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Day 21 Walking With God
A Daily Defense
DAY 21
The Dating of John
DEFENSE: Actually, the Gospel of John is very historically reliable. Arguments to the contrary do not prove their
case.
Even if John were written in the A.D. 90s, that’s within sixty years of the events it records.
Historically
speaking, that is quite close to them, and it poses no barrier to the accuracy of John. But John likely
was written earlier. It refers to architecture in Jerusalem as still standing (5:2), but Jerusalem was
destroyed in A.D. 70. The Greek text of John 21:19 refers to the death by which Peter “ will glorify God”
(future tense), suggesting it was written before Peter’s martyrdom in mid-67.
Whenever it was written, John is based on the testimony of an eyewitness (the “beloved disciple”)
a point the text makes explicitly (21:24), for the ancients were as aware of the value of eyewitness
testimony as we are.
John is written in a different literary style than the other Gospels, but this is not surprising. Each
author has his own style, and John’s is simply different than the others. This does not mean that he
isn’t interested in history. In fact, he records key historical facts about the chronology of Jesus’
ministry that the other evangelists do not. Thus he mentions that at least three Passovers took place
between the beginning and end of Jesus’ ministry (2:13, 6:4, 11:55). Using this and other information,
we are able to determine that Jesus’ ministry lasted over three years.
John also contains significantly different material than the other Gospels, and the reason is very
simple: John intends to supplement the other Gospels by recording things they didn’t. In particular,
John is supplementing Mark, and his Gospel is designed to interlock with Mark’s.
Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist
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