Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 82:325 (Jan 1925)
Article: The Authenticity Of St. John’s Gospel
Author: J. M. Hantz

BSac 81:325 (Jan 1925) p. 63

The Authenticity Of St. John’s Gospel

J. M. Hantz

The Gospel according to St. John differs from the other Gospels in one important respect—namely, in being the only one in which the writer calls attention to his own person, and declares himself to have been one of the immediate disciples of Christ. The Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark contain no direct intimation of their authors; it is only the tradition of the Church which has assigned them to the persons whose names they bear. The Gospel of St. Luke also is silent concerning its author, though the opening address to Theophilus enables us to identify the writer with the author of the Acts of the Apostles, and the narrative of the latter work further points him out as one of the companions of St. Paul. But St. John’s Gospel in two passages alludes to the person of its author, and points him out as one of the disciples of Christ. In the 19th chapter he is stated to have been present at the crucifixion of his Master, and to have seen the infliction of the wound which pierced His side; “and he that saw it bore record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith is true, that ye might believe” (John 19:3, 5). And in the 21st chapter he is still further identified with the disciple whom Jesus loved, and of whom He spoke as tarrying till He should come.” This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things; and we know that his testimony is true” (John 21:24).

This distinct ascription of authorship places an inquiry into the genuineness of the Gospel of St. John upon a different footing from a similar inquiry with regard to any other of the Gospels. In other cases it is possible to suppose that the tradition of the Church may be in error, without imparting any fraudulent intention to the writer of the book. The author does not say that he is Matthew or Mark, or Luke; and he is not necessarily responsible if the tradition of the Church is mistaken in this respect. With regard to the Gospel of St. John, such an uninten-

BSac 81:325 (Jan 1925) p. 64

tional error is out of the question. Either the book was (as it professes to have been) written by the disciple whom Jesus loved, or the whole Church has been imposed upon by a willful and deliberate forgery of that disciple’s name.

There have not been wanting, however, both in earlier and in later times, speculators or critics who, on various grounds, have asserted the spuriousness of this Gospel. Irenaeus mentions certain heretics who rejected the Gospel of St. John (Irenaeus 3:11:9); but it is n...