In short:
- (1) the episode Barabbas proves beyond any doubt the priority of the Evangelion on our canonical gospels.
- (2) Joseph Turmel has proved that the Fourth Gospel is a clumsy proto-Catholic corruption of a gospel written by Marcion's disciples.
- (3) The existence of a "biography" of John the Baptist is demonstrated by three independent facts:
- (3.1) the Evangelion assumes that his readers knew already about the John's baptism without bothering to introduce it.
- (3.2) The episodes of the Birth and Childhood in Matthew and Luke originally referred to the birth of the True Prophet John.
- (3.3) We have independent evidence of John's fame as the true Messiah and the propaganda in this regard by his disciples:
“And, behold, one of the disciples of John asserted that John was the Christ, and not Jesus, inasmuch as Jesus Himself declared that John was greater than all men and all prophets.’If, then, ‘said he, ‘he be greater than all, he must be held to be greater than Moses, and than Jesus himself. But if he be the greatest of all, then must he be the Christ.’
(Recognitions 1:60)
…ad, obviously, too much interested emphasis, in our Gospels, to deny that John was confused with Jesus called Christ.
Note that:
I had promised to Peter (not Cephas) the proof of the point (3.2).