Authorship Of The Gospel Of John

[Crusader_4]

Here is another question that may not belong here if needed to be moved please let me know. I think it is beyond dispute that the gospel of John comes from John the Apostle, however due to its dating it is possible that the gospel of john was not put into writing by John himself, but perhaps from someone in John's community is there a possibility that person may have been one of the early Apostolic fathers in particular either Polycarp or Ignatius of Antioch? (altho i believe Ignatius was more tied to Peter).

[Thy Geekdom Come]

Personally, I ascribe to the school that believes the Gospels were written or dictated by those whose names the Gospels bear. To a lot of people, that makes me a "fundamentalist" of Scripture, but it was the view of my Scripture professor in college and since Scriptural Theology is not my specialty, I'm satisfied with his reasoning. That having been said, there are many valid theories on these matters, so anyone who does want to specialize in Scriptural scholarship should take the many theories into account before forming his own opinion.

So if John did not write the Gospel of John, I would say that it is possible that one of his disciples, including Ignatius or Polycarp, did write it. However, I do not see why they would be any more likely as authors than other disciples of John. To make such a determination, scholars would look at the original sources, dates, history, and writing styles of different documents, in this case, the most original copies of the Gospel of John, the Letters of John, and the writings of Ignatius and Polycarp. Even with all that, however, there would be quite a bit of speculation.

BTW, tradition has it that the lineage from John was Ignatius, then Polycarp. Also by tradition, Ignatius was the young boy Jesus placed on his knee when speaking to the Jews about welcoming children.

God bless,

Micah