The Gospel According To John – Over The Top Propaganda

John was the last of the four canonical gospels to be written. A growing consensus among specialists is that this gospel was written as a response to Luke and that it has been altered repeatedly by other authors. As to the date of writing? There is considerable debate and all we can say is that it could have been written as late as the mid to late second century or as early as the 120s AD (provided Luke was written as early as 115 AD)[1]. Like the other three gospels, we don’t know who the authors of John were.

The evidence is clear that the authors of John knew all the previous three Gospels and used them as sources. They also seem to want to refute a common theme of these other Gospels (and also Paul) that ‘no sign shall be given’ that Jesus is the Messiah (Mk 8.11-12) by having ‘signs’ liberally sprinkled throughout Johns Gospel. For example ‘having seen the signs he did, many believed in his name’ (Jn 2.23) and ‘a great multitude followed him because they beheld the signs he did’ (Jn 6.2) and John has Jesus say ‘you will in no way believe unless you see signs and wonders’ and then has him go on to produce a miracle (Jn 4.48-54). There are many more examples.

This desire to create proof (for that is what these ‘signs’ are) by the authors of John is to enable them to claim there is ‘evidence’ which can then be used to justify belief. In fact, they are so obsessive about this ‘bearing witness’ that they fill John over thirty-one times with this statement. They are ruthlessly promoting propaganda for the Christian faith.[2]

To further push this propaganda John invents an eyewitness: the ‘Beloved Disciple’ (Jn 21.24). This so-called eyewitness has never been heard of in the previous gospels and is clearly a fabrication by Johns’ authors.

It is often assumed that this Beloved Disciple is unnamed but as pointed out by Floyd Filson in 1949 and many others since, John makes it clear that this character was Lazarus.[3]

There are compelling reasons to believe that this is the case but the final clincher is when we are told in Jn 21.21-24 that the idea has spread that the Beloved Disciple would never die. Why would anyone think that kind of thing unless that Disciple had undergone resurrection and there was speculation as to whether he could die again?

The Beloved Disciple was also the first to see the cast off burial cloths of Jesus in the empty tomb and so becomes a witness to Jesus’ resurrection. Lazarus’ burial cloths had also been cast off at his resurrection. Both times the peculiar detail of the death veil (a napkin covering the face of the corpse) is mentioned and in both cases, it is distinguished from the burial wrappings. In both accounts, we also see references to being bound or unbound by these burial wrappings (a metaphor for being bound by or freed from death) and are given a vivid picture of these wrappings and their disposition.

The tie-ins between the Beloved Disciple and Lazarus make it clear - they are one and the same.

John invents this new character in part to reverse the parable of Lazarus found in Luke 16.19-31. Lukes’ parable of a rich man in hell and the beggar, Lazarus, in heaven, has the message that a resurrection (of Lazarus so he could send a warning to the rich man's family) would not persuade anyone to repent and so will not be done. Notice that we are back to this ‘sign’ business again. John reverses Lukes’ parable by having Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead convincing many people to believe. Therefore, Lukes’ imagined Lazarus being sent to people (the rich mans family) to convince them to repent (and which we are told emphatically wouldn’t work), is neatly turned around by John by having Lazarus as a witness to the crucifixion, the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus and is so cited specifically to convince people.

John has also been reworked extensively. The Gospel has long and implausible, never-before-imagined speeches made by Jesus and new characters and events being invented (Nicodemus, Lazarus, Cana). We can see this from John having two endings (Jn 20.30-31 and 21.24-25) with the line in Jn 21.1 being an attempt to stitch them together. Also, Jn 14.31 has Jesus say to his disciples ‘Arise, let us go hence’ but then launch into a long speech for no apparent reason. They then finally leave three whole chapters later in Jn 18.1. The last line of Jn 14 ‘Arise, let us go hence’ [4] and the first line of Jn 18 ‘When Jesus had spoken these words…’ [5] clearly follow each other. The rambling speech in between is obviously a later insertion.[6]

Once again I am cut off by the restriction of space. Suffice to say that there is much more evidence to show that John – just like the other three Gospels – is a complete fabrication engineered to push an ideological point.