WinAce

Basically, it appears there's at least one contradictory tradition about this gospel's authorship that's early enough to cast doubt on it.

Compared to that detailed and well-referenced bit of analysis, here's what Tektonics has to say:

That's it. No sources, no references, no footnote, no detailed explanation of why this hypothesis is to be preferred.

Now, I'm wondering--is this a valid, arguable excuse for the little attribution mixup on the part of Epiphanius, or is it more full of holes than swiss cheese?

• I'm not even sure that made sense, grammatically. The anti-montanists are presumably those claiming the authorship was wrong, whom Epiphanius argued against, correct? The Montanists would be those abusing the gospel for their own heresies, meaning they liked it. But that's nitpicking, I *think* I got the intended meaning.
• Surely there must have been a better way to discredit someone's misuse of a legitimate Apostolic writing. Argue against their misinterpretation of it, maybe? Write a 20-book treatise Contra Montanism? It shouldn't have been hard, should it?
• Even if they were, for whatever reason, forced to simply dispute its authorship, why attribute it to--of all people--Cerinthus, someone whose beliefs John specifically repudiates at every turn?! Surely ancient people weren't that stupid, it'd be like attributing a "We love Bush" article to Bill Clinton. Could it have been some kind of a coldly ironic joke instead of an actual authorship dispute?

If these points don't vindicate this alternate authorship tradition, it probably goes a long way to establishing John's authorship was nowhere as known and subsequently indisputable as apologists would assert. At the very least, it shows that one could in all seriousness assert unfavorable writings claiming Apostolic authority were heretical instead of dealing with them on their own terms.

Comments?

Vinnie

All the gospels are anonymous save the one possible exception being Luke and that one is somewhat remote. GJohn may hav had a very fluid and lengthy development with different branched. Speaking of a universal text of GJohn is not a wise thing to do IMO.

Vinine

WinAce

As a non-Christian, I would obviously be very satisfied to take that view, but I'm trying to let the facts speak for themselves. Right now, rather than engaging in apologetics or anti-Christian polemic, I'm just trying to figure out gospel authorship stuff and whether this point alone casts good doubt on traditional authorship.

The attribution to a gnostic heretic is but one of the issues involved in "John's" authorship. Rather than turning this topic into a 20-page debate on the entire subject, I'd like to stay focused and address one issue at a time. Then I suppose I can bookmark all the distinct threads and link to them, if need be, from one all-encompassing new thread as supporting evidence.

Any comments on the Cerinthus thing? Ever since that debate on Mark's authorship, which resulted in Peter Kirby running off in terror, I trust you have something informative to add in any gospel-related topic

WinAce

Bumpity

judge

There does seem to be some evidence that John's gospel was written in Aramaic and then trranslated into greek.
One example of this can be found in John 3:15. Here we have an aramaic phrase that could be translated several ways into greek.

John 3:15
So that everyone who believes in Him not will perish.

The word translated here as "in him" may be translated 'in Him", "on
Him", "into him" or perhaps "through him".
All the Aramaic read the same but when it comes to the greek.

The following Greek manuscripts translate it "In Him": p75, B, W, 083
0113

The following translate it "On Him": p63vid, p66, A, L

And the following translate it "Into Him": S, K, Delta, Theta, Pi, Psi,
086, f1, f13, 28, 33, 565, 700, 892, 1010, 1241

It appears that John was translated into greek on at least three occaisions by at least three different translators.

Vinnie

A small piece I did on the textual stability of GJohn a while back. Just the tip of the iceberg...

http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/johntext.html

Vinnie