Asbury Bible Commentary – III. Authorship
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III. Authorship

III. Authorship

It is uncertain who wrote the Fourth Gospel. We know that behind it stands the authority of “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (21:24), about whom we are given some details (13:23-26; 19:25-27; 20:1-9; 21:1-14, 20-24; cf. 1:35-40 and 19:34-37). But in spite of exhaustive debate by experts, we cannot with certainty name him. Answers to questions of date and place of writing are also indefinite, partly because they depend on some of the same vagaries of evidence that beleaguer the issue of authorship. As these matters are really too technical to pursue here, the reader is referred to the commentary by Beasley-Murray (pp. xxxii, lxvi-lxxxi), which discusses them at greater length.