Truth Unites - The Reliability of the Fourth Gospel (This Is Huge)

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

Gavin Ortlund examines the historical reliability of the Gospel of John, considering its date, relationship to the Synoptic Gospels, and theological purpose while exploring reasons to take seriously its claim to preserve reliable historical testimony about Jesus.Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/X: https://x.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

In this video, let's talk about the reliability of the Gospel of John, the fourth book in the New Testament. This is a huge issue in terms of Christian apologetic and witness about the gospel. John is often assumed to be way later than the other gospels and written for its own distinctive community and shaped by theological agenda more than a concern for historical accuracy. And so you get this image in your mind of John is this later isolated theological meditation, long detached from the historical. Jesus. But in this video, I want to offer some reasons to question this portrait and suggest, number one, John may well be dated very early. Number two, John may well have known and used the synoptic gospels, so it's not isolated. And number three, John's theological sophistication is not necessarily

at odds with a concern for historical accuracy. Now, let's start by just getting our bearings on why this issue matters so much, and we'll hear how Bart Ehrman puts it. Why is it important for West to try and show that this or that the dating of John is so early and why is it important that it could be based on eyewitness testimony so John is almost always considered the final gospel to be written it's been considered that since the early days of Christianity going back to as soon as people start talking about the gospels they almost always talk about John as being the last one written scholars have widely considered John to have the highest developed theology of Jesus, of Christ.

It's a higher, it's more theologically developed than Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in the opinion of many of most scholars, traditionally. So sometimes even in the ancient world, they call it the spiritual gospel because it's more interested in spiritual theology about understanding Christ. In modern times since the 19th century, it has been recognized as being so theologically developed that it does not contain as much historical information about Jesus. And so it's widely considered the least historical of our Gospels. But a good deal of Christian thinking comes from the Gospel of John. And evangelical apologists want to argue that John is not, it is theological, but it's not unhistorical, and that it's deeply historical. And so if you can start giving hints that it is actually written by an eyewitness, you know,

or in the time of eyewitnesses when people could correct things, you know, or something like that, then it adds veracity to the gospel as a historical document. So you can see why the historical reliability of John is going to come up a lot in conversations about Christianity, like, you know, did Jesus claim to be God and things like that? And I want to draw attention to Airman's words here that reference the theological development such that it does not contain as much historical information about Jesus. Airman is absolutely correct that that is a common tendency in the modern era in scholarship to see the developed theology as suggesting less historical value and historical interest,

as though theology and history are sort of competing with each other. You can summarize this impulse as the more theological, the less historical, but that's exactly the assumption that I want to put under the microscope and interrogate here. Let's first take a look at the date of John, then we'll look at the relation to the earlier gospels, and then we'll consider John's own interest in historical accuracy. First, is John late? They're at the modern era. The tendency was to date John much later, sometimes well into the second century.

But recently, there's been a significant opening up in some scholarly circles to consider an earlier date for John. Now, this isn't really my field, and I don't have a settled opinion, but I at least want you to be aware of these arguments. It's really interesting. In 2019, James Charlesworth of Princeton Seminary wrote this book, Jesus Mirrored in John, and he discusses a paradigm shift. in the scholarship away from a consensus for a later date for John. Quote, all the reasons that require a late date for the gospel of John sometime after 90C.E. Have vanished. There is no longer a consensus regarding the date of John.

There's lots of reasons for this, both internal and external, for this opening up. So in the external evidence, you'll probably hear about P52, which is a fragment of John's gospel. But the internal evidence is arguably more significant. This is what Charlesworth himself focuses on to explain his own view that John could even go back prior to 70 AD. Quote, I am convinced that the earliest edition of John, the first edition, may ante date 70C.E. Why? It is because the author New Jerusalem intimately providing many architectural details, which only 35 years ago we imagined were literary inventions. And one of the relevant verses here, this is so interesting.

I'll tell you about some articles on this, is the sheep gate in John. John 5-2 and the present tense for this. Oh, there's a little detail in this verb and so much, you know, argument comes out of this. So John 5-2 says, there is, in Jerusalem, by the sheep gate, a pool in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. Daniel Wallace wrote a very important article on this in 1990, a whole article on this verse. I'll put the info of his article on the screen if you want to look it up. His basic argument is that the most natural way to read this verse is as though the pool still existed when John wrote, which favors a pre-70-A.D. reading prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, when this five portico-colonated complex,

very likely would have been destroyed. And Wallace worked through several standard ways of avoiding that implication. Maybe John was mistaken. Maybe the pool actually did survive, or this whole structure around the pool. maybe the verse derives from an earlier source or redaction, or maybe the verb here is an anomalous present or a historical president, and he goes through these, and he shows problems which none of these other alternatives is easy, and there's some problems with them.

For example, on the last one, he notes that he couldn't find a single instance in the entire New Testament of the verb to be being used as a historical present in this manner. So he says there's very little linguistic justification for treating, the verb this way it sounds like the Gospel of John's talking about in the present tense. Just last year, 35 years after Wallace's article, George Van Cootten, who is Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University, followed in Wallace's footsteps in this article, and he also argues for a pre-70 AD date. And importantly, he tackles what was perhaps the most important escape route that even Wallace

acknowledged is probably the best one. And that's the second possibility I just listed that maybe the pool of Bethesda survived, and these structures around it survived 70 AD. But Van Couten brings in archaeological and historical evidence suggesting that the colonated complex was destroyed or dismantled during the fighting between 66 and 70 AD. And so from this passage and from others, he argues that the fourth gospel roughly dates to around 65 AD. That's his proposal. Now, it's surprising that in recent,

in years, other scholars appear open to an earlier date for John as well. And, you know, I don't want to say how many. I don't know exactly, but you certainly see talk about this. And so N.T. Wright and Richard Baccombe and others from their interviews, they're taking this possibility seriously. I'm not saying they're agreeing with that exact date, but they're sympathetic to a broadly early date and they're taking seriously this really early date before 70A. AD is a serious proposal. So if you want a book that addresses the timing of all New Testament books and gives you a breakdown of the possible options, check out this book by Jonathan Bernier. I hope I'm pronouncing his name right, rethinking the dates of the New Testament. And it's just a helpful book to walk through this. He goes through, for example, he says, Acts was perhaps written around 62 AD, which places the synoptics earlier than that. He also argues for an earlier date to the Gospel of John. Now, one of the common arguments against the earlier date in John. I won't recover all, go through everything here, but just one of the big ones is that the book represents a considerably developed Christology,

a so-called high Christology. And the assumption is that this took time to develop. From Matthew, Mark, and Luke, to get to John, there's this gradual unfolding and this increase in the view of Christ, and that takes time to get there. But I think one good reason to question that assumption is that it looks like a high Christology is present very early in the first century already in the writings of the Apostle Paul. For example, in Philippians 2, Paul quotes an early Christian hymn, likely dating to the 50s A.D. And it describes Jesus as existing in the form of God prior to his birth, and it also describes him as participating in the very name of God as a result of his exaltation. I have a whole video on Philippians 2,

defending that interpretation if you're interested. And scholars like Larry Hurtado also draw attention to texts like 1st Corinthians 8-6, which references one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist. That's a very significant statement. That Christ is the Lord through whom are all things. That's attaching a significance to Christ in creation and providence. And so it's very significant. And, you know, I honestly believe the high Christology is there right out of the gate.

And therefore, a good, a fair way to read the data is to push against this idea that you have this slow unfolding to get up to John's high Christology. Here's the relevance of this in Jonathan Bernier's words. Quote, if in the 50s Paul could identify Jesus, not only as divine in origin, but also as an agent in creation and redemption, and perhaps also as divine wisdom, then we must wonder why John's gospel could not, by roughly the same time, have likewise identified Jesus as having divine origin, as an agent in creation and redemption, and as the divine word. So this is pushing against one counter argument here. Now, a related issue is the question of authorship. Again, it became very commonplace in the modern era to deny the traditional view that the author of John is the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee. But,

First thing to say is even if that's true, and the author is not the Apostle John, the gospel of John could still be dated very early. Within living memory of the events it describes are on the edge of that, and based on eyewitness testimony, many scholars think John preserves the testimony of an actual eyewitness, often associated with this mysterious beloved disciple, even when they do not think that eyewitness personally composed everywhere. word of the gospel. Mark Goodacre has recently revived the identification of the beloved disciple with John the son of Zebedee, even though if I understand him correctly, he himself doesn't think that

the historical apostle John personally wrote the gospel. And then, of course, Richard Bacham thinks John the elder, a different John, wrote the fourth gospel, but he still claims that this author was an eyewitness and a disciple of Christ and an eyewitness of the events he's describing. Furthermore, it is not at all certain or established that the traditional view of authorship is wrong. This is still being debated today. Back in the 19th century, B.F. Westcott gave a famous argument that the authorship of the Fourth Gospel was indeed by John, the son of Zebedee, the traditional view, and his famous argument goes cumulatively from the internal evidence of the gospel.

He argues that the author of the Fourth Gospel was first of all, a Jew, as shown by his intimate familiarity with Jewish beliefs and customs and Jewish scripture and Jewish controversy. Second, a Palestinian Jew shown by his precise knowledge of pre-70-A.D. geography and local conditions. Third, an eyewitness, and this is suggested both by explicit claims, one in John 19, one in John 21, come to those in a second, and by the Gospel of John's abundant expression of vivid little details about places and times and numbers and persons and so forth. I'll come back to that point. Fourth, that the author was one of the apostles, since he appears to have had access to private

scenes and conversations involving Jesus and the inner circle of the disciples. And finally, then he says, it was John, the son of Zebedee, because the beloved disciple is repeatedly associated with Peter, which places him very naturally within Jesus' closest circle, the three Peter, James and John. And he can't be Peter himself. And James had been martyred relatively early, according to Acts chapter 12. So that leaves John is the most natural identification. That's a simple way of arguing. But, and when he also talks about the silence of the gospel of John about John the apostle, apart from one indirect reference to the sons of Zebedee in John 21-2. He doesn't say much about John. I mean, it's a fascinating point that, you know,

if John were not the author, John the Apostle didn't write the Fourth Gospel, why doesn't he come up in the book? He's a pretty important person to leave out, right? And then you have John the Baptist introduced simply as John, not as John the Baptist, to distinguish him from John the Apostle, which is also interesting. Now, this is, you know, it's a relatively simple and way of unfolding an argument. But, you know, Well, Craig Blomberg, in his book, The Historical Reliability of John's Gospel, works through this, and what he shows is that Westcott's older case has been adjusted, but he argues there's not been a full-scale refutation of these simple arguments. And he says, basically, this has been assumed to be wrong more often than shown to be wrong.

And he works through, Blomberg does, nine arguments against the traditional authorship of John, and he shows a lot of these are very speculative. Now, I'm not trying to settle the question of authorship so much as to show this is still being disputed. It is a minority position within Johannine scholarship that John the Apostle wrote this gospel, but it is still defended. Craig Keener makes a case for that as very likely. Andreas Kosterberger just a couple of years ago has made this case as well. But again, whatever you think about authorship, many of the arguments for an earlier date are still on the table, and it's a separate issue.

Now, a second issue involved here is whether John knew of the synoptic gospels. It is commonly assumed that he didn't. He's sort of writing independently and for his own distinctive Johannian community, reflecting that community's theological development and conflicts and so forth. And that makes it easier to question the historical accuracy of this gospel. But this is the last book I'll hold up. I've been reading about the gospel of John. Can you tell?

I love the gospel of John. It's just great. Mark Goodacre has written this book. I love the title, the fourth synoptic gospel. What a great title. And this is a great book. He's arguing that the author of John's gospel knew of the synoptic gospels and specifically wrote in such a way that presupposes a background familiarity with them among his audience, at least to some extent. So for example, he argues that the author of John used material from the synoptic gospels and then converted it into more dial. format, where Jesus is speaking more. And he points out that John and the synoptics have some striking verbal similarities and some fascinating other parallels. Let me give you a couple of examples. These are fascinating. He looks at John and Mark, and he draws attention to little details that overlap, like the 200 Denari-e being mentioned in the feeding of the 5,000, both in Mark and in John, which you can see here on screen. Same amount of money. Then he notices,

in Jesus' being anointed by Mary at Bethany, the reference to the pure nard that she uses in both Mark and John is the exact same, and that is not a common phrase. And he looked into it, and he found that the expression's earliest extant occurrences in Greek literature are precisely here in Mark and John, and he works through other details in these two accounts of Jesus' anointing at Bethany, like the cost of this ointment being stated as 300 dinari, for example. and he brings in other examples too, and he's pointing out the convergence of these little details is interesting. And he thinks, Goodacre thinks, that literary history connecting these two documents is the best explanation. He also points out that, quote, there are multiple points at which John simply presupposes the narratives of the synoptics

and appears not only to imagine the reader's knowledge of these events, but to build on them to tell its story. He is not alone in that. Richard Baucombe has also argued that all four Gospels circulated very widely and that John's gospel is written on the assumption that the audience will be familiar with the events described in the other Gospels. For example, and he points to a lot, I'm just giving you a couple of representative examples of how these scholars make their case. So he points to John 324. And this little parenthetical aside that John the Baptist had not yet been put in prison.

And Baccombe points out, nowhere does John, John's gospel ever make. mention anything about John the Baptist's imprisonment. He just throws out this little parenthetical comment. But Mark gives a detailed account of how he was put in prison and his John the Baptist's death and so on and so forth. And so Bacham gives a lot of examples like this where it just looks like John is presupposing his audience's familiarity with events recounted in Mark or at least the source material that Mark draws from. And then he thinks, basically, these Gospels circulated more widely than is often assumed and John is deliberately building on the knowledge that people already had. And this makes it harder to split John apart from Matthew, Mark, and Luke,

as though it's this later disconnected theology book. Now, the differences between John and the synoptics are real, and we don't want to minimize them, but it's also easy to overlook their similarities. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are all focused on the same basic plot structure, Christ's crucifixion as the climactic moment in this extended ministry. Sometimes the Gospels are called passion narratives with an extended introduction, because they're so focused on Jesus going to the cross.

That's consistent across all four Gospels, the same basic plot structure. They all portray Jesus' fundamental identity as concealed and then later revealed through his resurrection. So the overall drama and conceit of the four Gospels is pretty similar. And then, of course, you have a lot of the same events and miracles, a lot of the same characters, Peter, John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, Pontius Pilate, etc. To give an example, Mary and Martha, the Sisters of Lazarus, are pretty similar in John to their characterization in the Synoptic Gospels. By the way, Synoptic Gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

So again, there are massive differences between John and the Synoptic Gospels. We don't want to deny those, and there's not just matters of style or something like that. There's chronology issues like the timing of the cleansing of the temple, for example. But arguably, the Gospels were more comfortable with discronology than modern historiography is. So that may be, those issues of discronology may be more of a problem for us than the original audience. I discussed that more in my video on biblical inerrancy. But the point for us to see in this video is this. If John knew the synoptics, then his differences from them cannot simply be assumed to arise from ignorance of their traditions. In many cases, the Gospel of John may be deliberately

supplementing, rearranging, or interpreting material he expects his readers to already know. And the relation of John and the Synoptics, this may not be at all an embarrassment for Christians. This is what is in my heart and my vision as I think this through, that the blend of similarity and dissimilarity between John and the Synoptic Gospels. is what is common in different accounts of the same historical events. All right, that leads to a third issue, and that is John in history. Is John interested in telling history? There's no doubt that John has arranged the material in his gospel

with a theological purpose in mind. He explicitly tells us that much in the purpose clause of the gospel here at the end of chapter 20. He says, in effect, there's a bunch of stuff I'm not including in my book, but I included what I did include so that you will believe in Jesus. So he's saying, he's saying I'm deliberately constructing this gospel with a theological goal in mind. But the fact that a written document has that kind of theological agenda does not itself undermine its interest in historical accuracy. The synoptic gospels do the exact same thing.

They arrange their material for a theological purpose. That doesn't mean they're uninterested in historical accuracy. And John betrays many of the same features that the synoptic gospels have that suggest a historical interest, like the inclusion of very specific people and places and historical events. It's widely observed, for example, that John's gospel displays familiarity with the geography of Palestine. It's interesting that this famous quote you may have heard from C.S. Lewis actually uses the gospel of John as its example, not the synoptics. Lewis said, quote, as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever the Gospels are, they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend, and I am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing.

They are not artistic enough to be legends. Apart from bits of the platonic dialogues, there are no conversations that I know of an ancient literature like the Fourth Gospel. And he says other things about the Gospel of John in that context as well. So, but let's look at this a little more closely. what clues do we have within the gospel of John that it's interested in historical accuracy? Well, consider that John casts itself as testimony or witness. He uses these terms you can see on screen here all the time throughout his gospel. John the Baptist comes to bear witness. Jesus himself speaks of his own testimony and of his father's testimony. The Holy Spirit and the disciples will

bear witness or give testimony. The whole gospel is saturated with this kind of language and this idea that the claims about Jesus being put forward are established through witness. And in two passages, the gospel of John seems to turn that language onto its own written account. John 1935, after the spear thrust into Jesus's side during his crucifixion, verse 35, He who saw it has born witness. His testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth, that you also may believe. This is often taken to be the author of the gospel himself, and he presents the report he's giving as eyewitness testimony to emphasize its truthfulness and say that its purpose is to generate belief. Then in the second to last verse of the book, after describing Jesus' words to

the beloved disciple, the text reads, this is the disciple who is witness about these things and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true. Now, the fact that John cast itself as testimony doesn't mean that every historical claim it makes is accurate, but it does speak to the intentions of this book. It's interested in historical accuracy. It's interested in historical truth. Here's how Craig Blomberg puts this. The recurring motif of testimony presented in almost a forensic fashion designed to convince, people of the truth of Christianity or bolster-fledging faith, and supported particularly by the contents and placement of the beloved disciple passages, further reinforces John's historical intent.

So the word intent there is key. We're trying to get at, what is John, what is he casting himself? What is this book portraying itself as interested in? And by the way, testimony is in itself a perfectly valid form of gaining knowledge about an event. There's nothing wrong with believing what someone tells you if you think they're a credible person. Now there are other little clues that we have in the Gospel of John that it's interested in historical accuracy. It's filled with narrative asides designed to distinguish what the disciples knew prior to Christ's resurrection, with what they knew after. I'll put up a few examples of this on screen. That kind of chronological differentiation is exactly what we would expect from a narrator interested in preserving the shape of what actually

happened. Additionally, there are many features of John's gospel that seem unlikely to have been fabricated. I know these arguments get overused sometimes in people, but this honestly seems right to me. For instance, the unbelief of Jesus' brothers in John 7, or just the general ineptitude of the disciples. Their denials and abandonment of Christ at his crucifixion, these are not the kinds of things that give the appearance of a heroic legend. I'm still really persuaded by this. I mean, just think about this. All the Gospels agree.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all agree on these very embarrassing stories, like Peter, the chief apostle, denying Christ three times. That's common to both Mark and John. And it's very striking that early Christian tradition would preserve material that is so unflattering to its prominent leaders. If John is drawing on Mark here, that shows. continuity with earlier tradition. But if John is independent of Mark, then the agreement becomes multiple attestation of an unusually embarrassing event. So either way, the story is difficult to square

with the claim that John is not interested in historical accuracy. Now, there are even some points at which John's historical interests are even clearer than in the synoptics. And one example would be the material about John the Baptist, and the other would be the narration of the events. leading up to Jesus' death. On the latter, let me just summarize what Blomberg says. Quote, a growing number of scholars see John as even more consistently historical in his presentation than the synoptics. He's describing the events leading up to Christ's crucifixion here, answering a variety of questions that the synoptics leave unresolved and presenting additional information that closely squares with other historical data. Examples would include the presence

of Romans as well as Jews in the arresting party in the garden, the hearing before Annas, and several additional items in the trial with Pilate that explained why the Jews had to involve the Romans and how they were able to persuade them to become involved. So the upshot is, we can certainly grant that John has his own theological emphases, his own literary style, other unique features, that without that entailing that John is not interested in historical accuracy. That simply does not follow. Here's how D.A. Carson puts it, so far as John's understanding of his task goes,

We may speak of the liberty he felt to use his own language, of the principles of selection that governed his choices of material, of the nature of the audience, and now the readership that he envisioned, of the focus of his interests, of his remarkable habit of getting at the heart of an issue, but we may not glibly suppose that one who felt so strongly about the importance of fidelity and witnesses could simply invent narratives and dialogue and pass it off as history. So where does all that leave us? well, I'm not arguing for the inerrancy of the Gospel of John in this video, but I am trying to just challenge this familiar portrait of John as this late, isolated, theological text disconnected from the Jesus of history. John may well be written earlier than is often assumed, and it may well have been written in conscious dialogue with earlier traditions such as the synoptic gospels. and in the text itself, it presents itself as a truthful testimony about events that it claims to have witnessed, at least in some cases. And this should discourage us from treating John as obviously the least historical gospel simply because it's the most theological. It should encourage us to consider the possibility of historically accurate information that it may provide to us. sometimes I find the Gospels are treated with an undue cynicism.

So when we're dealing with a living person, it's discourteous to that person. To make them guilty until proven innocent, I'm going to question everything you say unless I have some obvious reason to accept it. That's discourteous. Why not show the same courtesy to these historical documents? I'm not saying you have to accept everything, but why not at least be open? You know, maybe there's historical information coming through. Let's not question everything out of the gate.

Just because John is canonical Christian scripture doesn't mean everything in it you have to automatically accept, but it also means you shouldn't automatically reject it. So, hopefully this video is helpful for putting some information out there for those working through this, and if nothing else, just alerting you to some of the scholarship on this topic. I find it pretty fascinating. Here's a final point. Whether you think the Gospel of John is historically accurate or not, you have to admit, it's a fascinating document that was extremely carefully constructed and deserves.

to be carefully studied with great respect. I feel wonder to this document. Let me share just give you an example of why. Because I read the gospel of John reading it in my devotions right now. I read it over and over, and I just keep finding new. On the surface level, it has more lucid prose. But there's so much that you notice upon rereading and careful study. Let me give you an example of this. Richard Bacham has uncovered a fascinating, possible numerical pattern running through John's Gospel. The prologue contains exactly 496 syllables, while the epilogue in John 21 to 23 contains exactly 496 words.

Now, that number is mathematically unusual. It's both a triangular number and a perfect number, and remarkably, 496 is also the numerical value of the Greek word monogenes, only or unique, son, a key term in the prologue. Then there's this famously odd little detail that the disciples catch exactly 153 fish in John 21. You ever notice this? Why did he say 100? I mean, why not just give the round number, say it was 150 fish, or just, you know, many fish or something like that? Why 153? Well, Bacom notes that 153 is itself a triangular number, the sum of all the numbers from 1 to 17,

and he connects this with Ezekiel 4710, where fishermen spread their nets from one location to another, and these two locations, numerical values, equals 153. He makes that case. I'm not sure what to think of that part of it, and whatever you think about these little details. He argues that these little patterns help tie John 21 tightly to the rest of the gospel.

And it's just fascinating, you know. You don't have to agree with every point Bacca makes, but to me he certainly notices enough. That's like, okay, this is not all coincidence. What I hope you would feel before a text like the Gospel of John, and what I don't think is present in much of the higher critical scholarship that does feel more dismissive of it at times, is this sense of wonder.

Like this is an amazingly carefully constructed document that you could spend the rest of your life studying and still be pulling things out of it decade after decade. I think it has a good claim to be a genuinely historically reliable account of the historical Jesus. And I think it's very possible to read it consistently with the earlier witnesses

of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Let me know what you think in the comments. Anything you think I left out that I should have included here, I know this was a somewhat selective video, but I hope at least generates conversations and gets us thinking and working on this fascinating topic.

All right, I'll read the comments. Let me know what you think. Thanks, everybody.