Is the Gospel of John a FORGERY, FABRICATION, and LITERARY DECEPTION? (Spoiler Alert: No, but there’s a new article that has people talking)

Over the past few days, I have seen a number of posts on social media about Hugo Mendez’s recent article, “Did the Johannine Community Exist?” The title and the abstract to the article immediately threw up a number of red flags for me. It seems that every now and then someone write an article or a book claiming that it will cause us to completely rethink everything we ever thought about Jesus, the New Testament, or early Christianity. Almost inevitably, the claim goes nowhere and proves to be unconvincing. But since that claim has been thrown out there, the assumptions in that work linger around in public consciousness and people tend to just assume that the claim, or something like it, must be true to some extent.

Over time, more works will be written that rehash that unconvincing claim, but with a slightly different twist, that new claim will be hailed as “ground-breaking” and “provocative,” and even though it goes ultimately nowhere, it’s now out there and becomes part of the academic landscape. After all, it’s edgy, it’s novel, and it’s tantalizing. The only problem is that it is virtually worthless, and the more it gets applause in academia, the more academia loses any credibility.

One can see examples of things that are taken so far over the edge that even academics beholden to novelty have to admit the claims are nonsense. Richard Carrier’s Jesus Mythicism is a prime example of such insanity. Truth be told, though, Carrier has just expanded on the slightly less nonsensical claims of scholars like Bart Ehrman. Now, Ehrman is a real biblical scholar, but he has made some pretty outrageous arguments; and it are those outrageous arguments that provide an open door and invitation for “pushing the envelope” into even more outrageous claims.

Admittedly, I am just a small-time biblical scholar myself, but I just roll my eyes when I come across these kinds of things. They are always taken too far and are based on speculations, assumptions, and quite frankly, just some really simplistic thinking. Now, not everything ends up being as absurd as the nonsensical claims of Jesus Mythicism, but let’s face it, there are plenty of examples in the academic world of Biblical Studies of inane absurdity masquerading as cutting-edge scholarship.

Let’s Look at Mendez’s Article
This brings me to Mendez’s article. I’ve read much worse, but truth be told, there really isn’t anything in his article that is based on anything more than air. It is pure speculation that is aimed against a rather wooden and simplistic caricature of the Johannine writings that most scholars don’t really accept to begin with. Allow me to summarize Mendez’s argument by means of a few bullet-points:

• The Apostle John didn’t really write the Gospel of John; it was written by an anonymous author who portrayed himself as the “beloved disciple” who couldn’t really be historically pinned down, and who thus was unfalsifiable. He falsely portrayed himself as an eyewitness to the historical Jesus in order to lend credibility to his own theological claims about Jesus. In short, he was engaging in literary deception.
• Those who wrote the epistles of I, II, and III John intentionally mimicked the writing style of that anonymous author of the Gospel of John to make it seem like the same man (i.e. the Apostle John) wrote them as well. They too were engaging in literary deception.
• This is a different dynamic than the disputed letters of Paul. Even though those epistles weren’t written by Paul, they were clearly written in the style of Paul, and Paul was the real historical figure who wrote his letters to real, historical Pauline communities. Therefore, the disputed letters of Paul carry more historical credibility. By contrast, the Gospel of John is an anonymous work, so that means I, II, and III John are equally anonymous letters that are trying to mimic the writing style of a previous anonymous work—therefore, there no Johannine community ever existed.
• Yes, I, II, and III John share common themes and writing styles as the Gospel of John, but that doesn’t mean they were written by the same author. It means the anonymous authors of the epistles were purposely trying to make it look like it was the same author.
• The Gospel of John is historically suspect because the dialogue in it isn’t anything like the dialogue in the Synoptic Gospels. The long discourses of Jesus are authorial fabrications in which “Jesus’ voice been commandeered by the author, who makes him his mouthpiece of an intricate system of ideas foreign to the Synoptics.” In short, embellishment is one thing, the fabrication in the Gospel of John is quite another. In this respect, the Gospel of John is more like the pseudepigraphal Gospels of Thomas, Mary, and Peter.
• Whoever wrote the Gospel of John had to imply he was a John-like “beloved disciple” in order to compete with the “crowded field of gospels” that were circulated at the end of the first century.
• Conclusion?  The Gospel of John is a “contaminated source” for historical reconstruction, therefore so too are the epistles—they are “extensions of a fabrication and fabrications in their own right,” Therefore the idea there was a Johannine community is a fiction.
• As for the supposed historical people mentioned in III John (Gaius and Demetrius)—Sorry, since the author is fabricated, these names are just a deceptive “tease” to give the epistle the appearance of history.
• The author of the Gospel of John drew upon the Synoptics to compose his own gospel and he tweaked the Synoptic view of “eternal life” that was to be achieved in the “age to come” after a future resurrection, and characterized it as a “spiritual resurrection” (John 5:24-25) that could be experienced in the here and now. (Mendez also claims that this idea of a “spiritual resurrection” can be found in the “pseudepigraphal” Pauline works of Colossians 3:1-3 and Ephesians 2:1-7).

Let’s React to Mendez’s Article
Let’s start with a question: “Are you convinced by those claims?” I’m not. And let’s get right to the point: There is no actual evidence that supports any of that.

Authorship
Now, it is true that technically, the Gospel of John is anonymous, in that nowhere in the actual Gospel is it claimed that John wrote it. But we do get that indication from a number of early 2^nd century Church Fathers like Papias, Irenaeus, and Polycarp. Eusebius also mentions them in his History of the Christian Church. The consensus claim made by the early Church Fathers shortly after the 1^st century apostolic period is that the Apostle John eventually ended up living in Ephesus later in life, that he was exiled for a time on Patmos during the reign of Domitian.

At the same time, as Papias, the bishop of Hieropolis (70-163 AD), tells us, there was another John living in Ephesus who was known as John the Presbyter. That being said, Irenaeus tells us that both Papias and Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna (69-155 AD), knew the Apostle John when they were young men and John was old (i.e. probably some time in the 90s AD). On top of that, Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons (130-200 AD), when discussing the canon of Scripture, tells us that the Church recognized four authoritative Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

If we take all that into consideration, here is what we can actually say for certain, as far as I’m concerned:

• (1) The Gospel of John is technically anonymous
• (2) The actual Apostle John ended up living in Ephesus until he died some time in the 90s AD
• (3) There was another Christian leader in Ephesus at that time who was also named John
• (4) Irenaeus tells us that both Papias and Polycarp knew the Apostle John
• (5) Irenaeus also mentions that the Gospel of John was one of the four canonical gospels

Therefore, it seems to me that even though we can’t say for certain that the Apostle John wrote the Gospel of John, it is pretty obvious that that was the claim by the early Church within a generation of John’s death. And even with that, there was an open admission that there were two Johns in Ephesus whom people sometimes got confused. That didn’t cause anyone to doubt the canonical, authoritative status of the Gospel of John.

Given that, Mendez’s assertions that the Gospel of John, as well as I, II, and III John were fabrications, forgeries, and literary deceptions are, to be kind, just a tad bit sensationalistic, dare I say “Carrier-eqsue.”

Dialogue and Writing Style
Let’s briefly touch upon two more things. First, does Mendez have a point about the dialogues in John’s Gospel? Is John’s Gospel historically suspect because its dialogue is different than that of the Synoptics? In a word, no. At the same time, I don’t know of too many scholars who think that Jesus’ speeches in John’s Gospel are akin to word for word dictation. Of course, the speeches in John’s Gospel are highly creative literary constructions that reflect the theology the author is conveying. That doesn’t mean the author is “fabricating” things or making this up out of whole cloth. Simply put, the use of literary creativity doesn’t automatically mean nothing in the text is historically rooted. One only jumps to that conclusion if one is starting from a rather Fundamentalist assumption that says, “Unless it is word for word exactly what Jesus said (i.e. unless it is basically dictation) then it isn’t true at all!”

And what about Mendez’s claim that the stylistic similarities between I, II, and III John and the Gospel of John are just evidence that different people wrote I, II, and III John and intentionally copied the writing style of John’s Gospel…and then threw in references to Gaius and Demetrius as extra “teases” within their literary deceptions? My reaction to this claim is, “And your proof of this is?” Maybe a more believable (and less conspiratorial) conclusion is simply this: If you have a number of different texts that share the same themes and writing styles, maybe you should conclude the same person wrote them. In my book, the argument that says, “Look at how similar these writings styles are—they must be written by different authors!” just doesn’t fly.

And What is Up with a “Spiritual Resurrection”?
Finally, I was surprised that Mendez claimed that the author of the Gospel of John (heck, let’s just call him John) was trying to push the idea of a “spiritual resurrection,” and that this same idea was found in the pseudepigraphal of Paul. No, those passages Mendez cites are not talking about a “spiritual resurrection.” That phrase is an oxymoron that makes no sense. The very concept of resurrection denotes a physical overcoming of death, not some kind of spiritual enlightenment or experience of the Holy Spirit. What Jesus says in John 5:24-25, as well as what Paul says in Colossians 3:1-3 and Ephesians 2:1-7, is not something about a “spiritual resurrection,” but rather about the believer’s experience of the transforming power of the Holy Spirit that has been made available to those who put their faith in Christ, precisely because Jesus Christ had been physically resurrected in history. And that experience of the Holy Spirit is taken as the guarantee that those who put their faith in Christ will physically resurrect one day, just as Christ himself was resurrected. Those passages aren’t talking about some sort of “spiritual resurrection.”

Conclusion
More can be said, but the bottom line (at least for me) is that there really isn’t anything substantial to Mendez’s article. We already knew that the authorship of the Gospel of John, although clearly claimed by the early 2^nd century, still isn’t altogether conclusive—still, that is a whole lot different than claiming it is a “forgery,” “fabrication,” and “literary deception.” We already knew that the dialogues in the Gospel of John aren’t word for word dictation—it’s obvious that literary creativity is being employed. That is a far cry from saying the anonymous author was just making things up because apparently there was a real competition within the sales market of that small, persecuted minority known as the late 1^st century Christians.

And yes, I understand that the main argument Mendez is making is that there was no actual Johannine community, and that is a whole different topic. But to say, “Since the Gospel of John is anonymous, that must mean I, II, III John are further fabrications, and that must mean there was no actual Johannine community”—despite the clear evidence that the Apostle John really did live in Ephesus as an old man and had a community of believers around him, among whom were Polycarp and Papias—I’m sorry, I’m not buying it.