Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I'll probably never be able to read it and would probably disagree if I did, but the key argument against an early date for the Gospel of John has recently (since 1966, more strongly in 1979) been that the three instances of aposynagogos in John refer to a decree "Birkat Ha-Minim" supposedly issued in the Eighties. I suppose that's confuted in K. Berger 1997 In Anfang war Johannes, "In the Beginning was John". At pg. 83: "Die Auseinandersetzung mit nicht-christichen Juden im Johannes Evangelium ...hat auch mit dem Actzehnerget rein gar nichts zu tun." That is, "The separation with the non-Christian Jews in John's Gospel...had absolutely nothing to do with the decree of the Eighties."
Working directly in English (or with a competent translation:
"On the basis of recent research, the expulsion theory has come under criticism. A new scholarly consensus has emerged that accepts the aposynagogos texts in John cannot be seem as evidence of the parting of the ways of Jews and Christians into separate religions." Reimund Bieringer Ed. (and author of this chapter of) Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel, 2001, p. 11
note 21 R. Kimelman, "birkat Ha-Minim and the lack of evidence for an Anti-Christian Jewish Prayer in Late Antiquity, in E. P. Sanders, ed. Jewish and Christian Self-Definition (Philadelphia, 181) vol. 2 pp. 226-44, 391-403. C. f. also E. W. Stegemann and W. Stegemann, 1995.
Continuing with American James Charlesworth:
Note 32"Gospel of John....a mixed background, including non-Jews and Jews 255 (including Samaritans and Essenes)
Note 33: As R. Kysar reported, "Most scholars now agree that the G[of John] was written in response to the expulsion of the Johannine church from the synagogue and the subsequent dialogue between these two religious parties.
Charlesworth apparently finds John 14:6b particularly incendiary (oh, and maybe theologically insufferably bad as well?) "No one comes to the Father except through me." He argues, 'John 14:6b is almost unique in the New Testament, there is not one variant.': This may signify that it was a later addition, congenial to the scribes who later copied it. (p. 260) Apparently Charlesworth was OK with Christian scribes to blame for bad things said against Jews, just as long as the original writers were exculpated. (Or maybe Jesus himself? But if Jesus is God, wouldn't people of all religions come to the Father in reality through Him? Maybe Charlesworth is just fighting the idea of early High Christoiogy.)
So he concludes that John "14:6b appears to be a later addition to the Gospel of John". p. 265. Further
"U. C. von Wahlde concluded that 8:31 and 10:19, which respectively contain the nouns Ioudaious and Ioudaiois, were redactional expansions to the Gospel of John.
Anyway, the Gospel of John can be early, I guess, if it really didn't reflect any anti-Judaism from Jesus or his early disciples, just the ones who got mad when the Jewish authorities were harsh on them, and who then redacted in harsh words. Nothing here refutes my Thesis of seven written eyewitness sources.

(Better as a separate post).
D. Moody Smith. John. (Nashville, Abingdon, 1999) p. 77
J. L. "Martyn, esp. 50-62; Brown 1966 lxx-lxxv"
"This form of the ancient text may date from the eighties of the first century (cf. davies 1966, 275-86, as well as Martyn) although the date is not certain. All extant versions of this text are centuries, but Talmudic evidence (Berakoth 28)"
It's rather weak to date GJohn to later than 85 based on texts centuries later that MAY reflect back earlier accurately.

Your post was vague and offered little real evidence either way as far as dating is considered.

The current academic opinion is that it was a collected that has the possibility to have gone through at least 3 stages before final redaction.


Taking snipits and stating they are early does not mean it is all early, same for dating it late.

Scholars believe that the text went through two to three "editions" before reaching its current form,[11] [12] and because of this complex and multi-layered history it is meaningless to speak of a single author


the book does not proceed even indirectly from an eyewitness account

the tradition of authorship by John the Apostle was created ex post facto to support the book's authority

the book was intended as an apologetic work, not a history

the Synoptic tradition was used and adapted very freely by the author

these deviations are not due to the application of other sources unknown to the authors of the Synoptic gospels

the discourses in the Gospel express not Jesus' words, but those of the evangelist

My problem lies in Hellenistic background.

I had a third post into the thread that disappeared, maybe because you can't copy from Wikipedia, especially in German? Turns out that my hero Klaus Berger is a sensation in Germany.
Meanwhile, John, you apparently have some unattributed lines above, or are you stating yourself as the absolute authority again?

Matthäus zwischen 50 und 60 entstanden, Markus spätestens 45, Lukas spätestens 66, Johannes um 68/69, Apostelgeschichte etwa 66/67.
That's from the 9-page de.Wikipedia article about Klaus Berger.
GMatthew between 50 and 60 arose, Mark at the latest 45, Luke at the latest 66, John around 68, Acts perhaps 67.

Römer frühestens 60 (an die Christen in Rom geschrieben, aber von Paulus selbst – mit Kap. 16 als Anhang – nach Ephesus „umgeleitet), 1. und 2.Korinther um 50, Galater 50er Jahre, Epheser vor 63, Philipper (= Abschiedsbrief) um 65, Kolosser vielleicht 58, 1. und 2.Thessalonicher 50–52.1. und 2.Timotheus und Titus: Mitte 50er Jahre (als Paulus in Ephesus war), Philemon vielleicht 61.Hebräer um 54/55 (von einem aus Rom vertriebenen Judenchristen in Alexandrien geschrieben, an die Heidenchristen [!] in Rom), Jakobus um 55, 1.Petrus 50–55, 2.Petrus 50–52, 1.Johannes 55/56 (jedenfalls nicht später), 2.Johannes spätestens 50, 3.Johannes um 50, Judas 50–55; Offenbarung 68/69.“[3]
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Berger_(Theologe)
I've now added the rest of the NT datings from Berger 2011 Kommentar zum Neuen Testament. I'll roughly translate:
Romans at the earliest 60 (written to the Christians in Rome, but by Paul himself--with Chapter 16 as supplement--after a detour around Ephesians--), First and Second Corinthians around 50, Galatians in the 50's, Ephesians before 63, Phiiippians (a departure letter) around 65, Colossians probably 58, First and Second Thessalonians 50-52, First and Second Timothy and Titus middle-50's years (when Paul was in Ephesus), Philemon probably 61, Hebrews around 54/55 (written by one of the Jewish Christians in Alexandria driven out from Rome, to the gentile Christians in Rome), James around 55, First Peter 50-55, 2 Second Peter 50-52, First John 55/56 (in any case not later), Second John at the latest 50, Third John around 50, Jude 50-55, Revelation 68/69.
In my earlier post on this thread I displayed Klaus Berger's eventual datings (all in agreement more or less with the American gadfly Bishop John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, particularly GJohn, back in the 1970's) that reveal that the Gospel of John was NOT first. Was his earlier (but still so titled in the 2004 Third Edition) In Anfang war Johannes a come-on title or his genuine 1997 belief?
By the way, the German in the de.Wikipedia article is exceedingly difficult, or I would try to translate it for us. Whoever wrote it was Berger himself or a most diligent student. Can we get a robo-translation or someone's idiosyncratic take on it? Strange, isn't it, that Germany is home to the hottest current attack on higher Kultur from the Right? Born in 1940, Berger would be the perfect reincarnation of Adolf Harnack, with the wrinkle of having adopted some sort of his (Harnack's) wife's Roman Catholicism.

I know my translation will have some deficiencies, but this is (for a skeptic like me) fun stuff:
Als Vorarbeiten für Bergers theologiegeschichtliche Arbeiten und als Begründung für seine Kritik an der Theologie Rudolf Bultmanns kann man seine forschungsgeschichtlichen Arbeiten betrachten, wie er sie in dem Buch „Exegese und Philosophie“ und einer Vielzahl von Aufsätzen vorgelegt hat. Hier weist Berger nach, dass ein Großteil der Annahmen über die Entwicklungen und Zusammenhänge neutestamentlicher Theologie mehr über die jeweiligen Forscher und ihre Verhaftung in der jeweils herrschenden rationalistischen, idealistischen oder romantischen Philosophie aussagen, als über die Texte selbst. Ähnliche Erkenntnisse hatte schon Albert Schweitzer in seinem Buch über die „Leben-Jesuforschung“ geäußert. Berger erscheint hier als ein Erbe der liberalen Aufklärung über die eigenen Voraussetzungen des Verstehens und der Anwendung.

As grounding for Berger's historical-theological work and his critique on the theology of Rudolf bultmann, one can consider his historical investigations that he has proposed as in the book "Exegesis and Philosophy" and a multitude of essays. Here Berger proves that the greatest part of the conventions of development and exposition of New Testament theology more as the investigator and his imprisonment in the here-to-fore prevailing Rationalist, Idealist, or Romanticist philosophies, than as a result of the texts themselves. Likewise science has already shown this in Albert Schweitzer's book on The Historical Jesus. Berger shows himself here as the heir of the Liberal Enlightenment with his own preconceptions of the Understanding and its conceptions.

I have over-estimated how much Klaus Berger's findings might equal my own. He is not my Doppelganger. However, he does have the same individualistic intuitive grasp of things.
First I wish to explore Im Anfang war Johannes. A Richard Niedermeier wrote about it in 2006. I'll not translate the German, but instead get the gist, He wrote:
The Jesus Dynasty by James Tabor is given no value regarding the Gospel of John, which he [like Maurice Casey] is prejudiced against compared to the Synoptics. Klaus Berger opposes them like many others who acknowledge a greater reliability is John with respect to the Synoptics.
Berger turns first to the problems posed by the standard introductions to John. He points out the central role of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A. D. He proves that this shattering event caused no drag upon GJohn. The anti-Judaic polemic is just within the contemporary context.
The Beloved Disciple is the initiator of the written tradition, one of the first disciples of John the Baptist, namely Andrew. In this gospel he is tied to Philip, who is the Alexandrian who wrote the basic gospel.
Pre-existence of Jesus as the Son of God is the proper projection back from the Resurrection. This tears away from a purely theoretical theology differentiated from the Synoptics. Jesus is God, The Gospels of John and Matthew are both Jewish Christian. Yet Berger has opened us for further discussion rather than closed it off.
http://www.buchkritik.at/kritik.asp?IDX=4098
Yet there is much similarity to my own procedure. In 1964 I too decided that Andrew (or Phillip) wrote the Gospel of John. I never thought of either Andrew or Phillip, however, as the Beloved Disciple. Nor did I long retain my conviction that Andrew wrote more of John than just the Signs Source. The bulk of it must have been written by Nicodemus (John 7:54). Only in recent years did I come to regard the Passion Narrative as written by the key eyewitness, John Mark. John the Apostle had the role of Editor of John.

I think John was not the first written gospel, as I think it was written to fill in stories not in whatever Synoptic gospel(s) he had available (eg. Matthew). I think that this explains why there is so much difference between the two. Some theologians think that the difference means that the events in only one or the other set did not happen, otherwise they would both have reported the events. But there is a better explanation for the discrepancy - John was made to fill in the gaps or other parts of the story.

rakovsky wrote:- John was made to fill in the gaps or other parts of the story.

Not what we see in John.

We see outright contradictions, as this theological piece came from communities who had a long history of tradition in their community, that were vastly different from the few who shared gospel traditions.


The traditions in John existed before the gospels were even written. The text evolved Adam, over a long period of time. It was a collection of text that was either constantly redacted, or compiled into its current form early second century.