Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 53:209 (Jan 1896)
Article: The Fourth Gospel After A Century Of Criticism
Author: W. L. Ferguson

BSac 53:209 (Jan 1896) p. 1

The Fourth Gospel After A Century Of Criticism

Rev. W. L. Ferguson

When, where, and by whom was the Fourth Gospel written? These questions have been often asked and variously answered during the past one hundred years.

It shall be the aim of the present discussion to consider: first, the history of the controversy; second, the date of composition; third, the place of composition; fourth, the author; fifth, the occasion and the author’s object in writing; sixth, the present aspects of the controversy.

I. The History of the Controversy

That the Apostle John wrote the Fourth Gospel, was the generally received opinion of the Christian church down to the end of the seventeenth century. The only exception to this was on the part of a small sect, which flourished in Asia Minor at the close of the second century, known as the “Alogi.” This sect “denied the doctrines of the Logos, the Paraclete, and of the continuance of the prophetic gifts in the church, and also attributed the writings of John, which taught these doctrines, to Cerinthus, in order not thereby to impeach the authority of that apostle.”1

BSac 53:209 (Jan 1896) p. 2

At the close of the seventeenth century a few English Deists made an attack upon this Gospel, but the contest was of little importance. It was not until 1792 that the storm, which has raged so violently at times, really broke forth. The occasion was the publication of a small book, by Edward Evan-son, entitled “The Dissonance of the Four generally received Evangelists.” Evanson had been a clergyman in the Church of England, but, some fifteen years before he wrote his book, he had left the ministry, owing to certain difficulties in which he had become involved. “In 1773 he was tried in the Con-sistorial Court of Gloucester for publicly altering or omitting such phrases in the church-service as seemed to him to be untrue; correcting the authorized version of the Scriptures, and conversing against the creeds and the divinity of Christ.”2 The case was carried to the Court of Arches, and in 1777 it was quashed, upon technical grounds.

Evanson urged the differences between the Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel. He regarded as spurious the seven letters to the seven churches in the former, and he assigned the latter to some second-century author, e. g. some Platonic philosopher. He also regarded as spurious Matthew and Mark, assigning them also to the second century. Likewise he rejected the Epistles to the Romans, Ephesians, Colossians, Hebrews; of James, Peter, John, and Jude. He expressed himself...