06.25. Internal Evidences of John's Gospel

Chapter 24 Internal Evidences of John’s Gospel In our last chapter we sought to show from the external point of view that the Apostle John wrote the fourth Gospel, quoting the testimony of manuscripts, versions and catalogues of the early Christian writers, down to the period of the Apostle’s death. Of course, the whole thing was in the nature of a bird’s eye view, nothing more, and yet it was true as far as it went, and sufficient because true. But the following words quoted from Archdeacon Farrar in his The Messages of the Books, will help to reassure any who would have liked to examine the subject more thoroughly:

It has been my duty to study all that can be urged against the Gospel by John, but in none of the able critics who have persuaded themselves that the Gospel of John was the work of a Gnosticising dreamer in the second century, have I met with any argument that does not seem to me to have been fully and fairly answered. Dr. Westcott especially, in his valuable commentary, has proved in a most decisive manner that the writer was a Jew; a Jew of Palestine; an eye witness; and an Apostle; and when this is established, the inference comes irresistibly that he was the Apostle John. The reference above to what Dr. Westcott says, however, opens up an entirely different line of testimony from that pursued in the previous chapter, namely, the internal evidences to the Johannine authorship; and the deep and current importance of the theme warrants our devoting this chapter to its consideration. As you perceive, the internal evidence is grouped by Westcott, as it is by writers generally, under four heads: That the author was a Jew; a Jew of Palestine; an eye witness; and an apostle. It will be interesting to observe the proofs of these facts and consider their bearing on the genuineness of the Gospel. Dr. Marcus Dods, of Edinburgh, very recently lectured on this subject in America, and from a report of one of his lectures in The Bible Record, I have received liberty to extensively quote. This I am pleased to do, because of his fresh treatment of the subject, and because he is one of the modern theological scholars not always regarded as quotable on the side of the more conservative evangelical teaching:

A. That the writer was a Jew he regards as proved (1) by his Hebraistic style. His Gospel, while written in Greek, of course, and while not ungrammatical or awkward is, nevertheless, limited in its vocabulary, and the words used are only such as are familiar in ordinary conversation. Were he a born Grecian, or educated in that tongue like Paul, for example, his style would be very different. (2), That he was a Jew is seen by his knowledge of Aramaic terms, that language which was a kind of mixture of Hebrew and Chaldean. For example, he inserts translations of Aramaic names, see John 1:38-42; John 9:7; John 19:13-17; John 20:24. (3), That he was a Jew is seen in his familiarity with Jewish customs, ideas and institutions. For Jewish customs see John 1:49; John 2:6; John 13:4; John 19:40. For Jewish ideas, John 1:21; John 4:27; John 9:2; John 18:29, and a large part of John 7:1-53. For Jewish institutions, John 1:19; John 2:20; John 10:22; John 18:20. It is but right to add, however, that some have maintained that the Jews and their usages are spoken of in this Gospel as if they belonged to a race different from that of the writer. For instance, the latter speaks of the water pots at Cana as being set “after the manner of the purifying of the Jews,” and in another place, that “the Jews’ Passover was nigh at hand.” A Jew born and bred would never have come to speak so, it is said; but the answer is, that John at the time of writing was a foreigner to Palestine, i.e., for years a resident abroad, and was writing to foreigners who had known little or nothing of Palestine and its people. Under these circumstances such expressions are precisely what might be expected.

B. That the writer was a Palestinian, i.e., born and bred in that land is seen (1), by his intimate knowledge of its localities. Our author quotes Professor Ramsay as saying that it is impossible for anyone to invent a tale whose scene lies in a foreign land, without betraying in slight details his ignorance of the scenery and circumstances amid which the event is described as taking place. But the author of the fourth Gospel must have been a resident. Bethany with him is “nigh unto Jerusalem, about 15 furlongs off.” This is “the unconscious gratuitousness of full knowledge.” See John 6:1-71 for a minute description of the movements around the Sea of Galilee. Observe how familiar is the author with the temple, its porches, cloisters and the like. He crosses brooks and gardens in his walks without once stumbling into error. He adds to the name of a town the additional specification by which it must be distinguished from others of the same name. “Bethany beyond Jordan,” “Aenon near to Salim.” It was once charged against the author of this Gospel that he was ignorant of the localities he describes. The critics supposed they knew better than he. But recent research under the direction of the Palestinian Survey has changed all this. It is now admitted on all hands that in these matters, at least, the writer knew what he was talking about. (2), But he is seen to be a Palestinian as well by the copy of the Bible he evidently used. A Jew living in some other part of the world would have almost certainly used the Septuagint Greek Version in his allusions to and quotations from the Old Testament. But the author of the fourth Gospel departs from that and uses language more nearly representing the Hebrew, so nearly indeed, as to leave small doubt in the minds of competent scholars that he translated it for himself.

C. That the writer was an eyewitness of what he describes is seen in various ways. (1), He claims to be an eyewitness. Read John 1:14, in comparison with 1 John 1:1, also John 19:35, and John 21:24. The author of these words was either an eyewitness, or else “a forger whose genius for truth and for lying are alike inexplicable.” (2), This claim is confirmed by the character of the Gospel as indicated by multitudinous details. Mark the hour at which Jesus sat by the well, the number and size of the water pots at Cana, the weight and value of the ointment, the number of fish at the last cast, etc., etc. Such details, as Dr. Dods wisely remarks, invite the detection of error. Circumstantiality may be given to a narrative of the imagination, but aside from the fact that the Jews were not writers of fiction, this circumstantiality belongs to the realm of fact, to real objects and events which in many cases can be verified.

D. That the writer was the Apostle John follows almost necessarily from the above, but it is further demonstrated thus: In John 21:20-24, especially John 21:24, he is identified with the disciple whom Jesus loved. Who was this disciple? He must have been one of the seven named in John 21:2 as being present on the occasion. Of these seven there were three so frequently named elsewhere as intimates of Jesus on other occasions as to narrow the question to them, viz. Peter, James, and John. But it could not have been the first because he is named separately in the same connection (John 21:20); neither could it have been the second because he died too early to admit of his having written the Gospel (Acts 10:11); it must therefore have been John. Ezra Abbott, in his Critical Essays, says, “there is no trace that in Christian antiquity this title, ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved,’ ever suggested anyone but John.”