So, then- we can’t state *anything. *
If you read the section** More recent criticism**, theories and info gathered after the Dead Sea Scrolls make that John was the author the current consensus:
*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 – which are themes within the Gospel. 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.[citation needed]
The resulting revolution in Johannine scholarship was termed the new look by John 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.[citation needed]*
Because the followers of Jesus were a giant pain in the ass to them. The Romans killed quite a number of Christians, they could have cut the legs off the faith if they had been able to show Jesus was made up.
Yes, better* tools*. But the Romans had Pilates execution records.
*Nothing written by Socrates remains extant. As a result, all first-hand information about him and his philosophies depend upon secondary sources. Furthermore, close comparison between the contents of these sources reveals contradictions, thus creating concerns about the possibility of knowing in-depth the real Socrates. This issue is known as the Socratic problem,[4] or the Socratic question.[5][6]
To understand Socrates and his thought, one must turn primarily to the works of Plato, whose dialogues are thought the most informative source about Socrates’ life and philosophy,[7] and also Xenophon.[8] These writings are the Sokratikoi logoi, or Socratic dialogues, which consist of reports of conversations apparently involving Socrates.[9][10]
As for discovering the real-life Socrates, the difficulty is that ancient sources are mostly philosophical or dramatic texts, apart from Xenophon. There are no straightforward histories, contemporary with Socrates, that dealt with his own time and place. A corollary of this is that sources that do mention Socrates do not necessarily claim to be historically accurate, and are often partisan. For instance, those who prosecuted and convicted Socrates have left no testament. Historians therefore face the challenge of reconciling the various evidence from the extant texts in order to attempt an accurate and consistent account of Socrates’ life and work. The result of such an effort is not necessarily realistic, even if consistent.*
People here dismiss the New Testament out of hand, but then accept Plato with little doubt. Plato was well known (and should be well known) for making shit up to prove a point- see Atlantis. Perhaps he made up Socrates? And who is to say that Plato wrote what is attributed to him? Much stuff attributed to him is dubious.