Category: Biblical Canon

When Was Matthew Written? (A First Pass)

The date of the Gospel of Matthew is commonly estimated by scholars to be in the late first century.

Raymond Brown, SJ, who places it “80-90, give or take a decade” (An Introduction to the New Testament, 172), states:

The majority view dates Matt to the period 70–100; but some significant conservative scholars argue for a pre-70 dating (p. 216).

Let’s look at what the evidence suggests . . .

 

Latest Possible Date

Scholars refer to the latest possible date that a document could have been written as its terminus ante quem (Latin, “limit before which”), and today scholars are agreed that Matthew was written before the beginning of the century.

We will not review the evidence for this in detail, but it is generally held that St. Ignatius of Antioch, who wrote around A.D. 108, displays awareness of Matthew’s Gospel.

For example, he says that Jesus was “baptized by John in order that all righteousness might be fulfilled by him” (Ig.Smyr. 1:1). This specific motive for Jesus’ baptism is found in Matthew 3:15 and nowhere else in the New Testament.

Similarly, Ignatius warns against false brethren who “are not the Father’s planting” (Ig.Phil. 3:1). This appears to echo Matthew 15:13, where Jesus warns against “Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted”—a statement found only in his Gospel.

It is, of course, unlikely that Matthew would have been written and then immediately be referred to by Ignatius, making it likely that the Gospel would have been at least several years earlier, putting its composition sometime in the first century. (For additional factors pointing in this direction, see Brown, 216).

 

Earliest Possible Date

Scholars refer to the earliest possible date that a document could have been written as its terminus post quem (“limit after which”).

Since Matthew describes the death and resurrection of Jesus, this would put its composition after the events of A.D. 30 or 33, but we can show it was later than that.

 

Gentile Interest

Matthew is famous for being the most Jewish of the canonical Gospels, and it appears to have been written for an audience of Jewish Christians.

However, it displays a keen awareness of the mission to the Gentiles and the role they have in God’s plan. This awareness becomes apparent in its opening verses, when Matthew breaks the normal practice of biblical genealogies and includes Gentile women in Jesus’ genealogy (Matt. 1:3, 5, and possibly 6).

Interest in Gentiles is continued in the next chapter, when Matthew records the visit of the magi to honor the newborn king (Matt. 2:1-12).

We will not recount every passage in which Matthew displays interest in Gentiles and their role in God’s plan, but a number of passages are striking, as when Jesus declares:

Not even in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness (Matt. 8:10-12).

I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it (Matt. 21:43).

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations (Matt. 24:14).

The theme of Gentile mission comes to a climax at the very end of the Gospel, in the Great Commission, where Jesus declares:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19).

The full significance of the last passage is often lost in translation, because English speakers are generally unaware that the word used for nations—ethnê—is the same word translated “Gentiles” in other contexts.

It is difficult not to conclude that—from the beginning of his Gospel to its end—Matthew is carefully building a case for his Jewish audience that it is appropriate to evangelize Gentiles and include them in the Christian community.

This case needed to be laid because this issue was controversial in first century Jewish Christian circles, and many held that Gentiles needed to be circumcised and become Jews to be saved as Christians (see Acts 10-11, 15, Galatians 1-2).

The controversy started when the Gospel began to be preached to Gentiles at Antioch (Acts 11:19-21), and it accelerated following the Gentile conversions that occurred during Paul’s First Missionary Journey (Acts 13-14), leading to the council in Acts 15.

Despite the council, the controversy continued for some years, as Paul continues to address it in Galatians, Romans, and Ephesians.

The council of Jerusalem took place in A.D. 49, so it would not have been appropriate for Matthew to quote from it in a biography of Jesus, but it appears that he did reach back into Jesus’ life and ministry for the facts needed to address the controversy.

That Matthew would feel the need to address the controversy—and to have so carefully built his case and made it so integral to the structure of his Gospel—suggests that he was writing after A.D. 49.

 

After Mark

For many centuries, it was commonly held that Matthew was the first Gospel to be written and that Mark then abbreviated it. This proposal, which was entertained by St. Augustine, is thus known as the Augustinian Hypothesis.

However, this view has fallen out of favor in recent centuries.

Although I’ve been sympathetic to the idea that Matthew wrote first, a detailed study of the evidence convinced me that the reverse was true, and that Matthew not only wrote after Mark, he used Mark as one of his principal sources.

This would place the composition of Matthew’s Gospel after that of Mark’s—and we can reasonably date that to the A.D. 50s. Two lines of evidence support this:

  • Luke also used Mark as one of his sources, and Luke appears to have been written around A.D. 59, just before he composed the book of Acts, whose narrative cuts off suddenly in A.D. 60, when Paul is awaiting his first trial in Rome.
  • Various factors indicate that Mark based his Gospel on the reminiscences of Peter, whose travelling companion he had become. However, Mark did not become Peter’s companion until after his partnership with Paul was severed following the Jerusalem Council of A.D. 49 (see Acts 15:36-39). Therefore, Mark became Peter’s companion sometime in the 50s.

For Mark to have time to write his Gospel, and for it to have come into Luke’s possession, it is thus likely that Mark wrote sometime in the mid-50s, say A.D. 55.

We can thus infer that Matthew wrote sometime between about 55 and 100.

But we can narrow this down further, as we will see next time.

When Was the Gospel of Mark Written?

The Gospel of Mark is widely regarded by scholars today as the first of the Gospels to be penned. But when, specifically, did that happen?

Let’s take a look at the evidence . . .

 

Was Mark First?

For many centuries, it was commonly held that Matthew was the first of the Gospels to be written, and that Mark then abridged Matthew to make it shorter. This view is known as the Augustinian Hypothesis, since St. Augustine proposed it.

As the author of a book on the Church Fathers, I take the views expressed in early centuries seriously.

However, after a careful study of the issue, I was forced to conclude that the Augustinian Hypothesis is incorrect, that Mark wrote first and then Matthew expanded it.

I explain the reasons for this here.

 

Mark’s Relationship to Luke

It is widely recognized that Luke—like Matthew—used Mark as one of his sources.

Luke even refers to prior written sources in his prologue, telling his patron Theophilus that “many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us” (Luke 1:1).

The fact that Mark was one of those narratives is confirmed by the fact that Luke uses about 55% of the material in Mark (B. H. Streeter, The Four Gospels, 160).

This means that we can place the composition of Mark sometime before that of Luke.

In our previous post we saw that there are good reasons to hold that Luke was written around A.D. 59, which would then be the latest possible date for Mark.

However, it is probable that it was written some time before that.

How much before?

 

Mark’s Life Story

We first meet Mark in Acts 12:12, when Peter visits the house of his mother in Jerusalem.

In Acts 12:25, Barnabas and Paul take Mark with them when they return from Jerusalem to their home base in Antioch.

In the next chapter, the Holy Spirit calls Barnabas and Paul to embark on the First Missionary Journey (Acts 13:2), and they take Mark with them.

However, we later learn (Acts 15:38) that Mark had turned back early in the journey, when they reached Pamphylia on the southern coast of modern Turkey.

Thus when Paul and Barnabas were preparing to set out on the Second Missionary Journey, a dispute arose between them:

Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia, and had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp contention, so that they separated from each other; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus (Acts 15:37-39).

A factor in this dispute was likely that Mark was Barnabas’s cousin (Col. 4:10).

Paul and Barnabas thus dissolved their longstanding partnership over the dispute concerning Mark, and Barnabas took him on an otherwise unrecorded journey to Barnabas’s native island of Cyprus (Acts 4:36).

We know from the New Testament that Mark later formed a close bond with Peter, who refers to him as his spiritual son and who was with him during his ministry in Rome (1 Pet. 5:13).

We also learn that Paul eventually reconciled with Mark (2 Tim. 4:11).

 

Putting Dates to Events

The part of Mark’s life story that is important for our purposes is the period he spent with Peter.

We do not know when this began, but the journey that Mark took with Barnabas would have occurred in A.D. 49, and it would have taken some time. Mark thus likely became a companion of Peter in the 50s.

This is significant because the first century source John the Presbyter reveals that Mark based his Gospel on Peter’s reminiscences. The Presbyter is reported to have said:

Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord’s discourses, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely (Eusebius, Church History 3:39:15).

If we know that Mark didn’t become Peter’s traveling companion until the 50s, and if he had to have written before Luke was published in 59, then this means Mark must have written his Gospel sometime in that decade.

Although Mark likely heard Peter preach in Jerusalem, John the Presbyter ties the composition of his Gospel to the period when he was serving as Peter’s assistant. We should thus understand it to be based on not Mark’s memories of Peter’s preaching from years earlier, but on what he heard during their period of mutual ministry.

We should thus allow some time (1) for Mark to absorb (or re-absorb) Peter’s preaching and (2) some time for Mark’s Gospel to come into Luke’s hands and be absorbed by him.

We can therefore estimate that Mark’s Gospel was written sometime in the mid 50s, say around A.D. 55.

It might even be slightly earlier than this if Mark is the mysterious “brother whose praise is in the gospel” that Paul refers to in 2 Corinthians 8:18, since 2 Corinthians was written around A.D. 54-55.

In any event, we have good reason to place the dating of Luke in 59 and Mark a few years earlier than that, in the 50s.

What about Matthew? That’s the subject we will turn to next.

When Was the Gospel of Luke Written?

When were the four Gospels written?

Ultimately, from a faith perspective, the precise dates do not matter. What matters is that they are divinely inspired and thus authoritative for faith.

However, by showing that the Gospels were written in the first century, within a few decades of Jesus’ life, we strengthen their credibility even from a secular perspective.

Today virtually all scholars—whether skeptical or believing—acknowledge that the Gospels are first century documents.

The real question is how early in the first century they were written.

That’s what we’ll examine in this series.

 

The Importance of Acts

More than a century ago, the liberal German scholar Adolf von Harnack published a work titled The Date of the Acts and the Synoptic Gospels in which he considered this question.

As the title suggests, he considered the date of Acts first, the reason being that it’s easier to establish this date and then determine the dates of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) with respect to it.

Acts is important because it’s the sequel to the Gospel of Luke (Acts 1:1-2), so the date of Acts determines the latest possible date for Luke.

So . . . when was Acts written?

 

Its Sudden Ending

The first twelve chapters of Acts are concerned principally with St. Peter, and from chapter 13 onward, St. Paul becomes the focus of the narrative.

Beginning in chapter 21, Paul makes a fateful trip to Jerusalem, being prophetically warned along the way that if he goes there, he will be arrested. This indeed happens, and the rest of the book is taken up with the consequences of this event.

Paul spends years in custody, and in chapter 25 a turning point occurs when the new Roman governor, Porcius Festus, arrives. To avoid having the outcome of his trial affected by the hostile Jewish authorities, Paul invokes his Roman citizenship and the right to have his case tried before Caesar (the Caesar in question being Nero at this time). Festus then replies:

You have appealed to Caesar; to Caesar you shall go (Acts 25:12).

The rest of the book is taken up with the events leading up to Paul’s voyage to Rome and what happened on that trip. Acts ends in chapter 28 with Paul under house arrest in Rome, awaiting his trial. Luke simply says:

And he lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ quite openly and unhindered (Acts 28:30-31).

That’s it! We get no resolution on what happened when Paul appeared before Nero.

 

The Significance of the Ending

Many scholars have pointed out that the book’s abrupt ending is highly significant for when it was written.

It makes no sense, if Luke knew the outcome of the trial, for him to cut off the narrative at this point. He has been building toward this climactic event for eight chapters, and yet he doesn’t tell us what happened!

This is all the more striking, because whatever happened to Paul would have suited Luke’s purposes:

  • If Paul was acquitted at this trial then Luke could portray Paul and the gospel as gloriously vindicated.
  • If Paul was imprisoned or martyred then Luke could portray Paul as gloriously and heroically suffering for the gospel, as he has done so often in the book.

We learn from later sources that the first is actually what happened, that Paul was released and conducted a further period of ministry, only to be re-arrested and martyred after Nero found it convenient to blame Christians for the Great Fire of Rome in A.D. 64.

Yet Luke gives us neither of these endings. The only reasonable conclusion is that he didn’t do this because he couldn’t: The trial had not yet happened.

Adolf von Harnack comments:

Throughout eight whole chapters St. Luke keeps his readers intensely interested in the progress of the trial of St. Paul, simply that he may in the end completely disappoint them—they learn nothing of the final result of the trial! . . .

The more clearly we see that the trial of St. Paul, and above all his appeal to Caesar, is the chief subject of the last quarter of the Acts, the more hopeless does it appear that we can explain why the narrative breaks off as it does, otherwise than by assuming that the trial had actually not yet reached its close. It is no use to struggle against this conclusion. If St. Luke, in the year 80, 90, or 100, wrote thus he was not simply a blundering but an absolutely incomprehensible historian! (pp. 95, 97).

Harnack also points out that Luke repeatedly records prophecies of future events in Acts, yet he makes no mention of Paul’s ultimate fate:

St. Luke allows Agabus to foretell a famine, to foretell St. Paul’s imprisonment in Jerusalem; he suffers St. Paul himself (on the voyage) to foretell, like a fortune-teller, the fate of the ship and all its passengers; he in many chapters of the book deals in all kinds of “spiritual” utterances and prophecies—but not one word is said concerning the final destiny of St. Paul (and of St. Peter)! Is this natural? There are prophecies concerning events of minor importance, while there is nothing about the greatest event of all! (pp. 97-98, emphasis in original).

This further reinforces the conclusion that Acts was written before the events to which it has been building were concluded.

 

The Date of Acts

So in what year was Acts written? When does its narrative break off?

This is disputed by scholars. The problem is that we do not know precisely when the governor Festus arrived in Judaea.

This is the key event for determining when Paul’s voyage to Rome began and thus when his two-year period of house arrest began.

Many estimate that Festus arrived in A.D. 59, and so Paul arrived in Rome early in 60, and his house arrest lasted from 60 to 62.

However, I have done a (currently unpublished) study of the issue, and I agree with scholars such as Jack Finegan and Andrew Steinmann that Festus arrived in 57. That would mean that Paul arrived in Rome in early 58, and his house arrest lasted from 58 to 60.

I thus conclude that Acts was written in 60.

 

The Date of Luke

The Gospel of Luke was written before Acts, but how much before? A careful study of the end of the Gospel suggests it was not long.

This can be seen by comparing its end with the end of one of Luke’s sources—the Gospel of Mark. The original ending of Mark may have been lost, but it concludes in a way that indicates what would have happened. An angel tells the women who have come to Jesus’ tomb:

But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you (Mark 16:7; cf. 14:28).

Mark thus envisions a post-Resurrection appearance of Jesus to the disciples in Galilee. This is also what happens in Matthew (see Matt. 28:7, 10, 16-20).

However, Luke omits this reference and focuses instead on post-Resurrection appearances that occurred in Jerusalem and its vicinity (Luke 24:13-53). He makes no mention of the disciples going to Galilee. Instead, Luke records Jesus telling the disciples:

Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:46-49).

Notice: Repentance is to be preached to all nations “beginning from Jerusalem” and the disciples are to “stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Although this difference has led some to see Luke as contradicting Mark and Matthew, in reality there is no conflict. The truth is that Jesus appeared to the disciples both in the vicinity of Jerusalem (John 20:19-31) and in Galilee (John 21:1-23). Luke simply focuses on the first location, while Mark and Matthew focus on the latter.

For our purposes, the question is: Why did Luke choose to end his Gospel as he did?

The obvious answer is that he was already planning what he was going to write in Acts. Thus at the beginning of the latter, he records Jesus telling the disciples:

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8).

This directly echoes the end of Luke’s Gospel:

  • “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” refers to the events of Pentecost and corresponds to “stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49).
  • “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” is the outline of the book of Acts and corresponds to “repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in [Christ’s] name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:47-48).

Other elements of the end of the Gospel are also recapitulated in Acts, including the Ascension (Luke 24:51// Acts 1:9-11), the disciples return to Jerusalem (Luke 24:52//Acts 1:12), and their regular worship in the temple (Luke 24:53//Acts 2:46, etc.).

The presence of these elements at the end of Luke, and particularly the way he diverges from Mark, indicates that he was already planning what he would write in Acts.

This indicates that no long period of time can have passed between the composition of Luke’s Gospel and its sequel. If years had elapsed then we wouldn’t find the Gospel ending the way it does.

I therefore estimate that Luke was finished immediately before Acts, likely in A.D. 59, and that Luke used the two-year period of Paul’s house arrest in Rome to finish gathering material for and to compose his two masterworks.

In fact, much of the material found in the first twelve chapters of Acts—which focus on Peter—as well as some of the material unique to Luke’s Gospel, likely came from interviews that Luke conducted with Peter in Rome during this period.

We thus find there are good reasons for thinking that Luke and Acts were both composed in Rome, around A.D. 59 and 60, respectively.

What can we say about the other Gospels? That’s what we will turn to next.

Jesus’ Mysterious Prophecy About the Temple

The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70AD —
a painting by David Roberts (1796-1849).

Skeptical scholar Bart Ehrman argues that the Gospels were written between A.D. 60 and 115.

I’d put the beginning of that range a little earlier and say they were written between 50 and 115, so he and I are in general agreement on the broad time frame in which they were composed.

Where we disagree is on the part of the range in which they were written.

I think they were written toward the first part of the range, between 50 and 70.

However, like many scholars, Ehrman thinks Mark was written around 70, Matthew and Luke around 80-85, and John around 90-95.

Why does he think that?

 

The Destruction of the Temple

A key event used—one way or another—by virtually all scholars when dating the Gospels is the conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of its temple in A.D. 70.

The reason is that the Synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—all report that Jesus repeatedly predicted this event.

Many scholars, including Ehrman, think that this suggests they were written after the event. He writes:

It is frequently noted that the earliest Gospels seem to presuppose the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and of the Jewish temple, as happened in 70 CE.

And so, for example, in Mark’s Gospel Jesus indicates that the nation of Israel will be destroyed (12:9) and that the temple will not be left standing (13:1-2).

Matthew is even more explicit: here Jesus tells a parable in which God is portrayed as burning the city and killing its inhabitants (22:8).

Luke has similar passages (e.g., 21:24).

All these passages seem to presuppose that by the time the books were written, the destruction had happened.

Is Ehrman right about this?

 

An Objection

Ehrman considers an important objection:

Someone may respond by saying that in these passages Jesus is predicting the destruction of the [sic] Jerusalem, not looking back on it. Fair enough!

Good for Ehrman! He deserves props for acknowledging that not every prediction is made after the fact.

Jerusalem had been invaded an conquered multiple times, and its temple had already been destroyed once (by the Babylonians).

The fear of the nation’s holiest site being destroyed again—this time to the hated Romans—was real. Others worried about it (cf. John 11:48-50), and Jesus wasn’t the only person to predict that it would happen.

In fact, he wasn’t even the only person named Jesus to predict it would happen. The Jewish historian Josephus records that in A.D. 62 a man named Jesus son of Ananus began to prophesy exactly the same thing (Jewish War 6:5:3).

So the mere fact the Gospels record the prediction doesn’t mean they were written after the event.

To show that, you’d need more.

 

Ehrman’s Response

So how does Ehrman argue his case? He writes:

But when is a Christian author likely to record a prediction of Jesus in order to show that he predicted something accurately?

Obviously, in order to show that Jesus knew what he was talking about, an author would want to write about these predictions only after they had been fulfilled.

Otherwise the reader would be left hanging, not knowing if Jesus was a true prophet or not.

So even if we assume that Jesus did predict such things, the fact that they are written so confidently by later authors suggests that they did so after the events – that is, after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 CE.

Ehrman’s argument is seriously flawed.

It is not true that “an author would want to write about these predictions only after they had been fulfilled.”

The authors of the Gospels were all Christians, and they believed Jesus was a true prophet.

The audiences for whom the Gospels were written were also composed of Christians who believed Jesus was a true prophet.

They therefore would want to know what this prophet foretold, and the authors would want to tell them.

 

Important Prophecies

Space limitations constrained the size of ancient books, so an author might not be able to record everything he knew a prophet said, but he would want to at least report the prophet’s most important predictions—even if they had not yet been fulfilled.

Thus the Evangelists—and other New Testament authors—also report that Jesus is going to come again in the future.

But we’d never accept the argument that the New Testament authors would want to report predictions of the Second Coming “only after they had been fulfilled”!

Like the Second Coming, the conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple were important prophecies—important enough that they are mentioned explicitly and repeatedly in three of the Gospels (and reflected in the fourth).

They are precisely the kind of thing that the Evangelists would want to record to let Christians know what Jesus had said would be happening in the future.

 

A Pre-70 Evangelist’s Perspective

Suppose that you were a Christian writing a Gospel before the destruction of Jerusalem, for an audience that still has many, many Jewish Christians in it.

And suppose you know that Jesus prophesied the temple would be destroyed “in this generation.”

Do you say to yourself, “Should I record this? Nah! Nobody’s going to care about a national/religious cataclysm like that”?

Do you say, “Hmm. I better wait and see if this prophecy is fulfilled before I write about it”?

Of course not!

You tell your audience about this important, yet-to-be-fulfilled prophecy, just like you tell them about the Second Coming.

Ehrman’s argument is without merit.

 

On the Other Hand . . .

The fact the Gospels contain the prediction also doesn’t mean that they were written before 70.

They contain many prophecies of Jesus which were already fulfilled when they were written (e.g., “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise”; Mark 9:31).

So, like Ehrman, I also need to offer something more if I want to argue that Jesus’ prophecy about the temple was not yet fulfilled when the Gospels were written.

It so happens I’ve recently been doing a detailed, multi-angle study on just that subject.

Space limitations constrain the size of blog posts, so I can’t share anything like the full results of that study, but let me give you just one argument, in capsule form.

 

The Second Coming

We’ve already noted that the Gospels contain an important prediction that almost everyone agrees has not yet been fulfilled—the Second Coming of Christ.

What we haven’t previously noted is that the passages in which Jesus most extensively discusses the destruction of the temple (Matt. 24, Mark 13, Luke 21) also contain predictions of an event that looks very much like the Second Coming.

Either the Evangelists recorded prophecies of the Second Coming right next to prophecies of the destruction of the temple or they recorded prophecies of a different kind of coming in conjunction with those about the temple.

Either way, it would have been very easy for the first Gospel readers to think that Jesus predicted that the Second Coming would happen in proximity to the destruction of the temple.

That tells us something about when the Gospels were written, because if they were written after A.D. 70, the Evangelists would not want to give their audience the impression that the prophecy of the Second Coming had failed to occur on schedule, when the temple was destroyed.

Had they been writing after that event, they would have made it clear that the Second Coming was something distinct, that Jesus hadn’t said it would occur with the destruction of the temple.

We thus have good evidence that the Gospels—or at least those that explicitly contain the prophecy of the temple’s destruction (Matthew, Mark, and Luke)—were written before it was fulfilled, not after.

The Mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls

 

dead sea scrollsThe Dead Sea is a mysterious place. Its name invokes one of the greatest mysteries—death—and there is a good reason for that.

The waters of the Dead Sea are almost ten times as salty as the ocean, preventing fish, birds, and plants from living in it. That’s why it’s called “dead.”

It’s also so salty that you can float in it even if you don’t know how to swim.

Located at the south end of the Jordan River Valley, the Dead Sea is the lowest point on any of Earth’s landmasses—being more than 1,400 feet below sea level.

It is a valuable source of chemicals, including salt, potash (potassium chloride), and asphalt (bitumen). Because of the latter, it was known in the ancient world as Lake Asphaltites.

Several ancient sources reveal that a mysterious Jewish sect known as the Essenes lived near the Dead Sea.

 

The Dead Sea and the Essenes

The Roman author Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79) is one of several ancient writers who discussed the wonders of the Dead Sea and the Essenes who lived nearby.

[The Jordan River flows] towards that gloomy lake, the Dead Sea, which ultimately swallows it up, its much-praised waters mingling with the pestilential waters of the lake. . . .

The only product of the Dead Sea is bitumen, the Greek word for which gives it its Greek name, Asphaltites. The bodies of animals do not sink in its waters, even bulls and camels floating; this has given rise to the report that nothing at all can sink in it. It is more than 100 miles long, and fully 75 miles broad at the broadest part but only 6 miles at the narrowest. On the east it is faced by Arabia of the Nomads. . . .

On the west side of the Dead Sea, but out of range of the noxious exhalations of the coast, is the solitary tribe of the Essenes, which . . . has only palm-trees for company (Natural History 5:15:71-73).

 

The Mystery Deepens

In the 1940s, the mystery surrounding the Dead Sea deepened when a teenage Bedouin shepherd named Muhammed edh-Dhib went in search of a lost goat.

Details of exactly what happened are sketchy. It’s not even certain what year this happened, though it was sometime between 1945 and 1947.

In later accounts, edh-Dhib said that he thought the lost goat was in a cave, so he threw rocks in, hoping to startle the goat into making a noise or coming out of the cave.

Instead, he heard the sound of breaking pottery, and he decided to investigate and entered the cave and discovered clay jars containing ancient scrolls.

The local Bedouin often supplemented their income by illegally raiding archaeological sites, so the scrolls soon appeared in the local antiquities market, and in 1947 word of the scrolls began to spread among scholars.

 

The Story of the Scrolls

The Dead Sea scrolls have had a tumultuous history. In the first phase of this history, the investigation of the scrolls was hampered by events surrounding the founding of Israel and the Arab-Israeli hostilities of the time.

This led to colorful, cloak-and-dagger episodes, such as when—in late 1947—the Jewish scholar Eleazar Sukenik disguised himself as an Arab so he could safely travel from Jerusalem to Bethlehem to purchase some of the first scrolls, which were in the possession of a cobbler and part-time antiquities dealer nicknamed “Kando.”

In 1954, Sukenik’s son—the Israeli military general and scholar Yigael Yadin—had a similar transaction, in which he employed a secret intermediary using the false name “Mr. Green” (later revealed to be the American Jewish scholar Harry Orlinsky) to purchase several scrolls that had been advertised in the “miscellaneous for sale” section of the Wall Street Journal’s classified ads.

DSS_adAfter the Bedouin’s initial discovery, a survey was eventually undertaken, and scholars found ten more caves containing scrolls. Today they are numbered Caves 1 to 11.

Eventually a huge number of scrolls and scroll fragments—almost a thousand—were discovered. This number was so large that it led to the next troubled phase in the scrolls’ history.

The study of the scrolls was parceled out to a team of scholars, but some of the scholars did not process them in an efficient manner.

Although one could simply take photographs of the scrolls and publish the photographs, it was customary to allow scholars to translate, analyze, and prepare commentaries on the scrolls before publication.

For a variety of reasons—including the huge number of scrolls and fragments—some scholars didn’t do their work quickly, and decades went by without the full body of scrolls being published.

This led to rumors that the unpublished scrolls were being deliberately held back, and since some of the scholars analyzing them were Catholic, rumors began to circulate that the Vatican was suppressing the scrolls because they contained dangerous revelations that would threaten the Christian Faith.

This was one of the inspirations for the conspiracy novel The Da Vinci Code.

In a surprise twist, the impasse was finally broken in 1991 when rebel scholars frustrated with the situation made an unexpected move.

Although many of the scrolls had not been published, an exhaustive concordance of them had been. Like concordances of the Bible, this work listed each word in the scrolls, along with a snippet of its context.

The rebel scholars used a computer program to analyze the concordance and piece together the text of the unpublished scrolls by combining the concordance entries like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

In the wake of this, the Huntington Library in San Marino, California—which had a complete set of photographs of the scrolls—announced that it would allow scholars access to this material.

The embargo on the unpublished scrolls was now broken, and today all of the scrolls are available to the public. In fact, the Israeli Antiquities Authority has put them online, where they can be viewed for free at www.DeadSeaScrolls.org.il.

 

By the Numbers

Because of their fragmentary nature, statistics on the Dead Sea Scrolls have to be approximate, but it appears that the total number of texts is around 930.

The vast majority of the scrolls are parchment (animal skin prepared for writing), a small number are on papyrus (paper made from a reed that grows in Egypt), and one is inscribed on copper.

Breaking them down by the languages they are written in:

  • 790 (85%) are in Hebrew
  • 120 (13%) are in Aramaic
  • 20 (2%) are in Greek

Breaking them down by subject matter:

  • 230 (25%) are Jewish biblical texts
  • 250 (27%) are general Jewish texts
  • 350 (38%) are sectarian texts
  • 100 (11%) are unclassified

The biblical texts are books that belong to the Jewish Bible as it is understood today (i.e., the protocanonical books of Scripture).

The general Jewish texts are ones that aren’t included in the Jewish Bible, though they were read by a broad range of Jews. Examples include the deuterocanonical books of the Catholic Bible, as well as non-canonical works like Jubilees and 1 Enoch.

The sectarian writings are those that the Qumran sect produced itself and that reflect its unique views. Examples include the War Scroll, the Halakhic Letter, and the Community Rule.

The unclassified texts are ones that scholars aren’t sure about. They are not biblical texts, but it is hard to tell (often because they are too fragmentary) whether they are general Jewish texts or specifically sectarian ones.

 

Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Near the caves where the scrolls were found is an archaeological ruin known as Qumran.

Most scholars have concluded that the scrolls were placed in the caves by the people who lived at or near Qumran. For this reason, the people who wrote the scrolls are often called “the Qumran sect,” although they called themselves the yakhad (Heb., “community”).

Because ancient sources including Josephus and Pliny the Elder report that there were Essenes living by the Dead Sea at approximately the location of Qumran, the majority view among scholars is that the Qumran sect were Essenes.

If this is correct, the scrolls give us new information about the history of the Essenes.

 

Naming the Scrolls

Scholars needed a way to keep track of the huge number of manuscripts and fragments, so they developed a numbering system.

A typical designation in this system is “4Q491.” The Q stands for Qumran, and the 4 that precedes it indicates that the text was discovered in Cave 4. The designation “4Q491” thus indicates manuscript 491 from Cave 4 at Qumran.

Every text in the Dead Sea Scrolls has a designation like this, but they often have additional names based on their content.

For example, an important text at Qumran is known as “the War Scroll,” which describes an apocalyptic battle between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. 4Q491 is a fragment of the War Scroll, but another, longer copy was found in Cave 1. That more complete copy is sometimes called 1QWarScroll.

Biblical manuscripts typically have content-based designations in addition to their numerical ones. For example, 4Q41 is also known as 4QDeutn because it is from a copy of Deuteronomy.

 

History of the Qumran Sect

The sect appears to have originated in the early second century B.C. It existed for twenty years before a man known as the Teacher of Righteousness became its leader.

The sectarians thought Teacher of Righteousness to be divinely inspired, and he appears to have been a high ranking priest from Jerusalem—perhaps a high priest who was deposed by Jonathan Maccabeus.

The Teacher was opposed by a figure known as the Wicked Priest (often thought to be Jonathan Maccabeus), who pursued him into the desert. He was also opposed—within the Qumran sect—by a dissenter known as the Man of Lies (or the Spouter of Lies) who rejected the Teacher’s interpretation of the Jewish Law.

The fact the scrolls do not identify these figures by name has led to a great deal of speculation among scholars.

Precisely how the Qumran sect fit into the world of ancient Israel is unclear. Their legal interpretations are strikingly similar to those of the Sadducees, leading some to suggest they were an offshoot of this sect.

However, they also held theological views (including belief in the afterlife and predestination) that were rejected by the Sadducees.

The Jewish historian Josephus records that the three major Jewish sects of the time were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes and that the last was the strictest of these sects.

This fits with the picture the scrolls give of their authors. They were a radical sect that looked down on the more relaxed attitude of the Pharisees (who they referred to as “seekers after smooth things”). They also believed that the Sadducees had allowed the Jerusalem temple to become polluted, and so they refused to worship there.

Like others in the period, the Qumran sectarians expected an imminent war between the forces of light and darkness. They expected God to give them victory in this war, leading to the destruction of their enemies and an age of perpetual peace.

Instead, when the Jewish War of A.D. 66-73 occurred, the Romans were victorious and the Qumran sect disappeared from history.

 

The Scrolls and the Bible

The Dead Sea Scrolls are significant because they are a thousand years older than the next earliest copies of the Hebrew scriptures that we have, which were made by Medieval Jewish scribes known as the Masoretes.

The scrolls’ discovery demonstrated the remarkably accurate preservation of these texts.

At the same time, they contain some readings that are different from the Medieval Hebrew copies.

Sometimes these alternative readings support those found in the Septuagint—the major Greek translation of the Old Testament—and sometimes they are unique to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Today Bible translators use the Masoretic texts, the Septuagint, and the Dead Sea Scrolls when trying to determine the original reading of biblical passages.

 

The Scrolls and the Canon

The Dead Sea Scrolls are important for the study of the canon of the Bible. They include copies of all of the protocanonical books of the Old Testament except for Esther, whose canonicity was disputed by some Jews.

The scrolls also include copies of deuterocanonical works like Tobit, Baruch, and Sirach.

It is unclear whether the Qumran sectarians had a closed list of books they regarded as canonical or precisely which books these were.

However, the scrolls do show that they thought more books counted as Scripture than the Sadducees and Samaritans (who accepted the first five books of the Bible) and the Pharisees (who accepted the protocanonical books, roughly speaking).

It appears, for example, that the Qumran sect regarded books such as 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and the Temple Scroll as divinely inspired.

 

Notable Scrolls

Some of the most notable works among the Dead Sea Scrolls include:

The Community Rule (1QS): A manual describing how the Qumran sect was to function, including information about initiation, communal meals, etc. It is the sect’s equivalent of a monastic rule like the Rule of St. Benedict.

The Temple Scroll (11QTempleScrolla): A lengthy work describing a version of the Jerusalem temple that was never built. Written in the form of a revelation from God to Moses, it describes the sect’s ideal temple and the ceremonies that should take place in it.

The Halakhic Letter (4QMMT): A letter written to the Jerusalem priests explaining the points of Jewish law (halakhoth) that the Qumran sectarians felt separated them from the Sadducees and the Pharisees.

The War Scroll (1QWarScroll): An apocalyptic prophecy of a battle between the “sons of light” (the Qumran sect) and the “sons of darkness” (everybody else, but led initially by the Romans). It includes the military tactics that the sons of light were expected to use.

The Copper Scroll (3Q15): Unique among the Dead Sea Scrolls, this document is inscribed on a roll made of copper. It contains a list of locations where vast sums of gold and silver are said to be buried. None of the sites have ever been found, leading some to suggest it is a work of fiction. However, it seems unlikely anyone would take the trouble to inscribe a work of fiction on a difficult medium like copper, suggesting it is real. If the treasures were real, they are so vast they could only have come from the treasury in the Jerusalem temple, presumably being hidden to keep them safe from the Romans in the Jewish War of A.D. 66-73.

 

Christian Connections?

When the scrolls were discovered, attention quickly focused on what light they might shed on early Christianity, and there are a number of similarities between the Qumran sectarians and early Christians.

Both groups had a focus on prophecy and personal holiness, both had some members who practiced celibacy, and both had leaders who were called “bishop” or “overseer” (Hebrew, mebaqqer, Greek, episkopos).

This led some crackpot authors to make fanciful proposals, such as that John the Baptist was the Teacher of Righteousness, Jesus was the Wicked Priest, and St. Paul was the Spouter of Lies.

None of these are possible. Carbon dating shows that scrolls mentioning these figures were written before the New Testament era, meaning that they are too old.

Also, the early Christian attitude toward Gentiles and the Jewish law was starkly opposed to the rigorist and exclusivist view of the Qumran sectarians.

The Dead Sea Scrolls thus do not tell us anything directly about early Christianity, though they do tell us a great deal about the world in which early Christianity emerged.

 

Other Finds

Because of the mystery surrounding them, the Dead Sea Scrolls represent the most famous find of ancient literature, but there have been other major finds. Two of these are the documents of the Cairo Genizah and the Nag Hammadi texts.

The Cairo Genizah: Traditional Jewish piety forbids throwing away a manuscript that contains the name of God (YHWH), and so it became customary for synagogues to have a special place to house worn out manuscripts containing the divine name.

This place is known as a genizah—from a Hebrew word meaning “to put away” or “to hide.” Manuscripts would be stored in genizoth and then later buried.

In the 1890s, the American rabbi Solomon Schechter realized the genizah of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt contained a vast trove of important manuscripts. These were written between about A.D. 870 and 1880, and the number of texts and fragments dwarfs those found at the Dead Sea. All told, around 300,000 fragments have been recovered from the Cairo genizah.

The Nag Hammadi Texts: In 1945, an Egyptian farmer near the town of Nag Hammadi discovered a buried pottery jar that contained twelve volumes of ancient writings.

These proved to be significant because among the writings was a large collection of Gnostic documents from the fourth century. Gnosticism was a heresy that flourished from the second to the fourth centuries, but before this point the only accounts of what the Gnostics believed were found in the writings of their opponents—the Church Fathers.

As a result of the Nag Hammadi texts, scholars now have direct access to the writings of the people the Church Fathers were reacting to, allowing us to better understand many things.

 

Learning More

There are many good resources you can use to learn more about the Dead Sea Scrolls. These include:

 

 

Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World – The Lost Gospels

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Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli discuss the claims and counter-claims about the so-called Lost Gospels from both the faith and reason perspectives. Do they tell a suppressed or untold story about Jesus Christ, are they the ravings of lunatics, or something in between?

Direct Link to the Episode.
Continue reading “Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World – The Lost Gospels”

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The Mystery of the Beloved Disciple

beloved discipleSomething very strange happens in John’s Gospel.

Unlike any of the other Gospels, it indicates—directly—who its author is.

And yet it also doesn’t tell us who he is.

At the very end of the Gospel, we are told that it was written by a figure who has become known as “the beloved disciple.”

But he never names himself. That’s something everyone agrees on: The text of the Gospel never directly tells us the name of this disciple.

The author chose to remain anonymous or “not named” (Greek, a(n)- “not” + onoma “name”).

That creates a mystery around him—and it’s a mystery that he chose to create, for whatever reason he had.

Most people, for most of Church history, have thought it was the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee and brother of James.

There is, however, a vigorous debate about this in some quarters.

Regardless of who you think the beloved disciple was, it’s worth looking at how he handles the issue of his identity and what light this may shed on the question.

So let’s look at the appearances of the beloved disciple in the Gospel . . .

 

Before We Begin

We should say a word about how we should look at these passages.

To fully appreciate their significance, to avoid coloring them with other ideas we may have, we should put ourselves in the position of an early reader who didn’t know anything else about this Gospel.

Treat it like a document that just fell into your hands—without “The Gospel of John” written at the front, the way it appears in modern Bibles.

Ancient documents didn’t have titles at the front like that. They just started with the text.

Also, forget that you know that the beloved disciple will eventually be revealed as the author.

Imagine mentally reading the document from the beginning—without knowing anything else—and watch the clues that accumulate.

Let’s get started . . .

 

A Man “Whose Name Was John”

In the first chapter of the Gospel, we learn about John the Baptist, only he isn’t called “the Baptist.” He’s just called “John”:

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John (John 1:6).

We are expected to already know about this figure. For example, we are expected to know that he was eventually sent to prison—a fact that the author drops on us without any further explanation, at one point simply saying, “John had not yet been put in prison” (John 3:24).

From one perspective, this is not surprising since the fourth Gospel appears to have been written as a way of supplementing the information found in other Gospels, such as Mark’s (see here).

The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) tell the story of John the Baptist’s imprisonment, so the fourth Gospel can assume that we know about it.

But early Christian tradition contained multiple figures named “John,” which was one of the most common Palestinian Jewish male names in the first century. Individuals who bore it included John the Baptist, John son of Zebedee, and John Mark, the author of the second Gospel.

It’s thus surprising that the fourth Gospel simply refers to the Baptist as “John,” without adding “the Baptist” the way the Synoptics do.

In fact, this John is the only person called “John” in the entire fourth Gospel.

This is potentially significant, and it suggests that the author—for some reason—wanted to keep the name “John” focused exclusively on the Baptist.

 

  1. Meeting Jesus

A bit later in the first chapter of the Gospel, we learn that John had disciples:

The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples; and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus (John 1:35-37).

We thus encounter two anonymous disciples who begin following Jesus and presumably become Jesus’ disciples.

We also learn one of their names. One is “Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother” (John 1:40). But the other disciple remains unnamed.

Why is that?

If Andrew isn’t the only one who has a future with Jesus, why isn’t the other one named? This is a mystery later passages may shed light on.

 

  1. At the Last Supper

Another very strange thing happens in the final third of the fourth Gospel.

We’ve been reading about Jesus and what he did and said for more than two thirds of the book in our hands. After Jesus announces, at the Last Supper, that one of his disciples will betray him, we suddenly read:

One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the breast of Jesus; so Simon Peter beckoned to him and said, “Tell us who it is of whom he speaks” (John 13:23-24).

Wait. What? A disciple “whom Jesus loved”? Who is that?

If Jesus loved him in a special way, that suggests he’s important. But if he’s important, why hasn’t he been mentioned before in this Gospel?

Or has he?

In this passage, we see Jesus interacting with an anonymous disciple—just like he did back in chapter 1. Could the two anonymous disciples be one and the same?

We’ll have to see . . .

 

  1. In the High Priest’s Courtyard

We encounter another anonymous disciple after Jesus has been arrested:

Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. As this disciple was known to the high priest, he entered the court of the high priest along with Jesus, while Peter stood outside at the door.

So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the maid who kept the door, and brought Peter in (John 18:15-16).

It is very strange that “the other disciple” remains unnamed. He was obviously important—for he was personally known to the high priest, and it was this fact that allowed Peter to gain access to the high priest’s courtyard.

Yet he remains anonymous and is simply described as “another disciple” (v. 15) and as “the other disciple” (v. 16).

In Greek, these phrases are very close. “Another disciple” is allos mathētēs, but once he has been introduced, the author adds the definite article (“the”/ho) in front of the phrase: ho allos mathētēs.

Does anything else in the Gospel shed light on who he is?

Keep reading.

 

  1. At the Foot of the Cross

The next time the beloved disciple appears is at the foot of the Cross:

When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!”

Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home (John 19:26-27).

Here we have another indication of the importance of the beloved disciple: Jesus entrusts the care of his mother to him.

And the disciple lives up to the commission Jesus gives him, beginning to care for Mary “from that hour.”

 

  1. At the Tomb

The beloved disciple is also mentioned when Mary Magdalene runs to tell the disciples that Jesus’ tomb is empty:

So she ran, and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Peter then came out with the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb.

They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in.

Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself.

Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead (John 20:2-9).

Notice how the beloved disciple is first introduced: He is initially described (v. 2a) as “the other disciple,” and the Greek phrase is ho allos mathētēs (though here put in the accusative case).

We’ve heard that phrase before. It was how the disciple who got Peter into the high priest’s courtyard was described back in John 18:16.

The fact John uses this phrase first suggests that he expects us to recognize this person as “the other disciple” who was with Peter at the high priest’s house.

This impression is reinforced because John keeps referring to this figure as “the other disciple” (vv. 3, 4, and 8).

But now John further identifies him (v. 2b) as “the one whom Jesus loved”—the beloved disciple from the last supper and the foot of the cross.

The passage also reveals that the beloved disciple and Peter were together, and it appears that the beloved disciple is fleeter of foot than Peter (which some have suggested may mean he is younger, though Peter was not old at this time).

The beloved disciple also defers to Peter, allowing him to enter the tomb first, and he is quick to believe.

 

  1. At the Sea of Galilee

The beloved disciple also had a personal encounter with the risen Jesus when a group of disciples decide to go fishing. Notice who is present:

Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together (John 21:2).

There were seven people present:

1) Simon Peter
2) Thomas
3) Nathanael
4-5) The sons of Zebedee
6-7) Two unnamed disciples

Seven is a significant number in the Bible in general and in the Johannine literature in particular.

Also, we are here at the very end of the Gospel, and we are encountering two anonymous disciples—just like we did at the very beginning of the Gospel.

Could they be the same two? Andrew and one other?

The disciples spend all night fishing, and in the morning Jesus appears on the shore, but in the distance they don’t recognize him.

Jesus then asks them if they have caught anything. When they say they haven’t, he tells them to cast the net on the right side of the boat, and they miraculously get a huge catch.

That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!”

When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his clothes, for he was stripped for work, and sprang into the sea (John 21:7).

Afterwards, they all get to shore and have breakfast with Jesus, who has Peter confess his love for him three times as a way of undoing the threefold denial Peter made in the high priest’s courtyard.

Then Jesus tells Peter about the way he will die, and we read:

Peter turned and saw following them the disciple whom Jesus loved, who had lain close to his breast at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?”

When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?”

Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!”

The saying spread abroad among the brethren that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?” (John 21:20-23).

Here we learn that the beloved disciple wasn’t just important when the events of the Gospel were transpiring. He continued to be well-known in the Christian community afterward, as there was a rumor he wouldn’t die.

The fact he takes the time to debunk this rumor—to assure the audience that Jesus didn’t say he wouldn’t die—indicates that the rumor still had currency.

Presumably the audience, or at least a notable number of its members, had heard the rumor and knew who the mysterious disciple was.

This makes the Gospel’s refusal to name the disciple all the more mysterious.

 

  1. The Author Revealed

There is one more thing that the Gospel tells us about the beloved disciple: He’s it’s author.

Immediately after learning about the rumor concerning the beloved disciple, we read:

This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things; and we know that his testimony is true.

But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written (John 21:24-25).

For someone reading this Gospel for the first time, not knowing anything else about it, this would be mind-blowing!

The enigmatic disciple about whom mystery has been building for chapter after chapter suddenly turns out to be the author! Wow!

The author even steps out of the shadows, dropping his previous habit of referring to himself in the third person (“the disciple whom Jesus loved,” “the other disciple”) and suddenly using the first person: “I suppose the world itself could not contain the books.”

This is carefully crafted literary artistry, and that may help us put a few additional pieces in place.

 

Putting It All Together

For a reason the Gospel does not tell us, the author has chosen to keep himself unnamed throughout his work.

He’s also used a careful, “slow build” literary strategy to gradually fill in our picture of who he is. It’s a strategy that fosters a sense of growing mystery about him:

  • We first have a definite indication that something is up in chapter 13—two thirds of the way through the Gospel—when we suddenly hear about a mysterious disciple “whom Jesus loved.”
  • Then the author reintroduces himself in chapter 18 under the title “the other disciple,” where we learn he was personally known to the high priest and played a key role in getting Peter admitted to the courtyard.
  • In chapter 19 we learn that the beloved disciple was at the foot of the cross and that Jesus entrusted the care of his own mother to him.
  • In chapter 20 we learn that he was present at the empty tomb, and he was apparently the first disciple to believe in the Resurrection. We also learn that “the disciple whom Jesus loved” and “the other disciple” are one in the same.
  • In chapter 21, we learn that there was a rumor about him that he would never die.
  • Finally, we learn that he is the author of the Gospel itself.

This carefully constructed, “slow burn” pattern invites us to consider whether we may have missed anything, whether there are other pieces of the puzzle that also need to be fit in.

Earlier we noted that, given the sudden appearance of a disciple “whom Jesus loved” in chapter 13, we would have expected an account of how such a disciple first met Jesus—and that impression is strengthened even further once we know he is the actual author of the Gospel.

How could a disciple who felt so close to Jesus, who cared for his own mother, not tell us how he met Jesus? He told us about how other people (Andrew, Peter, Nathanael, Nicodemus, etc.) met Jesus.

But maybe the deliberately unnamed author did tell us: There are those two unnamed disciples in chapter 1, and—surprise, surprise—there are two unnamed disciples in chapter 21.

This suggests that the unnamed author was one of the two unnamed disciples in both cases. He was Andrew’s companion in chapter 1, and that was the story of how he first met Jesus.

Quite possibly, Andrew was the unnamed disciple in chapter 21. It would be very natural for Peter and the sons of Zebedee to be accompanied by Andrew, the fourth member of their fishing partnership. The beloved disciple simply kept Andrew unnamed on this occasion to mirror chapter 1.

We would then have seven appearances of the beloved disciple in the Gospel:

  1. His first meeting with Jesus (John 1:35-37)
  2. His appearance at the Last Supper (John 13:23-24).
  3. His appearance at the high priest’s house (John 18:15-16)
  4. His appearance at the foot of the Cross (John 19:26-27)
  5. His appearance at the empty tomb (John 20:2-9)
  6. His appearance at the Sea of Galilee (John 21:2-23)
  7. His self-revelation as the author (John 21:24-25)

This arrangement is not certain, because there are other ways one could divide the material (some of which also would add up to seven).

However, the prominence of the number seven (including the seven disciples mentioned at the Sea of Galilee) and the author’s clear literary artistry, indicate that a deliberate seven-fold pattern of appearances may be indicated.

It’s also worth noting that all but the last of these appearances occurs in Jerusalem or the vicinity of Jerusalem. (John 1:28, as well as Matt. 3:1 and Mark 1:5, place the location of John’s baptizing ministry near Jerusalem.)

This pattern of events around Jerusalem is consistent with someone who would be personally known to the high priest. Indeed, it would suggest not just a Jerusalemite but a member of the Jerusalem aristocracy and possibly a priest himself.

It is less consistent with the profile of a Galilean fisherman like John son of Zebedee.

Also pointing in this direction is the suggestion that the author is one of the two unnamed disciples at the Sea of Galilee. If that is the case then he is not one of the sons of Zebedee, who were also present.

This does not mean the beloved disciple can’t be John son of Zebedee, but it does mean there are indicators pointing in a different direction.

This only continues the mystery surrounding the author—a mystery produced by the fact that he never names himself, not even in the last verses of his Gospel when he reveals himself as author.

For more on the debate about who wrote John’s Gospel, see here.

Who Wrote John’s Gospel?

john the evangelistIt sounds like a trick question. You’re tempted to say, “Uhh . . . that would be John?”

Yes, but which John?

A handful of names were extremely popular in first century Israel. These included Simon, Judas, James, and, John. The frequency with which they occurred sometimes makes it hard to sort out who is who.

Worse, first century Jews didn’t have last names, and sometimes a person went by multiple names (Simon, Simeon, Cephas, Peter, Simon Peter, Simon son of John, Simon son of Jonah—all the same guy).

So who wrote John’s Gospel?

There have been a number of proposals, and, as we will see, Pope Benedict makes an interesting one.

 

The Anonymous Author

John’s Gospel indicates it was written by an eyewitness to the ministry of Christ: “This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things” (John 21:24).

It is ironic that John’s Gospel—of all the four—is the only one that so explicitly points to its author, yet it does not name him.

Why?

The author was known to the first readers, so in a sense it wasn’t necessary to say his name, but there may have been other reasons. One possibility is that the author keeps himself anonymous out of humility, identifying himself simply as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”

Another is that he is making himself a symbol—a stand-in for all of his readers, all of whom Jesus loves.

Since he was writing in dangerous times, he might want to be anonymous so that he didn’t get in trouble with the authorities, and the strategy may not have worked. If he is also the author of Revelation, as commonly supposed, he ended up being exiled to the island of Patmos. It’s interesting to note that Revelation, of all the books attributed to John, is the only one that explicitly names its author (Rev. 1:4), and it was written after he had been exiled.

 

The Case for John the Apostle

The most common view, historically and today, is that the Gospel was written by John the Apostle. What evidence is there for this?

The author describes himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved, who had lain close to his breast at the [Last] Supper” (21:20).

This seems to put the author among Jesus’ core group of disciples, and it is an easy step from there to conclude that he was one of the twelve apostles. But which one?

Here we can use the process of elimination. John’s Gospel names several figures and thus distinguishes them from “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Here is a list, along with their first mention in the Gospel:

  1. Andrew (1:40)
  2. Simon Peter (1:40)
  3. Philip (1:43)
  4. Nathaniel (i.e., Bartholomew) (1:45)
  5. Judas Iscariot (6:71)
  6. Thomas (11:16)
  7. Judas (not Iscariot) (14:22)

The fact seven of the Twelve are named may be intentional. Seven is a significant number that crops up in unexpected ways in John’s Gospel (and in Revelation).

If none of the above are the beloved disciple, that leaves the following members of the Twelve: James, John, Matthew, James the Less, and Simon the Zealot.

If the beloved disciple’s relationship is meant to be an especially close one (as opposed to a symbol of the love Jesus has for all his followers) that might mean he was one of the inner circle of apostles, which we know from the other Gospels to have been Peter, Andrew, James, and John.

Peter and Andrew have already been eliminated, and James the son of Zebedee was the first apostle to be killed (Acts 12:2), so there would scarcely be an enduring rumor that he would live until the Second Coming, as there was for the beloved disciple (John 21:22-23).

With the other three core disciples eliminated, that would point to John the son of Zebedee.

This is a compelling case, and it is no surprise that the dominant view historically has been that John the Apostle was the author of this Gospel.

 

Testing the Assumptions

The case above depends on certain assumptions—that the author was one of the Twelve and that he was among the core group within the Twelve. Both assumptions are reasonable, but are they certain?

There were other important followers of Jesus.

Two were Joseph Barsabbas and Matthias, the two proposed as Judas Iscariot’s replacement precisely because they had followed Jesus from his baptism to his Ascension (Acts 1:21-26). Yet they are not mentioned in the Gospels at all.

There is also Joseph of Arimathea, who donated his own tomb for Jesus to be buried in (Matt. 27:60).

Nicodemus also went with Joseph to ask Pilate for the body of Jesus, and he later helped with the burial (John 19:39).

John’s Gospel prominently features a disciple who was not a member of the Twelve but who was close enough to Jesus that others commented on how much Jesus loved him: Lazarus (11:36). As a result, some have even proposed Lazarus as the author of the fourth Gospel.

This is unlikely, one reason being the anonymity that the beloved disciple uses for himself. It is improbable that he would carefully craft the anonymous, beloved disciple identity for himself and then casually name himself in other passages.

The same reasoning makes it unlikely the beloved disciple is any of the other non-Twelve disciples mentioned in John (e.g., Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus).

But the point remains that there were important disciples who were not members of the Twelve. Given that, is there any reason to think that the beloved disciple might not be John son of Zebedee?

 

Not a Fisherman from Galilee?

Several reasons have been suggested. First, the beloved disciple does not appear clearly until chapter 13 of the gospel, when he is reclining by Jesus at the Last Supper (13:23). But James son of Zebedee had been a disciple as early as Peter and Andrew (Matt. 4:18-22, cf. John 1:40-42).

Second, the Gospel of John focuses largely on Jesus ministry around Jerusalem rather than in Galilee. This is what one would expect of a native of Jerusalem but not a native of Galilee like John son of Zebedee.

Third, the beloved disciple’s residence in Jerusalem may be shown by the fact that he was personally known by the high priest. This enabled him to enter the high priest’s court with Jesus. Peter, however was stopped, and the disciple had to intervene to get Peter access to the courtyard (18:15-16). The same high priest (Caiaphas) does not appear to recognize John son of Zebedee when he and Peter are brought before him in Acts 4.

Fourth, the beloved disciple may have been a priest himself, as illustrated by the fact that he knew the high priest. The second century Christian writer Polycrates agreed: “John, who was both a witness and a teacher, who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and being a priest wore the sacerdotal plate . . . also sleeps at Ephesus” (quoted in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3:31:2). But John the son of Zebedee was a fisherman rather than a priest.

Fifth, John son of Zebedee and Peter are specifically said to be “uneducated, common men” by Luke (Acts 4:13). But priests were educated, and the Gospel of John displays significant literary qualities that would not be expected from an uneducated, common man.

Sixth, at the end of the Gospel, there is a fishing expedition that includes “Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples” (21:2). These seven disciples (note the number) include the beloved disciple. But since he has kept himself studiedly anonymous, we might expect him to be one of the two unnamed disciples mentioned at the end, not one of the sons of Zebedee.

As we will see, none of these objections is insuperable. There are ways John son of Zebedee could be the beloved disciple. But they have led some scholars to wonder if the beloved disciple might be someone else.

 

The Name John

The fact the fourth Gospel is known as John’s is important.

Though none of the Gospels explicitly name their authors, their original audiences knew who had written them, and these traditions circulated in the early Church. It is hard to imagine personal names becoming attached to the Gospels if the names were totally inaccurate.

As a result, we should look for someone named John as the author of the Gospel.

John was a common name in first century Palestine. About one in twenty men bore it, so among the seventy disciples Jesus sent out on a preaching mission (Luke. 10:1) or among the 120 core disciples present at the election of Judas’s replacement (Acts 1:15), there should have been several Johns.

 

John Mark?

An interesting case is John Mark. We know that he lived at Jerusalem, where his mother had a house (Acts 12:12). Because it is described as his mother’s house rather than his father’s house, his father was likely dead.

This could make John Mark the eldest male in the household, which could explain why the beloved disciple was seated next to Jesus as the Last Supper. Even as a non-member of the Twelve, if he was the official host representing the family that owned the house, he might well be seated next to the guest of honor.

In Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict notes that, “According to the Jewish custom, the host or, in his absence, as would have been the case here, his firstborn son sat to the right of the guest, his head leaning on the latter’s chest” (v. 1, p. 225).

That could apply to the beloved disciple if he were someone other than John Mark, though. The beloved disciple appears in a clear way for the first time at the Last Supper, and if he were also the owner of the house where it took place, or the eldest male of the family present, he could end up seated next to Jesus even though he was not a member of the Twelve.

The main problem with supposing him to be John Mark is that John Mark is usually identified with Mark the Evangelist, the author of the second Gospel, not the fourth. The tradition in the Church Fathers on this point is very strong.

It also is commonly thought that John Mark appears as one of the unnamed characters in his own Gospel, such as the man who runs away without his clothing on the night Jesus was arrested (Mark 14:51-52).

His case does demonstrate, though, that there were other early disciples, not members of the Twelve, not mentioned by name in the Gospels, who were nevertheless in a position to write Gospels—and even ones named John!

Some have suggested that the beloved disciple was a priest who lived at Jerusalem but who is otherwise unknown to us. Hypothetically, this is possible, but it seems unlikely. Someone important enough to write a Gospel should have left some trace in history. So does history record any other Johns who could have written the fourth Gospel?

 

The Case for John the Presbyter

In the first half of the second century an author named Papias wrote a work on the sayings of Jesus. It is now lost, but quotations survive in works by other early authors, such as the second century bishop Irenaeus and the fourth century Church historian, Eusebius.

Papias lived early enough that he was in contact with people who had actually known Jesus. Although many had passed away by his time, some were still alive, and he names two: Aristion and a figure known as John the Presbyter (also called John the Elder and John the Priest, depending on how the underlying Greek word is translated). Note the contrast between what Aristion and John the Presbyter “say” and what the other disciples, including John the Apostle, “said” (see below).

Both Johns were associated with the city of Ephesus, and Eusebius cites Papias’s statement as evidence for the claim of those “who say that there were two persons in Asia that bore the same name, and that there were two tombs in Ephesus, each of which, even to the present day, is called John’s” (op. cit. 3:39:6).

He went to say that “it is probable that it was the second [i.e., the Presbyter], if one is not willing to admit that it was the first, that saw the Revelation” (ibid.).

St. Jerome records a common view that 2 John and 3 John were written by John the Presbyter, saying that these two letters “are said to be the work of John the Presbyter, to the memory of whom another sepulcher is shown at Ephesus to the present day, though some think that there are two memorials of this same John the Evangelist” (Illustrious Men 9). Note that the opening verse of both letters lists the sender simply as “the Presbyter.”

Scholars who favor the idea that John the Presbyter wrote the fourth Gospel have produced a number of arguments for their position.

A noteworthy one is that John the Presbyter evidently lived to a very old age. Otherwise, he would not have acquired the nickname “the Presbyter,” which in Greek means “the Elder.” If he is addressing his letters simply as “the Elder,” that would indicate an advanced age.

That harmonizes well with the rumor that the beloved disciple would live until the Second Coming (21:15-23).

This, as well as literary similarities between the Gospel and the epistles of John, suggest a common author.

 

Papias on John the Presbyter

Papias writes:

“If, then, any one came who had been a follower of the elders, I questioned him in regard to the words of the elders—what Andrew or what Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the disciples of the Lord, and what things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say” (Papias of Hierapolis, quoted in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3:39:4).

 

John the Presbyter Speaks?

In the opening verses of 2 and 3 John, we read:

The Presbyter to the chosen Lady and to her children, whom I love in truth—and not only I but also all who know the truth [2 John 1].

The Presbyter to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth [3 John 1].

 

Pope Benedict’s Solution

In Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict takes up the question of who wrote John’s Gospel and proposes a solution that other scholars have advocated.

He notes that “the Gospel never directly identifies [the beloved disciple] by name. In connection with the calling of Peter, as well as of other disciples, it points toward John, the son of Zebedee, but it never explicitly identifies the two figures. The intention is evidently to leave the matter shrouded in mystery” (v. 1, p. 223).

Pope Benedict acknowledges the difficulty some have had with seeing John son of Zebedee as the author of the Gospel: “Can he, the Galilean fisherman, have been as closely connected with the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem, its language, and its mentality as the Evangelist evidently is? Can he have been related to the family of the high priest, as the text hints (cf. John 18:15)?” (p. 224).

He concludes that “that such an identification is actually quite possible. The priests discharged their ministry on a rotating basis twice a year. The ministry itself lasted a week each time. After the completion of the ministry, the priest returned to his home, and it was not at all unusual for him also to exercise a profession to earn his livelihood. Furthermore, the Gospel makes clear that Zebedee was no simple fisherman, but employed several day laborers, which also explains why it was possible for his sons to leave him” (ibid.).

While it was possible for a Galilean fisherman to also be a priest at Jerusalem, Pope Benedict thinks John the Presbyter had a role as well.

In his view, John’s Gospel was based on the memories of the Apostle but put into its final literary form by the Presbyter, who served as “the literary executor of the favorite disciple” after his death (v. 1, p. 227).

He also sees John the Presbyter as the author of 2 and 3 John (see below).

These views are not magisterial teaching. As Pope Benedict famously said in the preface to Jesus of Nazareth, “this book is in no way an exercise of the magisterium, but is solely an expression of my personal search ‘for the face of the Lord’ (cf. Ps. 27:8). Everyone is free, then, to contradict me.”

The seriousness with which Pope Benedict takes the traditions connecting John son of Zebedee and John the Presbyter with the fourth Gospel, though, should not be lightly dismissed.

 

Pope Benedict on John the Presbyter

In Jesus of Nazareth, volume 1, Pope Benedict writes:

In Ephesus there was something like a Johannine school, which traced its origins to Jesus’ favorite disciple himself, but in which a certain “Presbyter John” presided as the ultimate authority.

This “presbyter” John appears as the sender and author of the Second and Third Letters of John (in each case in the first verse of the first chapter) simply under the title “the presbyter” (without reference to the name John).

He is evidently not the same as the Apostle, which means that here in the canonical text we encounter expressly the mysterious figure of the presbyter. He must have been closely connected with the apostle; perhaps he had even been acquainted with Jesus himself.

After the death of the apostle, he was identified wholly as the bearer of the latter’s heritage, and in the collective memory, the two figures were increasingly fused.

At any rate, there seem to be grounds for ascribing to “Presbyter John” an essential role in the definitive shaping of the Gospel, though he must always have regarded himself as the trustee of the tradition he had received from the son of Zebedee [Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, v. 1, p. 226].

 

Conclusion

Our purpose here is not to settle the question of which John wrote the fourth Gospel, but it is to illustrate the lively debate that has emerged on the question and to indicate some of the factors that need to be taken into consideration.

We’ll have more to say on the subject in the future.

The Epistle of Barnabas and the Gospel of Matthew

barnabusbIn its entry on the (apocryphal) Epistle of Barnabas, the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary states:

Although Barnabas 4:14 appears to quote Matt 22:14, it must remain an open question whether the Barnabas circle knew written gospels. Based on Koester’s analysis (1957:125–27, 157), it appears more likely that Barnabas stood in the living oral tradition used by the written gospels (Treat, J. C. (1992). Barnabas, Epistle of. In D. N. Freedman (Ed.), The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (Vol. 1, p. 614). New York: Doubleday).

The connection between Barnabas 4:14 and Matthew is, indeed, striking. Barnabas 4:14 states:

Moreover, consider this as well, my brothers: when you see that after such extraordinary signs and wonders were done in Israel, even then they were abandoned, let us be on guard lest we should be found to be, as it is written, “many called, but few chosen.” (Holmes, M. W. (1999). The Apostolic Fathers: Greek texts and English translations (Updated ed., p. 283). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.)

If the last bit of this is a quotation from one of the Gospels, it can only be from Matthew 22:14, for this verse has no parallels in the other Gospels.

However, the idea that Barnabas is borrowing this from oral tradition is extremely implausible. The author introduces the quotation with the formula “as it is written”–not “as it is said.” This not only implies he is using a written source but also that he regarded it as scripture, for “it is written” is a standard formula for introducing scripture quotations.

The probability is thus that Barnabas was quoting Matthew’s Gospel, and that would let us establish a terminus ad quem (roughly, a latest possible date) for Matthew if we could establish when Barnabas was written.

It was clearly written after the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70, for Barnabas 16:3-5 refers to that event:

(3) Furthermore, again he says: “Behold, those who tore down this temple will build it themselves.” (4) This is happening now. For because they went to war, it was torn down by their enemies, and now the very servants of their enemies will re-build it. (5) Again, it was revealed that the city and the temple and the people of Israel were destined to be handed over. For the Scripture says: “And it will happen in the last days that the Lord will hand over the sheep of the pasture and the sheepfold and their watchtower to destruction.” And it happened just as the Lord said.

Precisely how long afterwards Barnabas was written is not clear, but it is certainly early. In fact, it is likely the first surviving piece of Christian literature written after the destruction of the temple. In The Fathers Know Best, I date it to around A.D. 75.

The fact that Barnabas records the destruction of the temple as a past fact (“And it happened just as the Lord said”) but Matthew presents it only as a future fact, with no notice of the prophecy’s fulfillment, suggests Matthew was written before 70.

The Guy Who Named the Deuterocanonicals

Sixtus_of_SienaThe deuterocanonical books of the Bible are those books in the Old Testament which are not found in the canon of modern, rabbinic Jews and Protestants. In Protestant circles, they are frequently referred to as “the apocrypha.”

“Apocrypha” means “hidden things,” and that’s a misnomer, because these books aren’t and never have been hidden. They were part of Christian Scriptures from the very beginning.

The term “deuterocanonicals” is also a misnomer, because its roots suggest these books belong to the “second canon,” and there is no second canon.

Alternately, one might parse it to mean that they were included in the canon secondarily–i.e., after other books–but this is also false. The canon lists of the early church councils in the fourth and fifth centuries–the first time the canon was dealt with by councils–include the deuterocanonical books alongside the protocanonical ones.

So, although it’s the term we’re stuck with, “deuterocanonicals” is itself problematic.

Today I did some research and was finally able to find out who coined the term: Sixtus of Siena.

You can read about him on Wikipedia here.

Based on information in the Oxford English Dictionary, it looks like the term was coined in or around 1566 in Sixtus’s work Bibliotheca sancta ex præcipuis Catholicæ Ecclesiæ auctoribus collecta (i.e., Sacred library collected from the precepts of the authorities of the Catholic Church).

The OED lists the following its first historical example of the term:

[1566   A. F. Sixtus Senensis Bibliotheca Sancta i. 10   Canonici secundi ordinis (qui olim Ecclesiastici uocabantur, & nunc à nobis Deuterocanonici dicuntur) illi sunt, de quibus, quia non statim sub ipsis Apostolorum temporibus, sed longè pòst ad notitiam totius Ecclesiæ peruenerunt, inter Catholicos fuit aliquando sententia anceps.]

While one must give the usual caveats about Wikipedia, it’s worth noting that it states:

Sixtus coined the term deuterocanonical to describe certain books of the Old Testament that had not been accepted as canonical but which appeared in the Septuagint, and the definer for the Roman Catholics of the terms protocanonical and the ancient term apocryphal.

I’d like to find a scholarly, non-Wikipedia source for these, but it does seem to jibe with the data from the OED.