Continued from previous page. . .
Those who deny John wrote the fourth gospel often date it a century later than the events it relates.[1] The Apocalypse itself is thought to have been written around AD 95 when John (if indeed the apostle) was a very old man. The epistles are thought to have been written during the last decades of the first century.
What the critics have said about John’s writings they have said about the whole New Testament: (a) the authors of its books are not who tradition has stated but for the most part unknown (with the possible exception of Paul), and (b) most books have been “late dated” to the post apostolic age, that is, long after the witnesses of the events depicted were dead and much of what actually happened had been forgotten. Is it any wonder that skepticism has run rampant throughout the theological seminaries wherever these things are taught?[2]
Paul seems to be exempt. It is generally conceded that he wrote most of the epistles ascribed to him, although there have been some doubts about two or three. I have wondered why, of all the New Testament writers, Paul is immune from suspicion. Then I thought: could it be because he didn’t actually see Jesus in the flesh? He saw the Lord, but only after the resurrection. It seems to me that the critics are especially hostile towards those who were eyewitnesses of the man Christ Jesus, who saw his miracles firsthand, who witnessed his crucifixion, who saw the empty tomb three days later, and, finally, who talked with the risen Christ for a period of forty days. Paul, however, can be spared much of their carping criticism, since he is not as authoritative a witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Christ as the other apostles; and if the critics are successful in casting doubt on the eyewitnesses, then Paul’s authority will consequently be greatly diminished.
Nevertheless, there are some who deny the deniers. There is even one prominent ultra-liberal scholar, John A.T. Robinson, who has gone back to the traditional belief that the entire New Testament was written before AD 70, and who ascribes the authorship of its entire contents to either the apostles or contemporaries who worked for them.[3] I agree with his conclusions. Since it is of some importance to the rest of this book, I must briefly discuss the evidence pro and con. I trust the reader will bear with me, even if he has no doubts about the Apostle John’s authorship of the five books ascribed to him, for some points I wish to make later depend upon the traditional apostolic authorship of the New Testament.
The evidence upon which documentary analysis is based consists of two kinds: internal and external. Internal evidence is such clues as can be gotten from the Scriptures themselves; external evidence is derived from other sources, such as government records, the writings of contemporaries or historians who had access to these records, and other artifacts. For example, the internal evidence of the gospels declares that the crucifixion occurred under the administration of Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator of Judea. One piece of external evidence that supports this is found in the writings of the ancient Roman Tacitus who confirmed the same in his Annals.[4] This fact, in turn, helps us to date the crucifixion of Jesus with fair accuracy.
Our first point concerns the internal evidence of style: critics of the traditional Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse and the fourth gospel make much of the contrast between the crude Greek of the first and the excellent Greek of the second. The Apocalypse is said to be full of solecisms, that is, ungrammatical forms that only one poorly versed in the language would make, whereas the gospel is written in very literate Greek. It is also pointed out that the author of the Apocalypse boldly identifies himself, writing in the first person singular, whereas the gospel is written in the first person plural with the author only indirectly identified in the third person (“that disciple whom Jesus loved”). The contents of the books, too, are supposed to be radically different. The gospel is a “gospel of love,”; it is calm, spiritual, mystical, abounding in characteristic expressions as “life,” “light,” “love,” etc., written in idiomatic Greek. On the other hand, the Apocalypse is all “blood and thunder,” wrath and vengeance, abrupt, mysterious, material in its imagery, inexact and barbarous in its idioms, and sometimes ungrammatical.
The question is: are these stylistic differences sufficient to discredit the notion that a single author wrote both? Conservatives answer by postulating an amanuensis, or scribe who was well versed in the Greek language, who aided John in writing the gospel and the epistles, though the Apocalypse was probably written by John himself. It seems obvious that the styles of the two documents almost certainly demand this interpretation; I shall give examples a bit later.
Certain scholars have noted that the so-called solecisms (incorrect grammatical forms) in the Revelation are mainly due to an unidiomatic translation of Hebraisms. At least one has stated that a “reverse” translation from the Greek back into Hebrew would be perfectly grammatical and idiomatic. One scholar has identified 518 Old Testament quotations and allusions packed into its 404 verses![5] Since John was a Jew steeped in the Hebrew Scriptures and spoke Aramaic, a Semitic language closely related to Hebrew, but otherwise was “unlearned and ignorant” (Acts 4:13), this is exactly what we should expect. We are not to understand this expression in Acts to mean that John was totally illiterate; he was just not a professional scholar as were the priests and scribes who spent years studying and learning and who were conversant in several languages. As a lowly Galilean fisherman, John’s knowledge of the languages of the day was probably quite limited. We get a hint of this in the second chapter of Acts, for when the 120 disciples began speaking (supernaturally) in many of the Gentile languages of the area, the Jews were amazed because they were mere Galileans (Acts 2:7).
And, too, modern Greek scholars, it is said, are beginning to see that the Greek of the Apocalypse is not so bad after all; a critical examination reveals that its crudities are not due to a lack of knowledge of the language. Rules that the author breaks in one place, he observes in another. There are subtle affinities in the Greek usage of the Apocalypse and the gospel, and that some of the very same irregular constructions of the former are to be found in the latter. One scholar (Salmon, Introduction to the New Testament, 2nd ed.) says, “I have produced instances enough to establish decisively that there is the closest possible affinity between the Revelation and the other Johannine books.”[6]
Conservatives also counter the claim of distinct styles in the documents by noting that many of John’s unique expressions occur in both the Apocalypse and the gospel, for example, “water of life,” “Logos,” “he that overcometh,” “keep the commandments,” “thunder,” and “the Lamb.” A striking coincidence is the quotation of Zechariah 12:10 in John 19:37 and Revelation 1:7 (“they shall look upon me whom they have pierced”). The differences in language, such as they are, are demanded by the subject matter. The real question is, could the Apostle of Love write such a violent and wrathful document? The answer to that lies outside the bounds of legitimate documentary analysis, though we shall have occasion to examine it later.
Now we need to consider the various theories of the date of the Apocalypse. Rather than going into a detailed discussion of the evidence, both external and internal, which would take several chapters, I shall simply summarize what John A.T. Robinson has said in his book, Redating the New Testament.[7]
The ancient writers are divided on the issue: Eusebius, in his famous history of the church (circa AD 330), thought John was exiled to Patmos during the latter part of the reign of the emperor Domitian. That would be about AD 95. But Eusebius is only quoting from other writers, Irenaeus and Clement, for example, and their statements are somewhat vague. Furthermore, the writers of the first 250 years following the apostolic age (the Ante-Nicene Fathers), often disagree and contradict one another. Another tradition places John’s exile on Patmos during Nero’s reign, which would make it sometime in the mid 60’s. The evidence for this date is about as good as for the later date. Down through the history of the church, there have always been some who chose the one and some who chose the other. In the past century, the radicals and the conservatives both agreed on the earlier date for the Apocalypse, about the only thing they did agree upon. But the tide has shifted and currently the consensus favors the later date.
Robinson points out that, as far as the external evidence goes, there is no compelling reason to prefer the one over the other. One has to then consider such internal evidence as is available. On that basis, there is one significant clue which, as far as Robinson is concerned, decides the matter and decides it in favor of the earlier date. That is, the fall of Jerusalem, AD 70, the single most important historical event of the first century apart from the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is not mentioned anywhere in the New Testament.
We know that in the first three gospels, the synoptics,[8] Jesus is recorded as prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem. (For some unknown reason, this prophecy was omitted in the fourth gospel.) It also seems apparent that Jesus implied Jerusalem would fall while some of his hearers were still alive. However, the actual event, which occurred in AD 70, only 40 years later, is nowhere alluded to in the entire New Testament. It is unthinkable that the disciples who wrote the New Testament, whoever they were, would not have taken advantage of the fulfillment of this great prophecy of their Master as clear proof that he was indeed a prophet of God. This omission has long been ignored by the scholars but, when pointed out, seems to be one of those obvious things that ought to have been far more influential in deciding the issue. We can only conclude one thing: all the New Testament books were written before that event took place. The Apocalypse is no exception. Therefore Robinson concludes that it was written probably in the mid 60’s while Nero was emperor. He also concludes that the Apostle John wrote it.
To quickly summarize: there is no solid external evidence one way or the other to determine which of the two proposed dates of the composition of the Apocalypse, AD 65 or AD 95, is correct. We are then free to choose whichever date seems best. Internal evidence, however, strongly hints that it must have been written before AD 70. As to the author, he plainly identifies himself as John. The one thing the Ante Nicene Fathers seemed to agree upon was that it was the Apostle John. They also agreed that he wrote the fourth gospel. About the only objections to this are the obvious differences in subject matter and the style and quality of Greek.
We are now free to take up this latter point. I wish to construct a plausible scenario of how the writings of John came to be. I will assume that the Apocalypse, at least, was written during Nero’s persecution of the church but prior to the fall of Jerusalem (since that event is not mentioned), which would date it about AD 65. Later in this book, we shall have occasion to come back to this point and by then have another solid reason to so date it. I will also assume, on the same grounds, that the rest of the New Testament was also written prior to AD 70.
Now let us examine chapter 1 of the Apocalypse. It begins with what appears to be an introductory note by some unknown third party. He tells us that the Revelation of Jesus Christ was shown by an angel to John to be shared with all Christians. Verse 2 reads:
Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw (Rev. 1:2).
This informs us that John actually wrote down a record of the things which he saw, and that he was a witness to the “word of God” and the “testimony of Jesus Christ.” This has important implications as we shall see in a moment.
John’s manuscript actually begins with verse four. He brings us the salutation of God, of the seven spirits before the throne, and of Jesus Christ. After some preliminary words concerning salvation through the blood of Christ, he begins telling us of the visions which he received while, as a result of persecution, he was exiled on the island of Patmos.
The first thing he saw was a figure “like unto the Son of man” standing in the midst of seven golden candlesticks. The apparition identifies himself as he who had lived, died, and now was immortal. Obviously, the figure represented Jesus. I say represented, for there are some statements in the Revelation that forbids me accepting it as the very person of Jesus. But it is verse 19 that interests us here. The image in the vision speaks:
Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter (Rev. 1:19).
I have deliberately emphasized a portion of this verse, for it has a very significant bearing on our thesis, as we shall see. Here is John’s commission from the Lord to write. I do not think that he had written anything previously to this time, and that the Apocalypse, the gospel, and the epistles were all written subsequent to this imperative.
By the time of Nero’s persecution beginning in AD 64, the major portion of the New Testament had been written.[9] John undoubtedly knew of not only the three synoptic gospels but many others that have not been passed down to us (Luke 1:1-2), and perhaps saw no need for yet another. His unconcern may also have been partly due to his belief that the return of Jesus to set up the long awaited kingdom was close at hand, an immanency which rendered unnecessary any sort of written account of the life of the Master. He may have been encouraged in this notion by something he had heard Jesus say to Peter (and which he alone recorded), that it was none of Peter’s business if he should live till Jesus came again (John 21:22-23).
But events were soon to convince him otherwise. Nero executed both Peter and Paul. John himself was exiled to Patmos where he experienced a remarkable series of visions of the future. It was here that the Lord appeared to him and said, “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter,” as if to say, “I want you to write also, John, for I have need of your witness to complete the account of my works so that men may believe on me. I need your special knowledge and insight.”
John dutifully obeyed, and the first manuscript to be produced was the Apocalypse written while he was yet a prisoner on Patmos and the visions were still fresh—yes, even as he saw them—see, for example, Revelation 10:4. It is unlikely that he had access to a Greek scribe on the island, and since John was an “unlearned and ignorant man,” and perhaps not well versed in Greek, he produced a rather crude document, full of those Old Testament Hebrew idioms with which his mind was saturated and which he could only painfully transliterate into a rough Greek approximation. Except possibly for the letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor, it is a record of “those things which shall be hereafter,” as John so clearly states three times (Rev. 1:1; 4:1; 22:6).
Soon after, John was released from Patmos and returned to his home, probably in Ephesus as some of the ancient writers said, though it may have been Jerusalem. This would accord with the angel’s directive that he must yet prophesy before many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings (Rev. 10:11). That is, he must deliver the book and its message to the church.
The Apocalypse was read before all the churches, undoubtedly making a deep impression. I believe they understood it as a divine prophecy of those things which should shortly come to pass, even as it claimed. And I believe those who resided in Jerusalem understood from its language that they were to flee the city because of its impending destruction. Josephus, a Jewish general who fought against the Romans, recorded that for some unaccountable reason the first attacking Roman army withdrew, making opportunity for as many as desired to do so to escape. Eusebius said, “The whole body, however, of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation (emphasis mine), given to men of approved piety there before the war, removed from the city, and dwelt at a certain town beyond Jordan, called Pella.”[10] What is even more remarkable, the Jews chose not to do so, evidently believing that God would deliver them from their enemy.
But John was troubled. The words, “Write those things which thou hast seen,” must have continued to haunt him. True, he had written those things which he had seen on Patmos just as the Lord had shown him, but the words still rang in his ears. Had the Lord meant something more? What had John seen?
Then he wrote the first of three epistles to the church. The first epistle begins:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life; (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you. . . And these things write we unto you. . . . (1 John 1:1-4).
Five times at least in this short passage John expresses the fact that he had seen the Lord in the flesh, and four times he states that he is writing it down. He seems especially anxious to tell us that he is writing of those things which he had seen, as if to say to the Lord, “See, I am obeying your command.” Notice how he describes Jesus as the Word. In chapter 2, verse 14, he also says, “. . . I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you. . . .” The word “word” is translated from “logos.” The phrase “word of God” is exactly the same one that appears in Revelation 1:2, where the unknown scribe tells us that John made a record of the “word of God” and of all things that he saw. Of course, we all know that the fourth gospel is the only place in the entire Bible that explicitly identifies Jesus as the Word of God.
May we suggest then that those things which John had seen refer not so much to the visions on Patmos as to the acts, the miracles, the teachings, the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, things which John had been eyewitness to and which he now undertakes to record for posterity.[11] As he states in the gospel, “and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Again, near the end of the book, after describing the crucifixion and how the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side from which flowed blood and water, the writer says, “And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe” (John 19:35).
The wording of this statement seems to preclude John as the actual scribe. He would not likely refer to himself in the third person inasmuch as he boldly identifies himself as the author of the Apocalypse, writing unabashedly in the first person. It is, however, unnecessary to attribute the gospel and the Apocalypse to different authors to remove this difficulty. Indeed, this isn’t even the simplest explanation, considering all the similarities in phraseology and thought between the two documents. It is far simpler and more reasonable to suppose that John made use of a scribe who was more familiar with Greek, a scribe who was not available when he wrote the Apocalypse on Patmos. It seems credible that as John narrated the crucifixion scene his emotions overwhelmed him, and he might have exclaimed, “I speak truly and lie not because I saw this with my own eyes!” The scribe merely paraphrased his statement in the third person in keeping with the remainder of the book, adding his own testimony to John’s veracity. Again, at the very end of the book, the scribe identifies the author as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” He adds, “and we know that his testimony is true” (John 21:24). It is even possible that the actual writing may have been done sometime after John’s dictation, even after his death,[12] much as the second gospel is said by some of the ancient writers to be an account of the words of Peter written by Mark shortly after Peter’s martyrdom. Regardless of these details, the gospel is simply John’s record of those things which he had seen and was his response to the Lord’s command to write.
Critics who do not accept John’s authorship make much of the peculiarity of the content of the fourth gospel, which is very unlike the Synoptics. A late century date is often postulated to explain the anomaly. However, the fact that most of John’s material does not appear in the other gospels does not necessarily indicate a late century date, though it does strongly support the contention that it was the last one to be written. John was surely aware of the other three gospels and accordingly chose material which would supplement rather than needlessly duplicate what was already so adequately recorded.
One final point: in chapter 20, John said, “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book” (v. 30), and the very last words of the gospel (John 21:25) are, “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” One suspects that John is apologizing for his failure to completely carry out the command to write those things which he had seen.
In view of the foregoing points, I would like to make a suggestion: it is entirely possible that John’s first epistle is actually a letter of introduction to the intended readers of his gospel.[13] The first few verses explain its purpose: it is a record of those things which he saw and heard, namely, Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. The remainder is an exhortation based on the substance of Jesus’ teaching which he alone had seen fit to record. An example will be given in a later chapter.
Two other epistles are accorded to John. Like the first, they are exhortations to contemporaries, written in the present tense, strongly conveying the impression that they are dealing with the “things that are.” For example: “and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come: and even now already is it in the world” (1 John 3:3), and, “For many deceivers are entered into the world. . . .” (2 John 7), and this, “Demetrius hath good report of all men, and of the truth itself: yea, and we also bear record: and ye know that our record is true” (3 John 12). One might also with justification include the seven letters to the churches in Asia Minor, Revelation 2-3. This category of writings fulfills John’s commission to “write the things which are.”
To recapitulate, John received his commission on Patmos to write (a) the things which he had seen, that is, the gospel; (b) the things which are, that is, the epistles; and (c) the things which shall be hereafter, that is, the Apocalypse. It is likely that he wrote these in the reverse order. The Apocalypse was written without the aid of a Greek scribe while he was exiled on Patmos; the epistles and the gospel were written with the aid of a scribe after returning home. In any event, all were written before AD 70 when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman armies, for this tragedy is not mentioned once. The Apocalypse served as a warning to the Christians dwelling in Jerusalem to flee that city, which in fact they did as is recorded by a contemporary Jewish general and historian, Josephus.
These five books I choose to call “The Pentateuch of John,” the New Testament equivalent to the five books of Moses which the Jews call the “Torah.” There are many remarkable parallels between the two collections of writings, a few being obvious, others more subtle, but all striking when once noted. Though similar parallels are to be found in the other books of the New Testament, the most remarkable are unique to John.
In the next chapter, I will comment on the fourth gospel, offering some suggestions as to why its content is so very different from the synoptics. I will also compare the first epistle, the gospel, and the Apocalypse in more detail.
[1] However, very recent discoveries of fragments of John's gospel definitely preclude the late date. It is now thought that it was written before AD 70.
[2] I have met clergymen, pastors of large congregations, who deny the virgin birth, the miracles, the inspiration of the Scriptures, the divinity of Christ, and his physical resurrection. As survey after survey has revealed, this deep skepticism is prevalent in the seminaries, affecting better than half of the graduates who become licensed clergymen! Even among the fundamentalists who do believe in all these things there have been inroads of doubt made into the traditional beliefs concerning the apostolic authority of the New Testament. I once corresponded with a dear Christian scholar, in theology a fundamentalist, who nevertheless subscribed to many of the pronouncements of the liberal community. He did not accept the Johannine authorship of the Revelation, and rejected as spurious his second and third epistles, the second epistle of Peter, the epistle of Jude, and other portions of the New Testament. There are many fundamentalist students who accept without question the late dating of the Revelation.
[3] The fact that Robinson is a liberal scholar should be of considerable interest to the conservatives.
[4] When speaking of the cruel punishments inflicted by Nero upon the Christians, he tells us that Christ, from whom the name “Christian” was derived, was put to death when Tiberias was emperor by the procurator Pontius Pilate.
[5] Charles Gore, Henry Leighton Goudge, and Alfred Guillaume, eds., A New Commentary on Holy Scripture (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1928) s.v. T.W. Crafer, “The Revelation of St. John the Divine,” p. 679
[6] James Orr et al., eds., The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1955), vol. iv, pp. 2583-84.
[7] Westminster, 1977
[8] The gospels according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the Synoptics, a word derived from the Greek that means “seeing together,” because they have a common view that contrasts sharply with the fourth gospel.
[9] I say this knowing full well that the liberal scholars will not agree. However, they base their “late dating” of the New Testament__except for Paul's epistles__to the post-70 decades because they do not believe Jesus nor any of the apostles prophesied any thing, but that after the events supposedly prophesied came to pass, the authors of the New Testament looked back and forced the language to be prophetic. This principle is called prophecy ex eventu which simply forbids prophecy to happen. Of course, neither I nor any fundamentalist agrees with this. But I think the fundamentalists have forgotten that late dating is squarely based upon that principle.
[10] The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus (Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Mich.) p. 86. I believe that this revelation was John's, for reasons to be stated in later chapters.
[11] The dispensationalist school that is so dominant among the American Fundamentalists interpret Revelation 1:19 to refer to three divisions of the Apocalypse itself. “The things which thou hast seen” refer to chapter 1; “the things which are” to chapters 2 and 3; and “the things which shall be hereafter” to the rest of the book. But this is quite arbitrary as is true of so many of their dissections of Scripture.
[12] Tradition is divided, as usual, on John's death. One says that he lived to an extremely old age, dying a natural death, the only apostle to do so. Another source, however, says that John was martyred before the fall of Jerusalem. My feeling is that the latter one is the truth for the following reasons: when James and John would sit by Jesus, the one at his right hand and the other at his left when he came into his kingdom, Jesus asked them if they were able to drink his cup and be baptized with his baptism, meaning, of course, sharing in his own martyrdom. They said they were able, and Jesus said that they indeed would (Mark 10:35-40). True enough, James was beheaded (Acts 12:2). Since Jesus made no distinction between the brothers, it seems entirely reasonable to suppose John was martyred as well. Finally, we have Paul's statement, “For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men” (1 Cor. 4:9). If true, then obviously John's writings would have had to predate the fall of Jerusalem.
[13] Long after I had made this deduction, I discovered that it was also the contention of the Anglican scholar, J.B. Lightfoot, in his Biblical Essays.