very important (actually more important than Christmas). All agree that it occurs “on the sunday one month after the full moon after spring”. And yet the western Church and the Orthodox Church still haven’t managed to agree on one common date Easter controversy - Wikipedia, despite modern Technology making computation more accurate than in the 6th or 12th or 15th century, or alternativly making simple Observation of the moon more accurate than before. Still, the most important feast is celebrated seperatly.
So that’s one area where agreeing doesn’t involve any sacrifices on dogmatic or theological grounds.
I completely agree. There were many heated arguments over the date in early Christianity with Bishops of Rome and other major communities hurling threats and excommunications left right and center. The Quartodecimanists for instance were mercilessly persecuted for believing that Easter should be celebrated on the fourteenth day of Nisan, the day that John the Evangelist fixed as the day of Jesus’ crucifixion. As ludicrous a battle as the one over the procession of the Holy Ghost where people died over the presence or absence of an iota.
The moveable feast that most Western Christians are now left with takes a mathematician to calculate and I can’t imagine most Christians care when Easter is as long as it’s some time in Spring.
I wouldn’t put Lutherans at the ‘very little’ stage of Tradition. The Evangelicals have taken it well beyond us. Though Luther would probably accuse the Catholics of putting Tradition ahead of Scripture, you are correct that the Catholic Church wouldn’t put it that way (they’d likely put it at the same level).
Jesus said, “No man comes to the Father but by me,” allegedly. But he* didn’t *say, “…but by the Church Simon Barjona will build.” Rather the opposite! Look at the “Parable of the Sheep and the Goats”: The Son of Man welcomes the righteous and generous without regard to whether they can even recognize him.
Or see Matthew 7:21: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven."
Jesus sounds a freaking Universalist compared to the more exclusivist Christian churches. But there’s a reason for that. (Are you sitting down?) Jesus was a Jew. So was James, if you read his epistle. And when they talk about religion, they have the ethical concerns of Jews. They want God to reward the righteous, not just elevate their cult. Later Christians saw it a different way, oppressed non-Christians, got into the identity politics and the pogroms.
As much as Lewis was clowning there, the straw man he puts up now seems more reasonable to me than the nasty conservative aspect of Lewis that wrote The Great Divorce. But of course I see Jesus as first, most provably, a human being, and Lewis wanted him to be so much more.
I entirely agree with your summary here and share your opinion that the Gospel of John is first-hand, but I’d also make two related points in support, and in opposition to constanze and others.
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I take a very dim view of most of modern historico-critical scholarship, so I would not be particularly inclined to trust a “majority of modern Biblical Scholars”, at least those working in the historicocritical tradition, on much of anything regarding the dating and authorship of the Gospels. The reasons are essentially that I think historico-critical scholarship tends to rely on some questionable assumptions (a distrust of miracle claims, a distrust of prophecy, metaphysical naturalism to some extent, an overreliance on the idea that an author’s style and vocabulary are going to be consistent, the belief that the oldest texts we possess are a good guide to the oldest that exist, and so forth).
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I think that the early church writers- who were a lot closer to the events, and who didn’t share the naturalistic presuppositions of historical critical scholars- are going to be the best guide we have to the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, and they were pretty well agreed that John wrote it. Not even the heterodox sects disagreed- John was far and away the most popular Gospel among non-orthodox Christians.
I’m going to need a cite that people in the first century didn’t care about facts, because the Gospels- and most of all, John’s Gospel- explicitly stress that they rely on eyewitness testimony and are based around factual events.
As for the date of John’s Gospel, I’m in agreement with John AT Robinson that John was written sometime between the death of Peter and the fall of Jerusalem (i.e. between 64-70 AD), which would put it within 30-35 years of the crucifixion. Assuming John was a teenager when he was a disciple of Jesus that would make him late 40s, early 50s at the time of the writing of the Gospel. (Early tradition suggests he lived to extreme old age anyway). I’m aware this is a minority opinion among historical-critical scholars, but if you want to argue for a late date (rather than cite authority), I’m happy to have that argument. I believe that John was written prior to 70 AD because 1) he mentions the death of Peter as an example of fulfilled prophecy but fails to mention the fall of Jerusalem, 2) he passes without comment over Caiaphas’ warning of the Roman conquest of Jerusalem, instead of mentioning its fulfillment, and 3) he talks about architectural details of Jerusalem in the present tense, indicating that the city and the temple were still standing at the time of writing.
The primary argument I’ve seen for a post-90 dating of John is that it mentions the expulsion of Christians from synagogues and that people associate with with an official Jewish anathema around 90 AD. This is a really terrible argument in my opinion. There’s no reason to believe that people only issue anathemas against their opponents once, quite the contrary. We know that Christian churches repeatedly issue anathemas against the same things over and over again through decades or centuries. Another argument is that John was written late because he has a high Christology, which only works if you rely on the (semi-circular) assumption that Jesus was a man who got deified over time, and that people’s visions of his status and identity got higher and more elaborate over time. If you don’t share that assumption, there are very few independent grounds for dating John late.
OK, this isn’t a good argument either. I’m extremely skeptical of the consensus of “serious Biblical scholars”, but that skepticism works both ways. Arguments deserve to be considered on their own merits and on the weight of evidence, regardless of what a majority of Biblical Scholars may or may not think. That goes for, e.g. the idea that Jesus never existed, or was never crucified, or was never truly human, as much as it does for the idea that John wrote the Gospel of John.
A distrust of miracle claims and prophecy would be a requisite in the eyes of many for writing a history of the period. If an author approaches this in the way you suggest he or she may write an excellent religious work but it will not be history in the universally accepted definition of the term.
As for the early church writers you would surely agree they are not the most trustworthy of writers. These guys were utterly convinced of the truth of the Christian religion and would do all in their power to advance it. Would they pass on information discreditable to Christianity even if it were true? I think you know the answer to that. How then can anything they write be trusted? It’s like taking the word of a salesman that everything he says of his miracle product is true. Those who part with their money on that basis will quickly find their garage filling up with junk.
My own Christianity is heterodox and influenced by the Gnostics so I’d take a much more skeptical views of Exodus and the Old Testament than most, and I’m strongly influenced by the fact that (as Clement indicates) both orthodox and the gnostics were in agreement that life begins at conception. If I have to choose between Exodus and early Christians I’m going with the early Christians any day. Even if you are more orthodox than I am, though, there’s a very strong case to be made that early Christian tradition has to trump scripture, which is that scripture didn’t exist for the early Christians. The New Testament wasn’t written until around 70 AD, the NT canon wasn’t fixed until the mid fourth century, and it was a matter of hot debate among early Christians about what to do with the Old Testament. (Marcionites wanted to reject it, “Judaizers” wanted to take it word for word, the orthodox settled for a middle course of accepting it but mostly using it for prophetic and typological value).