The New Testament
...name of its author is given in the text. This is not surprising because a Gospel differs in literary form from and epistle or letter. The letters of Paul each begin with his name, which was the normal custom of letter writers in the ancient world. None of the authors of the four Gospels identified himself by name. That doesn't mean that one cannot know who the authors were. An author may have indirectly revealed himself within the writing, or his work may be recognizable as coming from him.
Internal evidence shows the following connections regarding the Fourth Gospel. (1) In John 21:24 the word "them" refers to the whole Gospel, not to just the last chapter. (2) "The disciple" in 21:24 was "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (21:7). From 21:7 it is certain that the disciple whom Jesus loved was one of the seven persons mentioned in 21:2 (Simon, Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, the two sons of Zebedee, and two unnamed disciples). "The disciple whom Jesus loved" was seated next to the Lord at the Last Supper.
External evidence is the traditional ascription of authorship which has been well known in the church. The external tradition is strong that John came to Ephesus after Paul had founded the church and that he labored in the city fro many years (cf. Eusebius The Ecclesiastical History 3. 24. 1). Supporting this tradition is the evidence of Revelation 1:9-11. When John was in exile on Patmos, an island off the coast of Asia Minor, he wrote to seven Asian churches, the first of which was Ephesus. That the Fourth Gospel was originally published at Ephesus is a good probability.
The date for the Gospel of John was probably between A.D. 85 and 95. Some critics have attempted to assign a date as late as A.D. 150 on the basis of the book's alleged similarities to Gnostic writings or because of the supposed long development of church theology. Archeological finds...
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