The Book of John: Authorship, Purpose & Provenance

Internal & External Evidence of Johannine Authorship 

It is important to establish John as the author of the Gospel bearing his name primarily for apostolic eyewitness and authorship. This especially during a period of Gnostic influences. Köstenberger aptly puts it this way: “John’s Gospel claims to represent apostolic eyewitness testimony regarding Jesus’ earthly ministry.”[1]  There is ample internal and external evidence in support of Johannine authorship with John being “John, the son of Zebedee,”  one of Jesus’ disciples. The internal evidence is as follows:

·         The author is identified in Jn. 13:23 as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” That he is “the disciple whom Jesus loved” is also mentioned in 21:2, 23, and stated as the “one who “testified to these things and wrote them down” (21:24). The author also has close connections to Peter and part of Jesus’ inner circle (Lk. 5:8-10,8:51; Mk. 3:16-17, 5:37; Mat. 17:1-2). Of noteworthy mention is the visit to Jesus’ tomb on Resurrection Sunday, where the author is identified as “the one whom Jesus loved” (20:1-8).

The Definition of Hermeneutics

During a recent fallout over a church split and the subsequent ousting of the senior pastor, the church community was up in arms over the influence of Calvinism. The senior pastor was accused of abandoning the faith (Oneness). An elder in making the case against him cited ‘Sola Scriptura’ and began to use the proof-texting method to denounce the pastor’s actions. A more thorough investigation of the claims revealed a lack of applying proper hermeneutics, which could have prevented the fallout. Hermeneutics involves ‘the task of explaining, interpreting, and translating the Scriptures.”^[1] Outside of the objective text, hermeneutics pulls back the curtain, and reveals the original meaning and context of the author’s work. It is a discipline that illuminates precisely the intended meaning, whether a single meaning, a fuller, or even a hidden meaning. Exactly what was the writer trying to communicate to his audience? It is not enough to just say “The Bible says so.” Nor should doctrine be made from a position of silence. Hermeneutics then, “provides the means for understanding the Scriptures and for applying that meaning responsibly.”^[2]