Introduction: In this essay, I will be defending the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus using an 8 step syllogism I learned from Christian Apologist and content creator; David Pallmann. The testimony I will be examining in this essay is exclusively that which is found in the gospel of John. I will first defend the proposal that John the Apostle was the person who penned the gospel of John, thus making him an eyewitness to Jesus’ life and ministry. But I will also argue that even if John The Apostle didn’t write it, we have good textual grounds for affirming the author was still an eyewitness. Furthermore, John as a credible source faces a unique challenge that the synoptics don’t face; and that is that people, even some prominent conservative evangelical Christian scholars, are under the impression that John is more concerned about painting a theological portrait of Jesus than of historicity. I will show why it is false that John is less concerned about history and more concerned about theology before moving on to show how extra-biblical writings, archeological evidence, and internal confirmations of truthfulness such as a cumulative case from the criterion of embarassment further validate John as a credible source. All of this will be a lenghty defense of premise 2. Once I’m done with that, I will argue in defense of premises 4 and 5 of the argument that John was not deliberately telling a false narrative about what happened to Jesus after he died, and how the details of his account cannot be accounted for as an honest mistake.
David Pallmann’s Syllogism For Jesus’ Resurrection
1: There is testimony saying that Jesus was resurrected.
2: The testimony comes from a credible source.
3: There are only three logical possibilities with respect to credible testimony: it is deliberately false, it is honestly mistaken, or it is true.
4: The credible testimony for the resurrection of Jesus is not deliberately false.
5: The credible testimony for the resurrection of Jesus is not honestly mistaken.
6: Therefore, the credible testimony for the resurrection of Jesus is true.
7: If the credible testimony for the resurrection of Jesus is true, then Jesus was resurrected.
8: Therefore, Jesus was resurrected.
This is a logically iron-clad syllogism, as David Pallmann said, “Premise 1 is, or at least should be, the least controversial premise within this argument. Surely no one doubts that the four Gospels do claim that Jesus rose from the dead regardless of how they judge the truth of that claim. Premise 3 should also be fairly uncontroversial. After all, there are only two possibilities when it comes to the truth of any proposition. It is either true or it is false. And if it is false, then it can only be either intentionally false or unintentionally false. Hence, the third premise expresses a true trichotomy. Premise 7 is a tautology and is, therefore, true by definition. And premises 6 and 8 follow deductively from the preceding premises. Hence, the controversial premises are going to be premises 2, 4, and 5. [1]David Pallmann, in his opening statement in the debate “Did Jesus Rise? David Pallmann and Eric Van Evans Debate The Resurrection”, A Sense Of Wonder, July 25th, 2025, Substack.
And so, let us now move on to examine premises 2, 4, and 5 in that order.
2.1 Defense Of Premise 2 – John’s Authorship
This is an important premise to talk about, for if John the apostle is the author of the gospel that bears his name, then the gospel of John is eyewitness testimony, the same as with Matthew. This would honestly be enough to get premise 2 off the ground, as I’ve said in places like my 2024 Defend Apologetics talk “Making The Maximal Data Argument Attractive” and in my blog post “5 Reasons Why I Prefer Maximal Data Over Minimal Facts”. Contrary to what Minimal Facts proponents say, a Maximal Data Approach is not unwieldy. Although the previous two installments – The essays “Defending The Resurrection Of Jesus From Matthew Alone” and “Defending The Resurrection Of Jesus From Luke Alone” – were whopping 2-hour reads, they technically didn’t need to be. With traditional authorship, you have eyewitness testimony; Matthew and John reporting what they saw while they were with Jesus. And the question then becomes whether they were lying, mistaken, or telling the truth. I spent more time defending premise 2 just to nuke the absolute heck out of any hope on the part of the detractor of denying it. I was, as William Lane Craig likes to say, “raising the intellectual price tag” of rejecting premise 2 as high as I could before my WordPress editor started to lag. [2]One place Dr. William Lane Craig talks about “raising the intellectual price tag” of rejecting an argument’s premises is “A Reasonable Response: Answers to Tough Questions on … Continue reading
With that, what reasons are there for accepting the traditional authorship of John?
2.2 Defense Of Premise 2 – The Authorship Of John – External Evidence
Referencing the Fourth Gospel’s author, early church father Irenaeus (c. 130-202 AD) writes,
“Further, they teach that John, the disciple of the Lord, indicated the first Ogdoad, expressing themselves in these words: John, the disciple of the Lord, wishing to set forth the origin of all things, so as to explain how the Father produced the whole, lays down a certain principle,—that, namely, which was first-begotten by God, which Being he has termed both the only-begotten Son and God, in whom the Father, after a seminal manner, brought forth all things.” [3]Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies, 1.8.5.” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The … Continue reading
Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215 AD), as quoted by the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 263-339 AD) writes the following:
“Again, in the same books Clement has set down a tradition which he had received from the elders before him, in regard to the order of the Gospels, to the following effect. He says that the Gospels containing the genealogies were written first, and that the Gospel according to Mark was composed in the following circumstances:—
Peter having preached the word publicly at Rome, and by the Spirit proclaimed the Gospel, those who were present, who were numerous, entreated Mark, inasmuch as he had attended him from an early period, and remembered what had been said, to write down what had been spoken. On his composing the Gospel, he handed it to those who had made the request to him; which coming to Peter’s knowledge, he neither hindered nor encouraged. But John, the last of all, seeing that what was corporeal was set forth in the Gospels, on the entreaty of his intimate friends, and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel.” [4]Clement of Alexandria, “Fragments of Clemens Alexandrinus,” in Fathers of the Second Century: Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria (Entire), ed. Alexander Roberts, … Continue reading
Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35-108 AD) quotes John’s Gospel quite frequently as he writes an epistle to the Antiochians. Ignatius is noted as a disciple of John the apostle along with Polycarp. The Martyrdom of St. Ignatius notes the following:
“Wherefore, with great alacrity and joy, through his desire to suffer, he came down from Antioch to Seleucia, from which place he set sail. And after a great deal of suffering he came to Smyrna, where he disembarked with great joy, and hastened to see the holy Polycarp, [formerly] his fellow-disciple, and [now] bishop of Smyrna. For they had both, in old times, been disciples of St. John the Apostle. Being then brought to him, and having communicated to him some spiritual gifts, and glorying in his bonds, he entreated of him to labour along with him for the fulfilment of his desire; earnestly indeed asking this of the whole Church (for the cities and Churches of Asia had welcomed6 the holy man through their bishops, and presbyters, and deacons, all hastening to meet him, if by any means they might receive from him some spiritual gift), but above all, the holy Polycarp, that, by means of the wild beasts, he soon disappearing from this world, might be manifested before the face of Christ.” [5]Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, eds., “The Martyrdom of Ignatius,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, … Continue reading
One of our earliest witnesses is the Muratorian Fragment, the oldest known list of New Testament books. It provides a vivid account of the Gospel’s origin, stating that John wrote it at the request of his fellow disciples and bishops in Asia Minor. It explicitly identifies the author as “John, one of the disciples,” and notes that despite the different “flavor” of the Fourth Gospel, it remains consistent with the others because all were “uttered by the one guiding Spirit” [6]“The Muratorian Fragment,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, vol. 5 [Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1886], 603..
The Anti-Marcionite Prologue to John is another early (2nd century) source that affirms John wrote the Gospel while still in his body and moving through the churches of Asia.
Writing toward the end of the second century, Theophilus of Antioch becomes the first to explicitly name John as the author while quoting the prologue. He writes, “And hence the holy writings teach us, and all the spirit-bearing men, one of whom, John, says, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God'” [7]Theophilus of Antioch, “Theophilus to Autolycus,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2, 103..
What is most striking is that these attestations – from Irenaeus in Gaul, Clement in Alexandria, Theophilus in Antioch, and the Muratorian author in Rome – converge on the same identity. In historical-critical studies, Multiple Independent Attestation is a primary criterion of authenticity. Unless a critic can demonstrate that these geographically distant authors were colluding or copying from one another, we must treat them as independent witnesses to a shared historical fact.
What are the odds that independent sources across the Roman Empire would all spontaneously invent the lie that John wrote John and then treat it as a historical fact? In the ancient world, when authorship was truly in doubt (as with the Epistle to the Hebrews) we see immediate and prolonged debate. With the Fourth Gospel, the silence of the dissenters is deafening! There is no competing tradition; the early church speaks with one voice; John The Apostle wrote The Gospel Of John!
Moreover, what is also significant here is the Chain of Custody that links the Fourth Gospel to its source. Irenaeus provides a direct link back to the apostolic age through his mentor, Polycarp, who was himself a disciple of John. This is a documented line of transmission.
2.2 Defense Of Premise 2 – The Authorship Of John – Internal Evidence
While the Fourth Gospel is technically anonymous (meaning the author’s name does not appear in the title of the text itself), it is far from authorless. Not only do we have the abundance of extra-biblical attestations from the early church fathers that John The Apostle wrote The Gospel of John, but we have a good bit of internal evidence (i.e evidence within the text of the gospel of John) for John’s authorship. In fact, the internal evidence for John is far, far stronger than the internal evidence in favor of any of the other gospels. [8]See my essays “Defending The Resurrection Of Jesus From Matthew Alone” and “Defending The Resurrection Of Jesus From Luke Alone” for some examples of internal evidence for the … Continue reading In fact, the author is arguably more present in this Gospel than in any of the Synoptics. He weaves himself into the narrative under the moniker “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” While this might strike a modern reader as a bit of a humble-brag, in the context of first-century testimony, it serves as a signature of authenticity. The author is telling his readers: “I was there, I was close to Him, and I am the one telling you this.”
The identification of this disciple begins to crystallize in the final chapters. In the Upper Room, we find him reclining next to Jesus, so close that he can lean back against Jesus’ chest to whisper a question (John 13:23-25). At the cross, he is the only male disciple mentioned as standing by the mother of Jesus, receiving a direct charge from the dying Christ (John 19:26-27). On Easter morning, he is the one who outruns Peter to the tomb, noting the minute detail of the linen cloths lying in their place (John 20:2-8).
By the time we reach the epilogue in chapter 21, the mask is essentially dropped. After a final intimate conversation between Jesus, Peter, and the Beloved Disciple, the text explicitly states: “This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.” (John 21:24, ESV).
The Process of Elimination
If we take the text at its word (i.e that the author was an eyewitness and a member of Jesus’ innermost circle) the process of elimination leads us directly to John, the son of Zebedee.
First of all, he is one of the “Seven”: John 21:2 lists the disciples present at the final miracle: Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee (James and John), and two others. It isn’t Peter, Thomas, or Nathanael: These men are all distinguished from The Beloved Disciple. For example, in John 20:1-4, we read “Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, ‘Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?’ When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, what about this man?’ Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!’ So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?’ This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.” (ESV) Moreover, In John 13:24, Peter signals to the Beloved Disciple. In John 20:2, the Beloved Disciple and Peter run together. It isn’t Thomas. The Gospel of John creates a sharp contrast between Thomas’s famous skepticism (John 20:25) and the Beloved Disciple’s immediate faith (John 20:8). It would be a narrative contradiction for the author to claim he believed on Sunday morning only to record himself as a stubborn doubter on Sunday evening. Similarly, it isn’t Nathanael; both he and Thomas are listed by name as being present in the boat when the Beloved Disciple identifies Jesus from the shore (John 21:2-7). A writer does not list himself by name and by a mysterious title as two separate people in the same paragraph. This leaves only the ‘Sons of Zebedee’ as the logical candidates from the known inner circle. Since James was martyred very early, John remains as the sole survivor of the inner three, holding the pen and recording the events he alone witnessed.
- Objection 1: John Was A Fisherman, Therefore, He Was Likely Illiterate and Could Not Have Written A Gospel
One of the main objections to Johannine authorship is that John was an uneducated fisherman, according to the gospels. How could an uneducated fisherman even know how to read and write never mind produce a gospel as beautifully written as the gospel of John? [9]See Bart Ehrman, “Was John the Son of Zebedee Capable of Writing a Gospel?” The Bart Ehrman Blog, August 21, 2017. … Continue reading There are two responses to this; the first is that it assumes that John never learned how to read and write during his lifetime. This seems like quite an unreasonable assumption. People pick up new skills as they go through life. That was no less true back then than it is now. Why think that John didn’t apply himself and learn to read? If we go with the scholarly consensus that John was written sometime in the 90s, John would have had quite ample time not only to learn how to read and write, but to learn how to write in really sophisticated ways. Secondly, even if John were illiterate, it was not an uncommon practice for people to hire scribes to write for them while they, the author, dictated what they wanted to say to the scribe.
To my first point, skeptical New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman says, “Could an adult who was uneducated in this way eventually learn to write? Possibly, but we have precisely zero evidence of anything like adult education in the ancient world. And no evidence either, at all, of people being trained in a school setting to write in a second language.” [10]Bart Ehrman, “Was John the Son of Zebedee Capable of Writing a Gospel?” on The Bart Ehrman Blog, URL: https://ehrmanblog.org/was-john-the-son-of-zebedee-capable-of-writing-a-gospel/ However, this isn’t a very good argument. Sure, they didn’t have public schools and universities like we do today, but the idea that John could have learned to read and write doesn’t depend on such a supposition. All John would need would be to find some individual who could read and write who would personally tutor him one on one, maybe like what we see in The Chosen when Mary Magdalene teaches Ramah to read Hebrew. And as a traveling evangelist who would have developed relationships with the people he discipled, is it really far-fetched to think that he couldn’t find a literate individual to teach him how to read and write? It could be a convert who might teach him out of gratitude for telling him about Christ. If Ehrman’s best response to this is that there was no evidence of “public schools and universities like we do today”, then we can have confidence that John’s lack of literacy (which we’re honestly just assuming for the sake of the argument) would not at all be a barrier to him writing a gospel. And in light of all the positive evidence in favor of traditional authorship from the patristics and internal evidence, I think we should conclude that John did indeed write the gospel that bears his name.
- Objection 2: John Has Too High Of A Christology
Skeptics argue that the Christology in John (e.g. “I and the Father are one” – John 10:30) is too “high” or “advanced” for an early, first-century eyewitness. They claim it must have taken 60–90 years for the Church to evolve the idea that Jesus was the pre-existent Logos. Therefore, the book must be a late product of a “Johannine School” in the 90s AD or later. For example, skeptical New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman writes, “The Jesus of the Fourth Gospel is not a historical figure, but a theological one… The Christology of John is so far removed from that of the Synoptic Gospels that it is impossible to see them as representing the same historical person.” [11]Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them) [New York: HarperOne, 2009], 78–82.
The skeptical objection that John’s “High Christology” is a late theological invention relies on two flawed assumptions: that an eyewitness could not believe Jesus was God, and that the Synoptic Gospels present a “lower,” more human version of Jesus. Both are demonstrably false. As I have argued extensively in my previous series, “Defending the Trinity from [Gospel Name] Alone”, the deity of Christ is present in all four of the gospels, not just John.
Take, for example, the trial of Jesus in Mark 14:61-64. Mark is widely considered to be the earliest Gospel. When the High Priest asks if He is the “Son of the Blessed,” Jesus responds with a three-fold claim to deity that would have been a thunderbolt to the Sanhedrin:
1. The Divine Throne: By claiming he would be “seated at the right hand of Power,” Jesus was not just claiming to be the Messiah; he was claiming to sit on God’s own throne (referencing Psalm 110:1). In a 1st-century Jewish context, to share God’s throne was to claim equality with God’s status.
2. The Cloud-Rider: Jesus identifies himself as the “Son of Man” coming with the “clouds of heaven.” To the modern ear, this sounds poetic; to the Sanhedrin, it was a claim to be the “Cloud Rider.” In the Old Testament and the wider Ancient Near East, “riding the clouds” was a specific, exclusive title for deity (Deuteronomy 33:26; Psalm 68:32-33; 104:1-4). As Dr. Michael Heiser notes, while the title was often pilfered from the pagan god Baal to assert Yahweh’s supremacy, Daniel 7:13 is the one place where a second, human-like figure—the Son of Man—is given this divine prerogative [12]Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible [Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015], 252–254..
3. Everlasting Dominion: Jesus was claiming to be the figure from Daniel 7:13-14 who receives “dominion, glory, and a kingdom” that all nations should serve (the Greek latreuō in the Septuagint, often used for divine worship). This Kingdom is described with the exact same eternal language used for Yahweh’s own Kingdom (Daniel 4:34).
Caiaphas didn’t tear his robes because Jesus claimed to be a human Messiah; he did so because Jesus claimed to be the “second Yahweh” of Daniel 7. The difference between Mark and John isn’t that John “invented” the deity of Christ; it’s that John presents it with the volume turned up, whereas Mark requires the reader to be saturated in the Old Testament to hear the signal. If this High Christology is present in our earliest source (Mark), the argument that John’s High Christology proves it is a late development completely collapses.
And this is not an anomaly with the gospel of Mark either. Again, read “Defending The Trinity From Mark Alone”. There are a dozen examples of Jesus claiming to be God in one way or another. It’s just that most people don’t pick up on it because they require background knowledge from the Old Testament, whereas John presents the deity of Christ as so clear a caveman would get it!
- Objection 3: Doesn’t John’s Use Of “Logos” Indicate That He Was A Hellenistic Jew Steeped In Greek Philosophy?
“Logos” is what, in our English translations, is rendered “Word”. John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The concept of the Logos (which could also be translated as reason or logic) which created and governed reality was a concept in Greek philosophy. Yet how or why would a Jew like John son of Zebedee use this term to describe Jesus/God? Moreover, how would a Galilean fisherman have even learned of this concept in the first place?
To answer the last question first, remember that it’s entirely possible that John either learned how to read later in life, or already did. Moreover, as a traveling Evangelist who shared the gospel with whoever he could, it would be unthinkable that he wouldn’t learn of what his non-Christian audiences believed (cf. Acts 17). Moreover, as Leon Morris wrote in his commentary on John; “…though [John] would not have been unmindful of the associations aroused by the term, his essential thought does not derive from the Greek background. His Gospel shows little trace of acquaintance with Greek philosophy and less dependence upon it. And the really important thing is that John in his use of Logos is cutting clean across one of the fundamental Greek ideas. The Greeks thought of the gods as detached from the world, as regarding its struggles and heartaches and joys and tears with serene divine lack of feeling. John’s Logos does not show us a God who is serenely detached, but a God who is passionately involved. The Logos speaks of God’s coming where we are, taking our nature upon Himself, entering the world’s struggle, and out of this agony winning men’s salvation…“The “Word” irresistibly turns our attention to the repeated “and God said” of the opening chapter of the Bible. The Word is God’s creative Word (v. 3). The atmosphere is unmistakably Hebraic” [13]Leon Morris, The Gospel of John, pp. 116-18
New Testament scholar BF Wescott wrote “Philo and St John, in short, found the same term current and used it according to their respective apprehensions of the truth. Philo, following the track of Greek philosophy, saw in the Logos the divine Intelligence in relation to the universe: the Evangelist, trusting firmly in the ethical basis of Judaism, sets forth the Logos mainly as the revealer of God to man, through creation, through theophanies, through prophets, through the Incarnation. . . In short, the teaching of St John is characteristically Hebraic and not Alexandrine”. [14]BF Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John, pp. xvi-xvii
So, John wasn’t writing from a Hellenistic perspective, but a Hebraic one.
2.3 – Defense Of Premise 2: Even If It’s Not John, It’s Still Eyewitness Testimony
Still not convinced that John wrote John? Well, you’re wrong. But frankly, at this point, it doesn’t matter. Even if John The Apostle is not the author, we still have extremely good grounds for concluding that whoever this author might be, it was someone who was close to the facts, who saw the things that he wrote down, who witnessed the miracles, the teachings, Jesus’ death and…what happened afterward. First, the internal evidence concerning “the beloved disciple” mentioned above suggests that this beloved disciple was there for many of the events in Jesus’ ministry. And in John 21:24, the author outright tells you that the beloved disciple is the one writing the book! While John, son of Zebedee, is most probable, even if you want to dispute otherwise, you must still fall back on the more modest claim “The fourth gospel is eyewitness testimony”. Moreover, John has a very distinctive style of writing, and this same way of writing things is found in 1 John. Most scholars believe that whoever penned The Fourth Gospel penned 1 John as well precisely because of its extreme stylistic similarities. Why does this matter? Because in 1 John 1:1-3, we read “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” (ESV)
In either case, eyewitness testimony. And eyewitness testimony is credible by the very fact that the testifier was there, boots-on-the-ground. Therefore, I could honestly say that premise 2 is established for this reason alone. To make a case for the truth of the resurrection, we would just have to examine whether this eyewitness was lying or mistaken (premises 4 and 5), but to raise the intellectual price tag as high as possible, let’s look at other reasons to think this author is historically reliable.
2.4 Was John Concerned With History? Or Was He A Theological Painter?
The gospel of John is called “The redheaded stepchild of the gospels” by Dr. Lydia McGrew. Scholars tend to think John is less concerned about historicity than the synoptics are. John’s Jesus sounds too much like John, they say. John contains so much unique material not found in the other gospels. Even conservative scholars like Craig Evans and Michael Licona have a low view of John’s historicity. For example, Dr. Licona has famously (or should I say infamously?) argued that the differences between the Gospels can be explained by the “literary conventions” of ancient biography (Bioi). He suggests that John may have fundamentally altered the timing or nature of events for theological reasons. Dr. Licona writes “John often prioritized theological truth over historical precision… we should be open to the possibility that John has relocated events or significantly reworded Jesus’s teachings to suit his theological purposes, much like other ancient biographers who utilized creative license.” [15]Michael R. Licona, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017], 115–117. Craig Evans has said “The Fourth Gospel is not intended to be a transcript of Jesus’s life… it is a spiritualized and highly interpreted version of the Jesus story. In many places, the voice of the historical Jesus has been so thoroughly assimilated into the voice of the Evangelist that the two are indistinguishable.” [16]Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006], 62–64.
While I respect Dr. Licona and Dr. Evans for their contributions to the field of New Testament scholarship and of Christian Apologetics, I think that they are wrong here. The fact is that John has a lot of content that you would not expect someone making a highly interpretive, theological, spiritual account, with little concern for straight history, to include. For this section, I am heavily indebted to the work of Dr. Lydia McGrew and will be drawing upon it to show that John is concerned with being an eyewitness historical reporter. The view that Licona and Evans espouses is what I will label the “Theological Artistry View” or “The Theological Craftsman” view.
- Unnecessary Details, Unexplained Allusions, and Undesigned Coincidences
In John 2:6, John says “Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.” (ESV. emphasis mine in bold). Twenty or thirty gallons? Which is it? Did the Jars hold twenty gallons? Or did the jars hold thirty gallons? John doesn’t give us a precise number, but an approximation. Why is this important? Because if John were merely playing fast and loose with the literal historical facts, painting a theological portrait with only minimal concern for historicity, we would have expected him to give not only a precise number, but a number that has some kind of theological significance. But he doesn’t do that. He says “each holding twenty or thirty gallons”. This reads more like an eyewitness recollection, than a theological literary craft.
Whenever we recount a story, and we’re not sure about some detail, we typically give approximations. For example, I might say “The pastor came by my house around 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon last Saturday.” or “The temperature when I visited Arizona was extremely hot! It was around 90-100 degrees fahrenheit.” or “Saturday at the Dollar General was so busy! Even at closing, there were about 15 to 20 people in the store!” Approximations are hallmark details of eyewitness recollections. You don’t find this in untrue stories. If you’re just making up a story, you can make the quantity of the thing in question whatever you want it to be!
Moreover, as Dr. Lydia McGrew points out in her book “Testimonies To The Truth”, John gives an odd number of “six” stone water jars. [17]Dr. Lydia McGrew, “Testimonies To The Truth: Why You Can Trust The Gospels”, DeWard Publishing, 2023, page 92. He doesn’t say they were large, but gives a specific number. Now, perhaps someone could say that because 7 is the number of completion and sacredness in The Bible, that the jars being empty and being one less than 6 is John’s way of saying that without Christ, we’re empty and imperfect or something like that. But not only is that rather ad hoc and contrived, but when combined with the approximate number of how much they can hold (twenty or thirty), it makes it seem like these numbers aren’t meant to be symbolic at all. As McGrew said, this makes for bad writing. Nobody wants to do mental math to figure out how much wine Jesus produced at the wedding! “But if you were actually there, this is how you might tell the story, estimating the size of the jars. The narrative voice is the voice of a witness.” [18]ibid.
Right after the story of the wedding at Cana, John tells us “After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.” (John 2:12, ESV)
This is what Dr. Lydia McGrew refers to as an unexplained allusion. Dr. McGrew writes “John 2:12 says briefly that, after the wedding at Cana, Jesus went with his mother, brothers, and disciples down to Capernaum and stayed there for a few days. John gives no explanation for this trip to Capernaum, and the very next verse mentions Jesus journey to Jerusalem for Passover, which is the beginning of the story about the (first) time Jesus cleansed the Temple. Verse 12, about the visit to Capernaum, is left dangling. It has no apparent narrative, theological, or thematic purpose. In fact, it interrupts the literary flow of the chapter, because it isn’t part of either the story of the wedding or the story of the Passover.
We know from the Synoptic Gospels that Jesus ended up making Capernaum a regular base of operations (Matt 4:13); that appears to be at a slightly later time in his ministry. Peter apparently lived in Capernaum with his family at about this time (Mark 1:21-29), and Peter was already following Jesus (John 1:41-42), so perhaps they stayed in Peter’s home when they went to Capernaum for a few days. But John doesn’t say so, nor would this explain why they made the trip.” [19]Dr. Lydia McGrew, “Testimonies To The Truth: Why You Can Trust The Gospels”, DeWard Publishing, 2023, page 120.
In other words, if we are supposed to believe that the apostle John is just crafting a literary and theological account of Jesus with minimum concern for historicity, and what he does say that Jesus said, and did just vaguely resembles what the historical Jesus said, and did, then this is an odd detail to include. As McGrew says, it serves no literary, narrative, or theological purpose. It doesn’t connect to the story of the wedding at Cana, and it doesn’t connect to the story of the temple cleansing that comes immediately after. It’s just a random detail sandwiched between these two major stories! This looks more like historical reportage than theological craftsmanship. As McGrew points out in the book that I quoted, putting in unnecessary details is something that we do when we are recounting things that we saw, things that have happened to us, or stories of which we were a part. But unexplained allusions are a unique type of unnecessary detail in that there isn’t any explanation given. Now, I want to make it clear that an unexplained allusion is different from a Bible verse that we don’t know how to interpret. An unexplained allusion is a narrative detail that would’ve been baffling even to the original audience. It’s a small, minute detail that is puzzling and doesn’t seem to serve any literary or theological purpose.
In her book, Dr. Lydia McGrew gives the hypothetical example of a girl named Sue, who had a rough Wednesday that culminated in a car accident. McGrew says that no one was hurt, but her own car was a write-off. Sue recently joined a new church and has been meeting with a ladies’ Bible study, mostly people she doesn’t know very well. After the accident, Sue took her husband’s car to Bible study on Thursday night and told her new friends about the day. Explaining how she got into the accident, she said, “I had to go to meet with Kyle’s teacher yesterday to talk about his ISP for next year. When I was driving home, I was thinking about that, and I just didn’t see this little car that ran a red light. I hit the other car. Nobody was hurt, thank God, and the other car just had minor damage, but my car is totaled. I need prayer that it will be fixed soon and that the insurance will pay for the repairs.” Dr. McGrew points out that Sue most likely did not stop to ask herself if her new friends knew what an ISP was. As it happened, only one of the other ladies present recognized the term. [20]See Dr. Lydia McGrew, “Testimonies To The Truth: Why You Can Trust The Gospels”, Deward Publishing, 2023, page 114. McGrew’s point is that if you’re just making up a story, you don’t leave odd things like this hanging. It makes for bad writing. This is more in line with an eyewitness recounting something that actually happened to them. And this is more evidence against the notion that even conservative evangelical scholars like Dr. Craig Evans and Dr. Michael Licona say that John was basically writing theology and not straightforward historical reportage.
In favor of the historical reportage model of John and against what I call “theological craftsmanship” or “theological artistry” is Jesus’ confrontation with the Jewish leaders after cleansing the temple in John 2. First, after Jesus said “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”, the Jewish leaders said that it had taken 46 years to build the temple. 46 years is a strange number as it serves no literary or theological purpose. While 40 can arguably be said to be a number symbolically representing testing, and 7 is a number symbolically representing completeness, 46 doesn’t seem to have any kind of theological significance in scripture. This suggests that the reason John records the Jews saying it had taken 46 years to build the temple is that it took 46 years to build the temple. It is a number corresponding to historical fact. [21]By the way, I have no problem with numbers being symbolic in biblical narratives. As I explain in my essay“An In Depth Look At The Temptations Of Christ”, many scholars rightly see … Continue reading
Furthermore, there is an undesigned coincidence connecting the number 46, Jesus’ statement “destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days” with other places in the gospels. As McGrew has said, sometimes an unexplained allusion is “one half” of an undesigned coincidence. [22]McGrew, “Testimonies To The Truth”, pp 126-129 In Mark 14:57-58 and Matthew 26:60-61, we read of false witnesses coming against Jesus and accusing him of threatening to destroy the temple made with hands and build another one in three days not made with hands. This is an odd accusation as we don’t read Jesus saying anything remotely of the sort in either Mark or Matthew’s gospels. But we do have something like it in John 2. The best explanation is that Mark 14:57-58 and Matthew 26:60-61 record a garbled recollection of what the Jews heard Jesus say after the temple cleansing. Additionally, the reference to 46 years makes the timing line up just right with when we know the second temple was completed. As McGrew says “This saying, too, is confirmed by comparing these forty-six years with Luke’s reference to the fifhteenth year of Tiberius Caesar as the beginning of the ministry of John The Baptist (Luke 3:1) and putting all of that together with external evidence about the building of Herod’s great temple.” [23]ibid, page 93.
The more and more unnecessary details, unexplained allusions, and undesigned coincidences we find in John, the more the historical reportage model seems credible.
The “153 Fish” in John 21:1 is one final example of an unnecessary detail that doesn’t look like theological artistry. The context here is the resurrection narrative. Peter had gone fishing, and the sons of Zebedee had gone with them. Jesus showed up and after the fish they caught were pulled up onto the shore, John tells us there were 153 of them.
Dr. Lydia McGrew and Richard Bauckham both point to this as a classic example of eyewitness memory. Why? Because fishermen count their catch! If you were there, and you spent the morning haul-counting a surprisingly large catch, that specific number is the kind of detail that would stick in your brain.
Throughout history, people have tried to find secret “codes” in 153 (e.g., St. Augustine’s complicated math involving triangular numbers). But as D.A. Carson dryly notes, the simplest explanation is usually the best: they counted the fish because they had to divide the catch, and the author remembered the count [24]D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Pillar New Testament Commentary [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991], 672–673..
- Jesus Sounds Too Much Like John, Therefore, John Was Just Putting His Words In Jesus’ Mouth.
A common critique leveled against the Fourth Gospel is that Jesus “sounds too much like John.” Critics point to the long, flowing discourses in the Gospel of John and note their striking stylistic similarity to the author’s own voice in the Epistles of John. However, scholars like Lydia McGrew argue that this reflects the author’s role as a faithful “translator” rather than a creative novelist. Just as a biographer might summarize a subject’s speech in their own prose while remaining true to the subject’s original meaning, John utilizes his own vocabulary to convey the authentic mind of Christ.
The evidence for this authentic voice becomes clear when we look at the crossover points between the two traditions. If John’s Jesus were a total departure from the historical figure, we would not expect to find “Johannine” moments in the Synoptics, nor “Synoptic” moments in John. Yet, we find both.
The “Johannine Thunderbolt” (Matthew 11:25–27).
The most famous example of this is what scholars call the “Johannine Thunderbolt” in the Gospel of Matthew. In this passage, Jesus speaks in a manner that is indistinguishable from the Fourth Gospel: “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (NIV).
This isn’t just a similar theme; it is the exact high-Christological, Father-Son relationship dynamic that characterizes the Gospel of John. Its presence in Matthew—a Gospel widely considered to have a very different flavor suggests that this specific “Johannine” way of speaking was part of the historical Jesus’ actual repertoire [25]Lydia McGrew, The Eye of the Beholder: The Gospel of John as Historical Reportage [DeWard Publishing, 2021], 245–248..
Synoptic Echoes in the Fourth Gospel.
Conversely, John’s Jesus frequently uses metaphors and linguistic structures that are hallmarks of the Synoptic tradition. For instance, the use of parables and proverbs is often cited as a Synoptic trait, yet John includes them, albeit in his own style. In John 13:16, Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.” This is a synoptic-style aphorism that appears almost verbatim in Matthew 10:24 and Luke 6:40.
Furthermore, the “Amen, Amen” (Truly, Truly) formula used by Jesus in John is a unique linguistic fingerprint. While the Synoptics usually use a single “Amen,” the doubling of the word is a distinctively Johannine report of a known Jesus-idiom. This suggests that John is carefully preserving a specific verbal habit of Jesus, even while wrapping it in his own narrative style [26]Timothy McGrew, “The Reliability of the Gospel of John,” Lecture, 2012..
The Unified Personality.
Finally, McGrew points to the “unified personality” of Jesus across all four accounts. In all four accounts, Jesus is depicted as someone who claims unique authority, uses riddles to challenge his listeners, has a special affinity for the marginalized, and demonstrates a rugged independence from political and religious expectations. The “Jesus of John” and the “Jesus of the Synoptics” are not two different people; they are two different portraits of the same complex individual. As McGrew argues, the differences are best explained by the author’s particular focus on Jesus’ Judean ministry and his desire to bring out the deeper theological implications of Jesus’ words through a faithful, eyewitness paraphrase [27]Lydia McGrew, The Eye of the Beholder, 258–262.
Richard Bauckham bolsters this defense by arguing that the Gospel of John is a rare example of a testimony that does not seek to be anonymous. While the author doesn’t name himself until the end, his presence is felt throughout the narrative in a way that is unique among the four Gospels. Bauckham points out that in the ancient world, the personalized voice of an eyewitness was often characterized by a specific stylistic “coloring.”
Rather than seeing the Johannine style as a departure from history, Bauckham suggests that John has “meditated” on Jesus’ words for decades, resulting in a narrative where the author’s own voice and the voice of Jesus have become harmonized without losing the historical core. This “internalized” perspective is exactly what we would expect from a disciple who, as 1 John 1:1 claims, had “touched with his hands” the Word of Life. The author is not just reporting data; he is bearing witness to a person whose voice he has lived with for a lifetime [28]Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006], 405–411..
Much more could be said about these topics, and other writers such as the ones cited above, have dealt with these issues extensively, but space does not permit me to go further here.
- Why Does John Have So Much Unique Material?
A final reason some suspect John of crafting a literary, theological portrait rather than with reporting historical facts is that John just has so much unique material. Each of the synoptics has unique material of its own not shared with the other three, but typically, they share a lot in common. John, however, contains so much material unique to him and maybe about only a 20% guesstimate of material that he shares with the synoptics.
However, I think that there is an extremely plausible, dare I say common sense, explanation for why John has such a drastic amount of unique material. Remember, most scholars (Christian and non-Christian, conservative and liberal) believe the gospel of John was written very late in the first century, no earlier than A.D 68, possibly well into the 90s. Considering the case for Mark, Matthew, and Luke being written between 40 and 60 A.D [29]See my article “The Case For The Reliability Of The Gospels – Part 3: The Dating Of The Gospels” for my arguments supporting this claim. Old Man John would have undoubtedly been aware of the other three gospels and their content. They would have circulated around the church fordecades by the time he finally put pen to papyrus! John probably thought to himself “I want to write a biography of Jesus, but my brothers have already told the same stories three fold? What should I do? Hey! I know! I’ll write a biography that merely supplements what they wrote. After all, they left out a lot of good stuff! So many omitted juicy details!”
In his book, “Cold Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates The Claims Of The Gospels”, Christian Apologist and former homicide detective J.Warner Wallace says, “I’ve worked a number of murder cases where there were many eyewitnesses who had to be interviewed. While at the scene, I took each witness off to the side to get his or her account without the input of other eyewitnesses. On one occasion, I discovered that an additional, previously unidentified witness was quietly standing within earshot of my interviews, waiting for an opportunity to talk to me. Up to this point, none of the officers or detectives was even aware of the fact that this person had seen anything, so while I was happy to hear what she had to say, it was clear that she had not been isolated. She was already aware of what others had described. When interviewed, she actually provided important information that the other witnesses had missed completely. I was grateful that she had been patient and waited to identify herself to us.” [30]J. Warner Wallace. Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels (Kindle Locations 1138-1144). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition. Wallace also says “Some aspects of each eyewitness statement may be completely identical. This is particularly true when witnesses describe aspects of the crime that were dramatic or important to the sequence of events. It’s also true when later witnesses are aware of what others have offered and simply affirm the prior description by telling me, ‘The rest occurred just the way he said'” [31]J. Warner Wallace. Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels (Kindle Locations 1213-1215). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition. J. Warner Wallace takes this principle and explains that this is likely what happened with John. John knew of what Matthew, Mark, and Luke had written, and didn’t see the need to tell the same stories for a fourth time. Moreover, even in places where John does tell the same stories (e.g The Feeding Of The Five Thousand, Jesus’ death by crucifixion, Jesus’ resurrection), he is at pains even then to add even minor details the synoptics don’t give us, such as Jesus entrusting his mother to the beloved disciple while he was hanging on the cross (John 19:26).
And so, John is concerned about historicity. He just doesn’t want to tell the same stories for a fourth time. John most likely intended his gospel not to be read alone, but as a supplement to one of the synoptics. In fact, John tells you that he didn’t talk about everything Jesus said and did. He wrote, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;” (John 20:30, ESV)
2.5 Defense Of Premise 2 – The Content Of John: External Evidences (Broad Strokes)
Now let’s look at the external evidence supporting the historical reliability of John’s gospel. We will see that secular historians of the time as well as archaeological findings, validate the existence of persons and events that transpired in the gospel of John. This is true both in the broad strokes and in the minute details.
- The Existence Of Jesus, His Death By Crucifixion, John The Baptist’s Ministry, Pontius Pilate’s Existence, And Caiaphas’ Existence.
The Gospel of John tells us that there lived a man named Jesus who taught doctrine, theology, and wisdom to a massive following (John 1:35-51, 6:1-2). John records that this Jesus came into conflict with religious leaders, who eventually handed him over to Pontius Pilate to be executed by crucifixion (John 18:28-19:16). This broad outline is famously mirrored by the secular historian Flavius Josephus, who identifies Jesus as a “wise man” with a large following of both Jews and Gentiles. Josephus confirms that “Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross,” and notes that the “tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day” (Antiquities 18.3.3).
Furthermore, John notes that Jesus’ ministry was preceded by John the Baptist, who baptized in the Jordan (John 1:19–28, 3:23). Josephus likewise confirms the existence of “John, that was called the Baptist,” and his practice of baptizing followers (Antiquities 18.5.2). Finally, John identifies Caiaphas as the High Priest leading the council against Jesus (John 11:49, 18:13–14), a detail Josephus corroborates by noting that Joseph Caiaphas held the high priesthood during the exact window of Pilate’s governorship (Antiquities 18.2.2, 18.4.3).
This “broad strokes” reliability is solidified by physical evidence that was once lost to history. In 1961, The Pilate Stone was discovered at Caesarea Maritima, containing an inscription that explicitly identifies “Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea.” [32]Craig A. Evans, Jesus and His World: The Archaeological Evidence [Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012], 12–14. This find provides a direct, physical link to the Roman governor who sentences Jesus in John 19. Similarly, the 1990 discovery of the “Caiaphas Ossuary” (an ornate limestone bone box inscribed with the name “Joseph, son of Caiaphas”) provides archaeological weight to the existence of the high-priestly family that John describes in such detail (John 18:13-24). [33]Robert J. Hutchinson, Searching for Jesus: New Discoveries in the Quest for Jesus of Nazareth—and How They Confirm the Gospel Accounts (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2023). See also Craig A. Evans, … Continue reading
Beyond Judean archaeology, early Roman sources treat the core facts of John’s narrative as common knowledge. Cornelius Tacitus, writing in the early 2nd century, records that “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate” [34]Annals 15.44, a direct parallel to the execution described in John 19:15-16. Even the Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata, a hostile witness, acknowledges the “distinguished personage” who introduced new religious rites and “was crucified in Palestine” because of them (The Passing of Peregrinus, 11). While these authors had no love for Christianity, their writings serve as a historical anchor, confirming that the central events of the Fourth Gospel were real events that took place on the stage of world history.
- Jews and Samartians Didn’t Like Each Other
In John 4:9, in the context of Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, John gives us the parenthetical comment that “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” as an explanation for why the Samaritan woman is surprised that Jesus, a pure-blooded Jew, would speak to her.
Josephus corroborates that Jews and Samaritans had a rocky relationship. The surprise expressed by the woman (“How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me…?”) is backed by intense historical friction. Where Josephus talks about this is in Antiquities of the Jews 18.29–30 and Antiquities 20.118–136.
In Antiquities 18, Josephus records that during the administration of Coponius (AD 6–9), Samaritans snuck into the Temple in Jerusalem during Passover and scattered human bones to defile it. In Antiquities 20, he describes a bloody conflict that erupted after Samaritans murdered Galilean pilgrims traveling through their territory to Jerusalem. This culminated in a centuries-old “bad blood” that makes the dialogue in John 4 perfectly situated in its first-century context.
2.6 Defense Of Premise 2 – The Content Of John: External Evidences (Minute Details)
I wasn’t sure whether to include some of these in the “broad strokes” section or the “minute details” section. Some of these details might well have been in the broad strokes section were John written as early as I believe the synoptics were, but given its unanimous time window of 80-95, some of these things wouldn’t have existed if this were some young, anonymous author crafting a tale. Because the seige of Jerusalem in A.D 70, as reported by Josephus, caused a lot of damage. Thus, a later writer would likely not have known about some of these sites unless they lived in Israel pre-70. But whether I’m write about the specifc sub-category of “minute details” or “broad strokes”, these are definitely external confirmations either way.
- Archeology Confirms The Stone Water Jars
Remember the Stone Water Jars in John’s account of the Wedding At Cana which we talked about earlier (John 2:1-11? Well, in her book, “The Eye Of The Beholder: The Gospel Of John As Historical Reportage”, Dr. Lydia McGrew says, “Archaeologists have discovered a location where stone water pots were manufactured in the vicinity of the suggested locations for Cana. John particularly mentions the fact that these were made of stone; like the archaeologists, he connects these jars with Jewish purification rituals (John 2:6). Stone, though unwieldy and inconvenient, is non-porous and would be more difficult to make ritually impure.” [35]Dr. Lydia McGrew, “The Eye Of The Beholder: The Gospel Of John As Historical Reportage”, DeWard Publishing, 2021, page 65
And as Eric Meyers and Mark Chancey say, “Another story that has been greatly illuminated by archaeological data is that of the wedding at Cana in which Jesus famously turned water into wine. According to John (2:1–11), the water was held in six massive stone jars, each of which held twenty or thirty gallons. The use of stone vessels to protect liquids from ritual impurity is an element of Jewish culture that is much better understood after the uncovering of stone vessels at so many sites in Palestine. Less often observed is the fact that archaeology helps us understand not only the ‘purification rites’ referred to in John but also the socioeconomic context implied by the story. Excavations have demonstrated that large jars such as these were associated primarily with elite residences; John’s description of their size thus further underscores the impression of extravagance and wealth that other details of the narrative (such as the presence of a wine steward and servants) suggest.” [36]Eric M. Meyers and Mark A. Chancey, Alexander to Constantine: Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, ed. John J. Collins, vol. 3, The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library (New Haven; London: Yale … Continue reading
The archaeological evidence thus operates on two levels: it confirms the historical plausibility of John’s account by demonstrating that such jars were indeed part of first-century Jewish life, and it enriches understanding of the narrative’s social setting. Rather than treating the water jars as an incidental detail, the archaeological record suggests John’s precision reflects genuine familiarity with the cultural practices and material culture of the period.
- Archeology Has Confirmed The Existence Of Jacob’s Well
John 4:1-26 tells us about Jesus going to Samaria, where he has a conversation with a Samaritan woman about living water, eternal life, the fact that he’s the Messiah, and the fact that she can’t seem to hold onto a man for very long. This whole conversation, we are told in John 4:6, takes place at “Jacob’s Well”.
Archeology has uncovered evidence for the existence of Jacob’s Well in the region of Samaria.
Most scholars agree this is one of the few places where we can say with near certainty, “Jesus sat exactly here.”
As William Barclay says “There is no doubt that this is the well of Jacob. It is one of the few sites in Palestine about which there is no dispute. It is situated at the foot of Mount Gerizim, and it is deep—about 75 to 100 feet. It is a ‘living’ well, fed by underground springs, which makes the conversation about ‘living water’ (John 4:10) even more poignant and geographically grounded.” [37]William Barclay, The Gospel of John, Vol. 1, rev. ed., The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 173–175.
Archaeologists note that the physical description in John matches the unique “double-source” nature of this specific well.
Gary Burge writes that “Jacob’s Well is unique because it is both a be’er (a dug well that taps into underground percolation) and an ’ayin (a spring-fed well). John 4 uses both Greek terms (phrear in v. 11-12 and pēgē in v. 6). This subtle linguistic shift matches the actual hydrogeology of the site—a detail a later forger or a non-eyewitness is unlikely to have captured.” [38]Gary M. Burge, John, NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 140–142.
The late Urban C. von Wahlde, a premier expert on the archaeology of John, emphasizes how the text fits the landscape perfectly.
Urban C. von Wahlde writes “The location of the well at the ‘fork in the road’ where the main highway from Jerusalem to the north divides—one branch going toward Shechem and the other toward Galilee—makes it a natural resting place. John’s mention of the ‘sixth hour’ (noon) and the proximity to Sychar and Mount Gerizim reflects a precise topographical knowledge that argues strongly for the historical reliability of the Johannine tradition.”, [39]Urban C. von Wahlde, The Gospel and Letters of John, Vol. 2: Commentary on the Gospel of John, Eerdmans Critical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 191–193.
- An Undesigned Coincidence Between John and Josephus
During the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, at one point, Jesus says to her, “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” (John 4:22, ESV)
This is a rather odd comment at face value. Jesus seems to be rude to the Samaritan Woman. Granted, as I said earlier, both John and Josephus mention that the Jews and Samaritans had a bad relationship, but Jesus seems to be transgressing that social barrier in order to bring the gospel to a woman and her people who need to hear it. So what is up with this jab?
You see, during the persecution of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (around 167 BC), the Jews resisted his “Hellenization” (leading to the Maccabean Revolt). According to Josephus in Antiquities 12.257–264, the Samaritans took a different path. Fearful of Antiochus, the Samaritans sent him a letter saying that they were not actually Jews at all and had no part in their rebellion. They requested that their temple on Mount Gerizim (which they admitted was dedicated to “an unnamed god”) be officially dedicated to Zeus Hellenios (or “Zeus the Friend of Strangers”).
What we have here is an Undesigned Coincidence between the Gospel of John and the secular historian Flavius Josephus. John records Jesus saying that the Jews worship what they know and the Samarians worship what they don’t know, but in John’s gospel, no details are provided as to why he said this, raising a question. The answer to the question (i.e why did Jesus say this?) comes from Flavius Josephus. And, Josephus provides this information in a context unrelated to the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. It is not as though Josephus is trying to explain John’s account. That’s what makes it an Undesigned Coincidence. Jesus wasn’t being rude, he was referencing a specific historical moment where the Samaritans had literally disowned Yahweh to avoid persecution! This makes the dialogue in John 4 feel like a real conversation between people who knew their local history, not a manufactured theological monologue. Jesus was saying, “When the heat was on, we remained faithful. You’re the ones who caved.”
- Archaelogical Evidence For The Pool Of Bethesda
John 5:1-9 records the story of Jesus healing an invalid. This story takes place at the Pool Of Bethesda.
In an article in The Apologetics Study Bible, biblical scholar Darrel Bock says “There was once debate about the description in John 5: 2of a pool with five porticoes in Jerusalem, called Bethesda or Bethsaida. Many questioned its existence despite its wide attestation in ancient tradition. Different spellings of the locale in the NT manuscript tradition added to the tendency by many to reject the claim. In 1871 a French architect, C. Mauss, was restoring an old church and found a cistern thirty meters away. Later excavations in 1957– 1962 clarified that it consisted of two pools large enough to hold a sizable amount of water and people. Today virtually no one doubts the existence of John’s pool.” [40]Holman, CSB Bibles by. CSB Apologetics Study Bible (Kindle Locations 79332-79336). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In their book “I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist”, Frank Turek and Norman Geisler say “Archaeology confirms the proper location and description of the five colonnades at the pool of Bethesda (5:2). (Excavations between 1914 and 1938 uncovered that pool and found it to be just as John described it. Since that structure did not exist after the Romans destroyed the city in A.D. 70, it’s unlikely any later non-eyewitness could have described it in such vivid detail. Moreover, John says that this structure “is in Jerusalem,” implying that he’s writing before 70.)” [41]Frank Turek and Norman Geisler, “I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist”, Crossway, 2004, page 263.
In the NIV Cultural Background Study Bible, New Testament scholar Craig Keener also talks about this archeological finding, saying “People often gathered and conversed near public baths and pools. This particular pool is mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and archaeologists have discovered a Jerusalem pool with five porches (one on each side and one through the middle, creating twin pools). The pools were about 20 feet (6 meters) deep and together were as large as a football field.” [42]Craig S. Keener and John H. Walton, eds., NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), 1817.
- Archeology Confirms The Pool Of Siloam
In John 9, Jesus heals a blind man and afterward tells him to go wash the dirt and spit he had put on his eyes. The pool he told the man to wash in was The Pool Of Siloam.
For a long time, critics pointed to the traditional “Pool of Siloam” (a small, rectangular pool from the Byzantine era) and argued that John’s description was either a theological invention or a late, confused memory. However, in 2004, a massive, monumental pool was discovered about 70 yards away during a routine sewer line repair. This find fundamentally changed the conversation regarding John’s historical intention.
The archaeology of the newly excavated Siloam Pool reveals a sophisticated, tiered structure that perfectly matches the needs of a first-century Jewish pilgrim site. It is a massive trapezoid, roughly 225 feet long, with three tiers of stone stairs leading down into the water. These stairs allowed large crowds to descend into the pool for ritual purification (mikveh) before ascending to the Temple. The discovery of coins dating from the Great Revolt (AD 66–70) embedded in the plaster of the steps provides a firm stop for the pool’s use, proving it was a major public landmark in Jerusalem exactly when the Fourth Gospel claims Jesus was there. [43]Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, “The Siloam Pool Revisited,” Biblical Archaeology Review 31, no. 1 (2005): 20–23.
- Pure Nard and Financial Accuracy
In John 12:1-8, we are told that Mary Of Bethany took “a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and annointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair”. I’ll talk about how the detail of Mary using her hair is significant when we get to internal evidences and the criterion of embarrassment, but here we are dealing with external evidences.
The detail provides a mark of historical veracity regarding the value of the perfume. The author of the Fourth Gospel demonstrates an intimate knowledge of first-century economic realities. In John 12:5, Judas objects that the ‘pure nard’ used to anoint Jesus could have been sold for ‘three hundred denarii.’ As New Testament scholar Craig Keener points out, this was not a random number; it represented nearly a full year’s wages for a common laborer. This is a level of mundane historical precision that strongly suggests the author was an eyewitness at the dinner in Bethany. [44]Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Vol. 2 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 861–862.
2.7 Defense Of Premise 2 – The Content Of John: Internal Evidence
While it is true that technically things like unnecessary details, unexplained allusions, and undesigned coincidences, which we talked about under subsection 2.4, count as internal evidence not just for John’s historical reliability, but of him being an eyewitness concerned with reporting the facts, in this subsection, I will mount a cumulative case for John from the criterion of embarrassment. In historical-critical studies, the “criteria of authenticity” are a set of principles which, if a person or event matches that criteria, historians can say that said person or event is more likely historical than not. The criterion of embarrassment states that if author X reports detail Y, and detail Y is embarrassing to author X, makes someone he admires look bad, or hurts an argument he’s trying to make, then it is more likely to be historical than not. The logic of this criterion rests on common sense knowledge about human nature; people make up lies to make themselves look good or to get themselves out of trouble, but no one makes up lies to make themselves look bad or to get themselves into trouble! With so many embarrassing details, the internal evidence is strong that John was concerned with telling the truth; warts and all.
1: The Wine Ran Out At The Wedding At Cana
In John 2:1-3, we read, “On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.’” (ESV)
The criterion of embarrassment applies here and suggests that this conversation really went down. As New Testament scholar, Craig Blomberg says “The embarrassment of running out of wine would have brought great shame on the family in a culture of honor and shame. Jesus somewhat distances himself from his mother (v. 4) in a way not likely to have been invented. And the actual miracle is never itself narrated. All we are told is that ‘the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine’ (v. 9)!” [45]Craig Blomberg, “The Historical Reliability Of The New Testament: Countering The Challenges To Evangelical Christian Beliefs”, B&H Studies, 2016, page 193.
2: Jesus’ Unbelieving Brothers
In John 7:1-5, we read “After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand. So his brothers said to him, ‘Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.’ For not even his brothers believed in him.” (ESV)
The criterion of embarassment applies here. As J.P Moreland said in his interview with Lee Strobel in The Case For Christ, “In ancient Judaism it was highly embarrassing for a rabbi’s family not to accept him. Therefore the gospel writers would have no motive for fabricating this skepticism if it weren’t true.” [46]Strobel, Lee. Case for Christ Movie Edition: Solving the Biggest Mystery of All Time (p. 269). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. The Apostle Paul and Luke tell us that James, Jesus’ brother, became a later “pillar” of The New Testament church (Galatians 1:19, Galatians 2:9, Galatians 2:12, Acts 15:13-21). This makes it even more unlikely that John would cast James especially in such a bad light. Not only does James not believe in his brother, but as Dr. William Lane Craig observes, they appear to be setting a “death trap” for his brother. [47]William Lane Craig, “The Resurrection of Jesus (Part 2),” Defenders Series 2: Doctrine of Christ, Reasonable Faith, transcript accessed February 13, 2026, … Continue reading
In John 7:1, the text explicitly says Jesus stayed in Galilee because the Judean leaders were “seeking to kill him.” When the brothers then tell him in v. 3–4 to go to Judea to “show himself to the world,”, this seems to imply that they, as Dr. Craig observed, were urging him to basically go into a very dangerous situation in which his life would be at stake. This is more than just family skepticism, this is family betrayal! Would a fabricator paint the Christ’s own brother and leader of the Jerusalem church in such a bad light?
3: Is Jesus Endorsing Cannibalism?
In John 6:52-54, we read “The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (ESV)
The criterion of embarrassment confirms that this is most likely what the historical Jesus said, and that the gospel of John is, therefore, being truthful here. Not only does this prima facie look like Jesus is commanding his disciples to commit cannibalism (as they themselves interpret him to be saying), which in and of itself puts an odd image in one’s mind of the Jews gang-jumping Jesus and ripping him apart like a bunch of animals, but extra biblical records confirm that Christians were misunderstood as practicing cannibalism because of the practice of partaking of holy communion.
The most explicit description of the cannibalism charge comes from the Octavius of Minucius Felix (who wrote about the second century). He records the specific pagan slanders of the day. “An infant covered over with meal, that it may deceive the unwary, is placed before him who is to be stained with their rites… the infant is slain by young and concealed wounds… Thirstily they lick up its blood; eagerly they divide its limbs.” [48]Minucius Felix, The Octavius of Marcus Minucius Felix, trans. G. W. Clarke, Ancient Christian Writers (New York: Newman Press, 1974), 9.5–6. Justin Martyr (c. AD 150), writing his First Apology, Justin has to explicitly defend Christians against these monstrous charges. Justin Martyr writes “For the things which you [the pagans] do openly and with applause… you apply to us; which indeed is not to be wondered at, for the same slanders are reported of us… as though we were to devour human flesh.” [49]Justin Martyr, “The First Apology of Justin,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1885), 163–164.
Pliny the Younger (c. AD 112), in his famous letter to Emperor Trajan, he investigates what Christians actually do during their morning meetings. Pliny wrote “They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god… and that after this it was their custom to depart and then assemble again to partake of food—but food of an ordinary and innocent kind.“ (emphasis mine in bold) [50]Pliny the Younger, Letters, trans. Betty Radice, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 10.96.7. Pliny’s insistence that the food was “ordinary and innocent” (Greek: cibus promiscuus et innoxius) implies he was specifically checking to see if they were eating human flesh/infants, as the rumors suggested.
If John were just making this discourse up, he undoubtedly would have had Jesus explain to them that he would soon transform the passover meal into a celebration of his atoning death and resurrection, explaining either that the bread and wine they would drink is symbolic of his body and blood or else explaining transubstantian theology to them, whichever view one takes on that. But in no case would we expect John to just leave this hanging in his narrative, at risk of furthering the suspicion that Christians are a bunch of cannibals!
If John were a late theological innovator trying to sell Christianity to a Roman or Jewish audience, leaving a discourse that sounds like literal cannibalism without an immediate clarifying footnote is a terrible PR move—unless he’s faithfully reporting a difficult historical event.
4: Mary Of Bethany’s Immodest Display
If the Gospel of John were a late, sanitized theological invention, we would expect the author to depict Jesus’ female followers in a way that conformed to standard Jewish and Greco-Roman norms of “decorum.” Instead, John 12:3 presents a scene of extreme social embarrassment. When Mary of Bethany unbinds her hair to wipe Jesus’ feet, she is performing an act that, in the 1st century, was deeply provocative—if not scandalous.
You have to understand that in Ancient Near East, a woman’s hair was considered a private glory, and appearing with it unbound in public was viewed as a sign of loose morals or even a sexual advance. The social gravity of this act is highlighted in the Mishna, which indicates that a woman could be divorced without her ketubah (financial settlement) if she appeared in public with her hair let down (m. Ketubot 7:6). [51]The Mishnah, trans. Herbert Danby (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933), m. Ketubot 7:6, 255. See also Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels (Downers … Continue reading For a modern comparison, what Mary Of Bethany did would have been equivalent to a woman taking her shirt off and bearing her breasts to everyone in the room before using her shirt as a towel! And not only does one of Jesus’ closest female friends do this, but Jesus seems to be ok with it (John 12:7-8)! [52]By the way, if Jesus disagrees with the modesty standards of his day, might he possibly disagree with ours? I mentioned the parallel to a woman going topless. Would Jesus think female toplessness is … Continue reading By including this detail, John isn’t just “painting a portrait”; he is recording a historical event that would have been deeply uncomfortable for a 1st-century audience to read.
5. Jesus’ Lack of Honor in His Own Home (John 4:44): John explicitly records Jesus’ own admission that “a prophet has no honor in his own country.” It is an admission of failure in His hometown ministry—hardly the kind of thing you’d invent.
6. The “Demonic” Accusation (John 8:48, 10:20): John records that the religious elites didn’t just disagree with Jesus; they called Him a “Samaritan” (an ethnic slur) and claimed He was demon-possessed. A later forger would likely omit the “insanity” and “demon” charges to protect Jesus’ reputation.
7. The Mass Desertion (John 6:66): After the “Bread of Life” discourse, John records that “many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.” John doesn’t sugarcoat the fact that Jesus’ teaching was so difficult that it caused a PR disaster and a mass exodus of followers.
8. The “Weakness” at the Tomb (John 11:33–35): Before raising Lazarus, Jesus is “deeply moved in spirit and greatly troubled” and famously weeps. While we see this as compassionate, in a Greek or Roman philosophical context, a “divine” being showing such raw, visceral emotion was often seen as a sign of pathetic human weakness. [53]See Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, Vol. 1 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985), 40–42. See also D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Pillar New … Continue reading
I could go on with even more examples, and in fact, when we get to Premise 4 in David Pallmann’s syllogism (i.e “The credible testimony for the resurrection of Jesus is not deliberately false.”), I will talk about how the criterion of embarrassment applies to specific details in John’s resurrection narrative. For now, I think the case for Premise 2 (“The Testimony Comes From A Credible Source”) is overwhelmingly confirmed.
2.8 Objections To John’s Historical Reliability
1. The Silence on Lazarus
The objection asks why the Synoptics would omit a miracle as massive as the raising of Lazarus. However, this is a classic argument from silence. The Synoptics focus primarily on Jesus’ Galilean ministry, whereas John provides a Judean deep-dive. Furthermore, the Synoptics actually presuppose a major event in Bethany; they record a massive, sudden Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem that requires an explanation for Jesus’ sudden surge in popularity. John 12:17–18 explicitly links that popularity to the Lazarus miracle. By omitting the miracle, the Synoptics leave a hole in the narrative that only John’s account of Lazarus fills, suggesting the event is the missing historical trigger for the Passion week [54]D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, 405–407..
2. The Synagogue Expulsion (John 9:22)
Critics often claim that a formal decree to expel Christians (the Birkhat ha-Minim) didn’t exist until the Council of Jamnia (c. AD 90), making John 9:22 an anachronism. This objection is easily refuted by the fact that local synagogue expulsion was a long-standing Jewish disciplinary measure (herem), not a single empire-wide decree. Jesus Himself warns of this in the Synoptics (Luke 6:22), proving the threat was part of the earliest Palestinian tradition. John isn’t projecting a late-century law backward; he is recording the informal, local intimidation tactics used by the Jerusalem authorities during Jesus’ actual ministry to suppress “messianic agitation” [55]Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Vol. 1, 787–789..
I think enough has been said to show that John is indeed an extremely credible source!
Defense Of Premise 3 – There Are Only Three Logical Possibilities With Respect To Credible Testimony: It Is Deliberately False, It Is Honestly Mistaken, Or It Is True.
This premise should be uncontroversial. It is simply a list of possible explanations as to why a witness would give the testimony that he gives. It certainly seems to represent a true trichotomy. Any proposition is either true or false. If it’s false, it’s either deliberately false (i.e a lie) or it is unintentionally false (i.e the person was mistaken). If it is neither deliberately false nor unintentionally false, then it is not false at all, but true (i.e it corresponds to the way things really went down.) If the skeptic can think of a fourth alternative, he’s welcome to add it to the list, and then we can consider that option, but this really does seem to exhaust the list of possibilities.
Defense Of Premise 4: The Credible Testimony For The Resurrection Of Jesus Is Not Deliberately False.
In light of the overwhelming evidence we’ve looked at for John’s historical reliability when defending premise 2, this already sets an enormously low antecedent probability that John would suddenly lie about the resurrection. Historians aren’t accurate in most of their documents up to a point and then go off the rails with wild stories! That just doesn’t happen! But there are some independent reasons for thinking John’s testimony is not deliberately false.
First, the criterion of embarrassment applies to a situation in the resurrection narrative itself. In John 20, it is Mary Magdalene who first discovers the empty tomb. Why is this embarrassing? Because in first century Israel, women were basically considered second-class citizens and they were considered to be generally untrustworthy. Talmud Sotah 19a says “Sooner let the words of the law be burnt than delivered to women“! The Talmud also contains a rabbinic saying that goes like this: “Blessed is he whose children are male, but woe to him whose children are female”! And according to the Jewish historian Josephus, their testimony was considered so untrustworthy that they weren’t even permitted to serve as witnesses in a Jewish court of law! (Antiquities, 4.8.15). Drs. Gary Habermas and Michael Licona say “Given the low first-century view of women that was frequently shared by Jew and Gentile, it seems highly unlikely that the Gospel authors would either invent or adjust such testimonies. That would mean placing words in the mouths of those who would not be believed by many, making them the primary witnesses to the empty tomb. If the Gospel writers had originated the story of the empty tomb, it seems far more likely that they would have depicted men discovering its vacancy and being the first to see the risen Jesus.” [56]Habermas, Gary R.; Licona, Michael R.. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (p. 73). Kregel Publications. Kindle Edition.
A quick word about a common counter-argument needs to be said. Skeptics respond to this argument by saying that we shouldn’t be surprised to see women at the tomb because they so highly regarded in The New Testament. The early church highly regarded women, which was countercultural at the time (See, for example, Paul’s words in Galatians 3:28). Advocates of this counterargument include the YouTube atheist Paulogia as well as agnostic New Testament Scholar Bart Ehrman. [57]See William Lane Craig, The Reasonable Faith Podcast, “A YouTube Objection To The Resurrection, PART 2” — … Continue reading Ehrman also writes, “Preparing bodies for burial was commonly of work of women, not men. And so why wouldn’t the stories tell of women who went to prepare the body? Moreover, if, in the stories, they are the ones who went to the tomb to anoint the body, naturally they would be the ones who found the tomb empty.” [58]In “How Jesus Became God” New Testament scholar Dr. Michael Licona responds to this objection, saying, “There was no known need to fabricate an appearance to the women. A fabricated report may have had Joseph and/or Nicodemus lead the male disciples to the tomb, discover it empty, and be the recipients of an appearance. Or why not, if the story was a complete fabrication, have the women discover the empty tomb and inform the male disciples, as we find in John, but then have the men be the recipients of the angelic announcement and initial appearance of Jesus? Moreover, an invented story of the resurrection could have recorded the appearance to the men while they were waiting at the tomb for the women to show up or after the women did their part in dressing the corpse. The women need only have played a secondary role.” [59]Licona, Michael R.. The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (p. 355). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition. In other words, there were other ways to tell the story that would not have included women being the first ones at the tomb. I’ve even proposed that the story could have remained almost the same, but that a few men accompanied the women in order to protect them from bandits or to remove the stone or something. Even this minor tweak would have prevented later critics like Celsus from using this fact against the early Christians. The best explanation for why the story wasn’t told differently was that John was constrained to report the facts as they happened, despite the credibility problem this would pose.
I think the final nail in the coffin for the deliberate lie theory would be John’s willingness to suffer and die to proclaim that Jesus is the risen Savior, Messiah, and King.
Tertullian records that John was brought to Rome, where he survived being plunged into boiling oil before being banished to the island of Patmos. [60]Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics, 36. cf. Revelation 1:9 Whether one accepts the miraculous nature of his survival or not, the historical reality remains: John was a man who looked execution in the face and did not flinch. At the very least, he would have been around during the Neronic persecution in the A.D 60s as recorded by Tacitus in Annals 15. That alone would have signaled to John that he was playing with fire.
This stands in stark contrast to the nature of a conspiracy. The late Chuck Colson, who served prison time for the Watergate scandal, famously noted how quickly a lie falls apart under pressure:
“Watergate involved a conspiracy to cover up, perpetuated by the closest aides to the President of the United States—the most powerful men in America, who were intensely loyal to their president. But one of them, John Dean, turned state’s evidence, that is, testified against Nixon, as he put it, ‘to save his own skin’—and he did so only two weeks after informing the president about what was really going on—two weeks! The real cover-up, the lie, could only be held together for two weeks, and then everybody else jumped ship in order to save themselves. Now, the fact is that all that those around the President were facing was embarrassment, maybe prison. Nobody’s life was at stake. But what about the disciples? Twelve powerless men, peasants really, were facing not just embarrassment or political disgrace, but beatings, stonings, execution. Every single one of the disciples insisted, to their dying breaths, that they had physically seen Jesus bodily raised from the dead. Don’t you think that one of those apostles would have cracked before being beheaded or stoned? That one of them would have made a deal with the authorities? None did.” [61]Charles Colson, “An Unholy Hoax? The Authenticity of Christ,” BreakPoint syndicated column 020329, (29 March 2002).
In Watergate, there was no threat of death, only the threat of embarrassment and imprisonment, and the most powerful men in the world broke within weeks. John, however, endured decades of poverty, exile, and the threat of a painful death. A man might live for a lie, but no one willingly suffers the ‘boiling oil’ of life for what they know to be a fabrication. Now, don’t misunderstand me here; I am not saying John’s willingess to suffer and die proves that the resurrection is true. Remember what premise I’m defending; “The credible testimony about the resurrection of Jesus is not deliberately false.” John (or any of the other apostles’) actual martyrdoms or willingess to be martyred does not prove Jesus rose from the dead, but it does prove that it was not an elaborate apostolic hoax. If, for example, the disciples stole the body of Jesus, hid it somewhere, and then ran around telling everyone “He is risen! He is risen!” they more than anyone would be in the perfect position to know that what they were saying was a hoax. And if they were hoaxers, they would have given up the lie at the first sign of a Roman blade. John might have been mistaken about what he witnessed and misinterpreted what he saw, and we’ll consider that possibility when we come to Premise 5 (“The credible testimony about Jesus was not honestly mistaken.”) But I think we have more than enough reason to discredit the idea that John is just making it up.
Defense Of Premise 5: The Credible Testimony For The Resurrection Of Jesus Is Not Honestly Mistaken.
In this section, we will examine 5 different possibilities of how John might have falsely interpreted what he witnessed. This is not an exhaustive list of alternative theories, but these are the ones that are the most commonly posed by skeptical biblical scholars and historians. There are four naturalistic theories, and one supernatural theory. These theories are; The Hallucination Theory, The Swoon Theory, The Mistplaced Body Theory, The Wrong Tomb Theory, and The Ghost Jesus Theory.
But first, let’s look at an overview of John’s testimony.
Jesus is flogged and mocked by Roman soldiers, crowned with thorns, and dressed in a purple robe (John 19:1-3). Pilate presents Jesus to the crowd (“Behold the man”), but the Jewish leaders demand crucifixion, asserting Caesar over Jesus as king (John 19:4-16). Jesus is crucified at Golgotha, with the inscription “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek (John 19:17-22). Soldiers divide Jesus’ garments, fulfilling Scripture, while His mother and beloved disciple stand nearby (John 19:23-27). Jesus declares “It is finished” and dies, completing His redemptive work (John 19:28-30). A soldier pierces Jesus’ side, and blood and water flow out, confirming His death and fulfilling prophecy (John 19:31-37). Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus bury Jesus in a new tomb, wrapping His body with spices (John 19:38–42). A few days later, Mary Magdalene finds the empty tomb and alerts Peter and the beloved disciple (John 20:1-2). Peter and the beloved disciple inspect the tomb, seeing the grave clothes left behind (John 20:3-10).
Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene, calling her by name and commissioning her to announce His resurrection (John 20:11-18). Jesus appears to the disciples, shows His wounds, and breathes the Holy Spirit on them (John 20:19-23). Thomas doubts the resurrection until he sees and touches Jesus’ wounds (John 20:24-28). Jesus appears to seven disciples by the Sea of Galilee, directing a miraculous catch of fish (John 21:1-6). The disciples recognize Jesus, and He shares breakfast with them (John 21:7–14). Jesus restores Peter, asking three times if he loves Him and commissioning him to shepherd His people (John 21:15–17). Jesus foretells Peter’s martyrdom, calling him to follow faithfully (John 21:18–19).
- The Hallucination Theory
This is by far the most popular theory to try to account for what the disciples experienced. Sometimes these are characterized as “grief” hallucinations, because the postmortem appearances of Jesus are likened to someone striken with grief briefly seeing the “ghost” of their dead loved one who assures them that they are all right, that they’re not in pain anymore, before departing to Heaven. I should be clear that The Hallucination Theory differs from what I call “The Ghost Jesus Theory” because the latter asserts that the ghost of Jesus was actually there! Jesus’ soul was literally seen by his disciples. In neither case, though, is this a bodily resurrection. So, could the disciples have just hallucinated the risen Jesus?
The ultimate flaw in The Hallucination Theory is that hallucinations are the projections of an individual’s mind. Similar to dreams, they are produced by your brain and can’t be shared with anyone else. I remember the Christian Apologist Lee Strobel using the illustration of a man waking up in the middle of the night, rolling over and waking his wife up and saying “Honey, you’ve got to come join me in this great dream I’m having! We’re in Hawaii! Let’s both go back to sleep, have the same dream, and as a result, we’ll have a completely free vacation!” Don’t you wish we could do that? But we can’t do that. Why? Because dreams are the products of individual brains. They can’t be shared like multiple people watching a TV show.
This is a problem for the theory because Jesus was seen by the apostles as a group, not just once, but thrice! The first time they saw him without Thomas (John 20:19-23), and later, they saw him with Thomas (John 20:24-28). And before either of these group appearances, he appeared to Mary Magdalene (John 20:11-28). So we have one individual appearance, a group appearance, and a group appearance. So, you’re telling me that the individual brains of 11 men all conjured up the same false vision of the same dead messiah all at the same time!? And not just once, but twice!? This would be as unlikely as an entire household having the same dream two nights in a row! But it gets worse, they don’t justsee Jesus as a group, they hear him speak, Thomas reaches out and puts his finger in Jesus’ hands and side! So what we have hear are two group, polymodal (i.e multi sensory) hallucinations. They don’t just all collectively see something that isn’t there, they all collectively hear Jesus saying the same thing, and when Thomas goes to touch him, he hallucinates with his sense of touch! Oh, but it gets worse, after these two group polymodal hallucinations, Simon and Andrew, and James and John are out fishing. Jesus appears to seven disciples by the Sea of Galilee, directing a miraculous catch of fish (John 21:1-6). The disciples recognize Jesus, and He shares breakfast with them (John 21:7-14). Jesus restores Peter, asking three times if he loves Him and commissioning him to shepherd His people (John 21:15-17). Jesus foretells Peter’s martyrdom, calling him to follow faithfully (John 21:18–19). So we have THREE group hallucinations all involving the sense of sight, sound, and touch, and evidently, this imaginary Jesus can eat REAL physical fish!? You’ve got to be kidding me! This is impossible! Hallucinations don’t work like this! In John 21, Jesus isn’t just a talking head; He is a host at a breakfast! He prepares a charcoal fire, cooks fish, and eats with them (John 21:12-15). Hallucinations don’t eat fish! A figment of your imagination cannot interact with the laws of thermodynamics or the biological process of digestion!
The Hallucination Theory is the go-to explanation for many naturalists, but it collapses under the weight of John’s reportorial detail. To argue that the disciples were simply ‘grieving’ is to ignore the clinical reality of hallucinations. A hallucination doesn’t cook breakfast on a beach. A hallucination doesn’t invite a skeptic like Thomas to perform a physical ‘wound check.’ Most importantly, hallucinations are private mental events. The idea of a ‘group hallucination’ is a medical impossibility; it would be like five people waking up and claiming they all had the exact same dream about a purple elephant. John’s testimony; grounded in sight, sound, touch, and even the smell of a charcoal fire, points to an objective, external reality that the human mind simply cannot conjure out of grief.
Everything I’ve just told you is absolutely devastating to any type of hallucination theory. But to beat a dead horse, hallucinations don’t account for the empty tomb! Hallucinations aren’t going to empty a grave of its body! So, the hallucination theory is a bust. It just doesn’t work.
- The Swoon Theory
This theory posits that Jesus never really died on the cross in the first place. Was he crucified? Yes. But he was merely unconsious when the Roman soldiers took him down. Later, the cool damp air of the tomb sort of roused him around into consiousness. Later, when he appeared to his disciples, they mistakenly concluded that he had resurrected from the dead. But Jesus wasn’t a risen savior, he was a traumatized survivor. This would account for not only all of the postmortem appearances, and why the disciples not only saw Jesus, but heard him and could reach out and touch him, but it would even account for the empty tomb as well.
There are two major issues with The Swoon Theory; one medical and the other logical.
1. The Severity of the Scourging. Before the cross, John records that Jesus was “flogged” (John 19:1). Roman scourging was not a mere whipping; it involved the flagrum, a whip with jagged bone and metal woven into leather thongs. As the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) notes, this process shredded skeletal muscles and produced “quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh,” often exposing the victim’s veins and even their bowels. [62]William D. Edwards, Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd E. Hosmer, “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” JAMA 255, no. 11 (1986): 1455–63.
2. Hypovolemic Shock. The result of such blood loss is hypovolemic shock. This condition causes the heart to race to replace lost blood and the blood pressure to plummet, leading to total exhaustion, fainting. This causes extreme thirst. We see the clinical evidence of this in John’s account: John 19:28-29 says, “After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’ A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.” (ESV) [63]No, I’m not a trained medical professional. I’m getting all of this information primarily from three sources; Doctor Alexander Methrell, from his interview with Lee Strobel in The Case For … Continue reading
3. The Mechanics of Asphyxiation. Crucifixion is essentially a slow death by suffocation. To exhale, a victim must push up on their nailed feet to relieve the pressure on the chest and diaphragm. Once exhaustion sets in, the victim can no longer lift themselves and eventually dies of respiratory failure and asphyxiation. John notes that the soldiers broke the legs of the other victims to accelerate this suffocation (John 19:32), but they skipped Jesus because he was already dead. As medical experts explain, a person cannot “fake” the inability to breathe for hours while hanging in public view. [64]Alexander Metherell, cited in Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (Zondervan, 1998), 193–200.
4. Professional Executioners. We must also consider the source. The Roman centurion who pronounced Jesus dead (John 19:32-34) was a professional executioner whose own life often depended on the successful completion of his duty. The Romans knew the difference between a faint and a corpse. John notes that the body was then wrapped in burial cloths and placed in the tomb belonging to Joseph of Aramithea (John 19:38-41), a process that would have finished off any survivor through lack of medical care and blood loss. To drive home the point, consider someone who DID get medical care; three friends of Flavius Josephus. Dr. Michael Licona writes that “Only one account exists in antiquity of a person surviving crucifixion. Josephus reported seeing three of his friends crucified. He quickly pleaded with his friend the Roman commander Titus, who ordered that all three be removed immediately and provided the best medical care Rome had to offer. In spite of these actions, two of the three still died.” [65]Licona, Michael R.. The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (p. 311). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition. Two of the three still died. And this was with Roman doctors doing their best to save their lives. Jesus was provided with no medical care AT ALL, and we’re supposed to believe that he survived? This is not plausible.
5. The Verdict of the Spear (John 19:34–35). John provides the most definitive evidence against the Swoon Theory. He records that a Roman soldier, seeking to verify death, drove a spear into Jesus’ side. John explicitly testifies that he saw “blood and water” gush out. Modern medical science identifies this as the result of pericardial effusion (fluid around the heart) and pleural effusion (fluid in the lungs).
As medical experts have noted in the Journal of the American Medical Association, this accumulation of fluid occurs only during severe trauma and heart failure. If the heart is still beating, these fluids do not separate and gush forth In this manner. The spear thrust was a death blow that punctured the lung and heart; even if Jesus had been alive before the jab, he certainly was not after it [66]See William D. Edwards, Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd E. Hosmer, “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” JAMA 255, no. 11 [1986]: 1455–63..
6. The Problem of the “Half-Dead” Savior. Even if we grant the impossible—that Jesus survived the scourging, the nails, and the suffocation—the theory fails to explain the birth of the Christian movement. As the critic David Strauss famously argued, a man “creeping” out of a tomb, weak, sickly, and in desperate need of medical attention, could never have convinced the disciples that he was the “Prince of Life” and the conqueror of death. [67]David Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, vol. 1, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1879), 412. I think that David Strauss is absolutely right. This would be like if a friend of mine was in a horrible car accident, and then showed up at my house wrapped from head to toe in bandages, in a wheel-chair, with arm and leg casts on both arms, and an eye-patch, and I exclaim “Hallelujah! A miracle! God has raised you from the dead!” No, only an idiot would say that! I would conclude “Thank God you survived! I was sure you had died!” Surely the disciples of Jesus would not be so dumb as to conclude that a bloodied mess of a man walking about on pierced feet, howling in pain with each step was a risen Savior.
In conclusion, The Swoon Theory is as dead as it claims Jesus wasn’t. Thus, it does not account for the empty tomb and the postmortem appearances after all!
- Misplaced Body and Wrong Tomb Theory
There are two similar, yet different theories that I’ll be addressing here. Many of the reasons that refute one also refute the other, so I’ll be treating both here in one section. The Misplaced Body Theory and the “Wrong Tomb” Theory are perhaps the easiest to refute using John’s specific details. The latter theory suggests that the women and the disciples simply went to the wrong grave, and the former theory posits that the gardener (Joseph of Arimathea’s worker) moved the body to a different plot, and the disciples mistook the empty grave for a miracle.
Here is how John’s testimony “alone” collapses these theories:
1. The Specificity of the Burial Cloths (John 20:6-7). If the body had been moved by a gardener or accidentally “misplaced,” the burial linens would either be gone (moved with the body) or left in a chaotic heap. John, however, records a very specific, orderly scene: the linen cloths were lying there, and the face cloth was “folded up in a place by itself.” This detail is fatal to the “Misplaced Body” idea. A gardener moving a corpse doesn’t take the time to unwrap 75 pounds of sticky, resin-soaked linens (John 19:39) and then neatly fold the face cloth. That is the behavior of someone who has passed through the grave clothes, not someone who has relocated a heavy cadaver.
2. The Proximity of the Tomb (John 19:41–42). John notes that the tomb was in a garden at the very place where Jesus was crucified. It wasn’t a random grave in a vast, confusing cemetery; it was a specific, “new tomb” belonging to a high-profile figure, Joseph of Arimathea. The idea that the disciples (who knew exactly where the site was) couldn’t find the right “new tomb” in a private garden right next to the execution site is historically implausible.
3. The “Hostile Witness” Check. If the disciples were merely at the “wrong tomb” either due to all of the disciples having an extremely bad sense of direction or because Joseph had moved the corpse, the Jewish authorities and Roman guards could have easily corrected the mistake. To stop the Resurrection movement in its tracks, the Sanhedrin simply had to walk to the right tomb, produce the body of Jesus, and parade it through the streets of Jerusalem.
4. The Empty Tomb By Itself Convinced No One. Perhaps we could also add that the empty tomb, by itself. Convinced no one. When Mary Magdalene finds the stone rolled away, her immediate, grief-stricken conclusion is not “He is risen,” but rather: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him” (John 20:2). For Mary, the empty tomb didn’t bring joy; it compounded her trauma. She assumed a “Misplaced Body” or a “Stolen Body” was the only logical explanation. Even the report of the other ten disciples wasn’t enough to convince Thomas. He famously stated that unless he could put his finger into the mark of the nails and his hand into Jesus’ side, he would never believe (John 20:25). Any theory that doesn’t account for the postmortem appearances seems to be dead on arrival, no pun intended!
- The Ghost Jesus Theory
Finally, we must address the ‘Ghost Jesus’ theory; the idea that the disciples had a genuine ‘spiritual’ experience of Jesus’ presence, but that his body remained in the grave. This fails the test of John’s rugged reportorial details. As we’ve seen, ghosts do not have ‘flesh and bones’ (Luke 24:39), they do not invite people to touch their scar tissue (John 20:27), and they certainly do not cook and consume fish on a beach (John 21:12-15).
In the 1st-century Jewish mind, ‘resurrection’ (anastasis) specifically meant a physical return to life; they already had a category for ghosts and spirits, and they knew the difference. [68]See N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3 [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003], 31–32. By recording the breakfast on the beach and the physical touching of the wounds, John is going out of his way to tell the reader: ‘This was not a ghost. This was the same Man we saw die, now physically restored to life.’ If the resurrection was merely ‘spiritual,’ the body would still have been in the tomb, and the Jewish authorities would have ended the movement by simply pointing to the corpse.
Summary and Conclusion: Defending The Resurrection Of Jesus From John Alone
We have covered a vast amount of historical, archaeological, and medical territory. To ensure we don’t lose the “forest for the trees,” let us summarize the logical progression we have followed using the eight-step syllogism.
To conclude, we can synthesize the massive amount of data we have covered into the formal logical framework developed by David Pallmann. By applying the “John Alone” evidence to these steps, we can see why the Resurrection is the most reasonable historical conclusion.
- Step 1: There is testimony saying that Jesus was resurrected.
- The Evidence: We have a specific, detailed testimony in John 19 through 21 that claims Jesus of Nazareth died by crucifixion and afterwards, was physically resurrected.
- Step 2: This testimony comes from a credible source.
- The Evidence: I made the case from multiple early church fathers (Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215 AD), Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35-108 AD), as well as early sources such as The Muritorian Fragment and The Anti-Marcionite Prologue to John that the apostle John was the author of the gospel that bore his name. From Irenaeus in Gaul, Clement in Alexandria, Theophilus in Antioch, and the Muratorian author in Rome, they all converge on the same identity. In historical-critical studies, Multiple Independent Attestation is a primary criterion of authenticity. Moreover, what is also significant here is the Chain of Custody that links the Fourth Gospel to its source. Irenaeus provides a direct link back to the apostolic age through his mentor, Polycarp, who was himself a disciple of John. This is a documented line of transmission. Various strands of internal evidence suggests that the author was John who went by the moniker “The beloved disciple”. We also saw that given that 1 John and the gospel of John have extreme stylistic similarities, they most likely share the same author. And in 1 John 1:1-3, the author states that he was an eyewitness to Christ. Then we looked at whether John’s intention was to report accurate history or to make a “theological portrait”. That John is interested in accurate history rather than theological artistry is established by numerous unnecessary details in his text like the catch of 153 fish (John 21:1), the detail that there were “six” stone water jars that held approximately “twenty or thirty gallons” (John 2:6), and unexplained allusions like the random detail that Jesus and his disciples went down to Capernaum for a few days, with the verse having no connection to either major story that comes before it or after it (John 2:12). Then, we looked at the numerous external evidences (i.e from extra biblical writings and archeological evidences) confirming that John is telling the historical truth. Josephus, Tacitus, Mara-Bar Sarapion, Lucian of Samosata confirm many of the broad details of John’s gospel; such as Jesus’ existence, ministry as a wise teacher, death by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate instigated by the Sanhedrin, the existence of John The Baptist, and so much more. John is also confirmed in various minute archeological evidences such as The Stone Water Jars at the Wedding At Cana, The Pool Of Bethesda, The Pool Of Siloam, and there’s a cool Undesigned Coincidence between The Gospel Of John and Josephus concerning Jesus’ “You worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know” statement to the Samaritan Woman in John 4. Moreover, there are numerous a strong internal cumulative case from the criterion of embarassment.
- Step 3: There are only three logical possibilities with respect to credible testimony: it is deliberately false, it is honestly mistaken, or it is true.
- Step 4: The credible testimony for the resurrection of Jesus is not deliberately false.
- The Evidence: We addressed the possibility of a deliberate lie. Not only does all of the evidence for John’s historical reliability set a low antecedent probability of John deliberately lying about the resurrection, there were other reasons. John records a woman being the first to be at the empty tomb despite women being second-class citizens in that culture, whose testimony was considered untrustworthy. Furthermore, the “Watergate Lesson” reminds us that people do not endure decades of exile on Patmos or the threat of being boiled in oil for a story they know to be a fabrication.
- Step 5: The credible testimony for the resurrection of Jesus is not honestly mistaken.
- The Evidence: The Swoon Theory is medically impossible, and the Hallucination Theory fails to explain the collective polymodal experiences of the disciples, and especially physical details such as Jesus eating fish and Thomas reaching out and touching him (John 21:7-17, John 20:24-28). Misplaced Body or Wrong Tomb doesn’t work for a variety of reasons, but ultimately because it was the first conclusion the eyewitnesses themselves jumped to! Everyone was convinced by the postmortem appearances, not the empty tomb! The Ghost theory doesn’t work because ghosts can’t be touched and don’t eat fish.
- Step 6: Therefore, the credible testimony for the resurrection of Jesus is true.
- Step 7: If the credible testimony for the resurrection of Jesus is true, then Jesus was resurrected.
- Step 8: Therefore, Jesus was resurrected.
Given the truth of the premises, the conclusion follows.
Final Thoughts
Jesus is alive! Throughout the Fourth Gospel, Jesus made the staggering claim to be God (John 8:58, 10:30). Under the Jewish law of the time, these claims were viewed as the highest form of blasphemy—a crime for which the Sanhedrin sent Him to die. However, a holy God would never raise a heretic or a deceiver from the grave. By raising Jesus from the dead, God the Father publicly vindicated every claim Jesus ever made. The Resurrection is God’s “Amen” to Jesus’ “I Am.”
This vindication carries immense weight for how we view reality. I do not believe in angels, demons, the afterlife, or the authority of the Old Testament Scriptures based on blind tradition; I believe in them because Jesus did, and His resurrection proves He knows what He is talking about. As the saying goes, “I don’t believe in Jesus because I believe the Bible; I believe the Bible because I believe in Jesus.” Furthermore, since Jesus handpicked His apostles to be His authorized “sent ones,” that divine authority extends to the New Testament documents they produced.
I am a Christian not because it makes me feel good, not because it ‘works for me,’ but because it’s true! It is objectively true! Jesus is the risen King! He died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins and he rose from the dead. He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father as the reigning King of Kings! I pledge my allegiance to King Jesus. Will you?
“Crown Him the Lord of life,
Who triumphed o’er the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife
For those He came to save;
His glories now we sing
Who died, and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring,
And lives that death may die.” (hymn by Matthew Bridges)
References
| ↑1 | David Pallmann, in his opening statement in the debate “Did Jesus Rise? David Pallmann and Eric Van Evans Debate The Resurrection”, A Sense Of Wonder, July 25th, 2025, Substack. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | One place Dr. William Lane Craig talks about “raising the intellectual price tag” of rejecting an argument’s premises is “A Reasonable Response: Answers to Tough Questions on God, Christianity, and the Bible,” Moody Publishers, 2013, page 131 |
| ↑3 | Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies, 1.8.5.” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 328. |
| ↑4 | Clement of Alexandria, “Fragments of Clemens Alexandrinus,” in Fathers of the Second Century: Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria (Entire), ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. William Wilson, vol. 2, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 580. |
| ↑5 | Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, eds., “The Martyrdom of Ignatius,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 130. |
| ↑6 | “The Muratorian Fragment,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, vol. 5 [Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1886], 603. |
| ↑7 | Theophilus of Antioch, “Theophilus to Autolycus,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2, 103. |
| ↑8 | See my essays “Defending The Resurrection Of Jesus From Matthew Alone” and “Defending The Resurrection Of Jesus From Luke Alone” for some examples of internal evidence for the authorship of the other gospels. |
| ↑9 | See Bart Ehrman, “Was John the Son of Zebedee Capable of Writing a Gospel?” The Bart Ehrman Blog, August 21, 2017. URL: https://ehrmanblog.org/was-john-the-son-of-zebedee-capable-of-writing-a-gospel/ |
| ↑10 | Bart Ehrman, “Was John the Son of Zebedee Capable of Writing a Gospel?” on The Bart Ehrman Blog, URL: https://ehrmanblog.org/was-john-the-son-of-zebedee-capable-of-writing-a-gospel/ |
| ↑11 | Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them) [New York: HarperOne, 2009], 78–82. |
| ↑12 | Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible [Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015], 252–254. |
| ↑13 | Leon Morris, The Gospel of John, pp. 116-18 |
| ↑14 | BF Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John, pp. xvi-xvii |
| ↑15 | Michael R. Licona, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017], 115–117. |
| ↑16 | Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006], 62–64. |
| ↑17 | Dr. Lydia McGrew, “Testimonies To The Truth: Why You Can Trust The Gospels”, DeWard Publishing, 2023, page 92 |
| ↑18 | ibid. |
| ↑19 | Dr. Lydia McGrew, “Testimonies To The Truth: Why You Can Trust The Gospels”, DeWard Publishing, 2023, page 120 |
| ↑20 | See Dr. Lydia McGrew, “Testimonies To The Truth: Why You Can Trust The Gospels”, Deward Publishing, 2023, page 114. |
| ↑21 | By the way, I have no problem with numbers being symbolic in biblical narratives. As I explain in my essay“An In Depth Look At The Temptations Of Christ”, many scholars rightly see Jesus’ 40 day fasting in the wilderness in Matthew 4 having many parallels with the 40 year wildnerness wanderings of Israel in the Old Testament. And 40 is frequently a number associated with testing. I don’t have a problem with literary devices per se, but of “fact-changing” literary devices. As a Christian who holds to a middle knowledge view of divine providence, I find it entirely plausible that God could so orchestrate history that things would literally occur in history in specific quantities that readers of the historical accounts later would interpret theologically. What I’m arguing against here is that things didn’t really play out the way John says they did, and John just played around with numbers, locations, and timing of events to craft a theological message. While I believe the 40 days of fasting mirror the 40 years of Israel’s wandering, and Jesus’ three temptations each mirror temptations corporate Israel endured, I also believe Jesus was literally historically in the desert for 40 days, and was truly tempted by Satan with the specific things Satan tempted him with. Matthew wasn’t playing around with the facts just to make the parallel. |
| ↑22 | McGrew, “Testimonies To The Truth”, pp 126-129 |
| ↑23 | ibid, page 93 |
| ↑24 | D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Pillar New Testament Commentary [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991], 672–673. |
| ↑25 | Lydia McGrew, The Eye of the Beholder: The Gospel of John as Historical Reportage [DeWard Publishing, 2021], 245–248. |
| ↑26 | Timothy McGrew, “The Reliability of the Gospel of John,” Lecture, 2012. |
| ↑27 | Lydia McGrew, The Eye of the Beholder, 258–262. |
| ↑28 | Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006], 405–411. |
| ↑29 | See my article “The Case For The Reliability Of The Gospels – Part 3: The Dating Of The Gospels” for my arguments supporting this claim. |
| ↑30 | J. Warner Wallace. Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels (Kindle Locations 1138-1144). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition. |
| ↑31 | J. Warner Wallace. Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels (Kindle Locations 1213-1215). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition. |
| ↑32 | Craig A. Evans, Jesus and His World: The Archaeological Evidence [Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012], 12–14. |
| ↑33 | Robert J. Hutchinson, Searching for Jesus: New Discoveries in the Quest for Jesus of Nazareth—and How They Confirm the Gospel Accounts (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2023). See also Craig A. Evans, “Jesus and His World: The Archeological Evidence”, WJK Books, pages 97-98 |
| ↑34 | Annals 15.44 |
| ↑35 | Dr. Lydia McGrew, “The Eye Of The Beholder: The Gospel Of John As Historical Reportage”, DeWard Publishing, 2021, page 65 |
| ↑36 | Eric M. Meyers and Mark A. Chancey, Alexander to Constantine: Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, ed. John J. Collins, vol. 3, The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2012), 175–176. |
| ↑37 | William Barclay, The Gospel of John, Vol. 1, rev. ed., The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 173–175. |
| ↑38 | Gary M. Burge, John, NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 140–142. |
| ↑39 | Urban C. von Wahlde, The Gospel and Letters of John, Vol. 2: Commentary on the Gospel of John, Eerdmans Critical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 191–193. |
| ↑40 | Holman, CSB Bibles by. CSB Apologetics Study Bible (Kindle Locations 79332-79336). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. |
| ↑41 | Frank Turek and Norman Geisler, “I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist”, Crossway, 2004, page 263. |
| ↑42 | Craig S. Keener and John H. Walton, eds., NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), 1817. |
| ↑43 | Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, “The Siloam Pool Revisited,” Biblical Archaeology Review 31, no. 1 (2005): 20–23. |
| ↑44 | Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Vol. 2 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 861–862. |
| ↑45 | Craig Blomberg, “The Historical Reliability Of The New Testament: Countering The Challenges To Evangelical Christian Beliefs”, B&H Studies, 2016, page 193 |
| ↑46 | Strobel, Lee. Case for Christ Movie Edition: Solving the Biggest Mystery of All Time (p. 269). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. |
| ↑47 | William Lane Craig, “The Resurrection of Jesus (Part 2),” Defenders Series 2: Doctrine of Christ, Reasonable Faith, transcript accessed February 13, 2026, https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-series-2/s2-the-resurrection-of-jesus/the-resurrection-of-jesus-part-2. |
| ↑48 | Minucius Felix, The Octavius of Marcus Minucius Felix, trans. G. W. Clarke, Ancient Christian Writers (New York: Newman Press, 1974), 9.5–6. |
| ↑49 | Justin Martyr, “The First Apology of Justin,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1885), 163–164. |
| ↑50 | Pliny the Younger, Letters, trans. Betty Radice, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 10.96.7. |
| ↑51 | The Mishnah, trans. Herbert Danby (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933), m. Ketubot 7:6, 255. See also Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 145–150. |
| ↑52 | By the way, if Jesus disagrees with the modesty standards of his day, might he possibly disagree with ours? I mentioned the parallel to a woman going topless. Would Jesus think female toplessness is obscene? Where in The Bible are we told which specific parts of our bodies ought to be covered at all times? Food for thought. For a great discussion on modesty and The Bible, check out “Who Said You Were Naked?: Reflections On Body Acceptance” by David L. Hatton. |
| ↑53 | See Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, Vol. 1 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985), 40–42. See also D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 415–416. |
| ↑54 | D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, 405–407. |
| ↑55 | Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Vol. 1, 787–789. |
| ↑56 | Habermas, Gary R.; Licona, Michael R.. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (p. 73). Kregel Publications. Kindle Edition. |
| ↑57 | See William Lane Craig, The Reasonable Faith Podcast, “A YouTube Objection To The Resurrection, PART 2” — https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/a-youtube-response-to-the-resurrection-part-two and Bart Ehrman in “How Jesus Became God” |
| ↑58 | In “How Jesus Became God” |
| ↑59 | Licona, Michael R.. The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (p. 355). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition. |
| ↑60 | Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics, 36. cf. Revelation 1:9 |
| ↑61 | Charles Colson, “An Unholy Hoax? The Authenticity of Christ,” BreakPoint syndicated column 020329, (29 March 2002). |
| ↑62 | William D. Edwards, Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd E. Hosmer, “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” JAMA 255, no. 11 (1986): 1455–63. |
| ↑63 | No, I’m not a trained medical professional. I’m getting all of this information primarily from three sources; Doctor Alexander Methrell, from his interview with Lee Strobel in The Case For Christ, the 1986 edition of The Journal Of American Medical Association, and the documentary “Crucifixion” which I saw on The History Channel a few Good Fridays ago. While I’m not an expert in this field, I’m drawing on the expertise of those who are, so don’t try to argue with me ad hominem. |
| ↑64 | Alexander Metherell, cited in Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (Zondervan, 1998), 193–200. |
| ↑65 | Licona, Michael R.. The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (p. 311). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition. |
| ↑66 | See William D. Edwards, Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd E. Hosmer, “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” JAMA 255, no. 11 [1986]: 1455–63. |
| ↑67 | David Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, vol. 1, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1879), 412. |
| ↑68 | See N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3 [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003], 31–32. |
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