Re: Holy Blood, Holy Grail

Jim Rovira (jrovira@juno.com)
Wed, 28 Jul 1999 16:27:19 -0400 

Ok, I'll get it and read it -- it's not THAT expensive anyhow :).  But
what put me off was reading the chapter about areas I had studied.  The
authors said emphatically that "there's no reason to believe John (the
apostle) wrote the Gospel of John."  This kinda ignores a wealth of data,
and while some scholarly opinion would be in agreement, even those who
date the Gospel of John far later than John could have lived would not
say "there is no reason to believe John wrote that Gospel."

Here, let me pull some REAL Biblical scholarship on you.

Word Biblical Commentary says that Irenaeus cites that the fourth Gospel
was written by John the Apostle (Adv Haer, 3.1,2), and that his source
was Polycarp, who died in 155 AD and knew John personally (this is widely
accepted).  Church historian Eusebius, writing in the fourth century,
cites Eusebius, Polycrates, and Clement of Alexandria as testifying that
the fourth Gospel was written by the apostle John.

Add to this that even the authors of HB, HG say that the material from
John comes from very early sources, even eyewitness sources.  Add to this
the inclusion of seeming irrelvant detail into the narrative -- like,
which column in the temple Jesus was standing by when he addressed the
Pharisees -- and it all points to a person writing from memory, and from
within the context of one specific point of view of the events.

Word Bib Comm goes on to state the problems with Johannie authorship too
(the Greek of the book of Revelation is pretty smooth, but the Greek of
John's Gospel is of a very low level -- so it is difficult for many
scholars to believe the same person wrote both books), but it should be
obvious that a case can be made for asserting the traditional authorship
of the fourth Gospel.  So when the authors of HB, HG say "there's no
reason to believe that the apostle John wrote the fourth Gospel" (esp.
when they themselves inadvertently gave me some ;) ), I tend to think
their approach to the issue is a bit shallow.    

Jim

On Wed, 28 Jul 1999 11:25:03 -0700 (PDT) Thor Cameron
<my_colours@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>I humbly, respectfully disagree.  I've not been to a bookstore to get 
>the 
>Lewis book yet, but I implore you, read this book.  It is meticulously 
>
>researched & makes a lot of sense.  It is the clearest picture of the 
>truth 
>of what happened than I have ever seen.  There are many other books 
>which 
>touch onit, Jesus the Magician, for example, but this puts it all in 
>one 
>package.  How it got so convoluted in the first place is told in the 
>sequal, 
>The Messianic Legacy.
>Thor
>
>
>_______________________________________________________________
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