John

THE INAUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

There is no authority for the claim that the Gospel of John in the book of the Apostle John to whom it has been attributed. On the contrary, there are several arguments thatstrongly refute this claim.

THE FIRST ARGUMENT:
Before and after the period of the Prophet Jesus, the style of writing and the method of compiling books was similar to the style of the present Muslim writers. It does not appear
from this Gospel that John was making his own statements.

It is not possible to refute the obvious evidence which the text itself offers unless strong arguments are presented to negate it.

THE SECOND ARGUMENT:
This Gospel contains this statement in 21:24:
``This is the disciple which testifieth of these things: and we know that his testimony is true,`` describing the Apostle John.

This denotes that the writer of this text is not John himself. It leads us to guess that the writer has found some script written by John and has described the contents in his own language making some omissions and additions to the contents.

THE THIRD ARGUMENT:
In the second century AD when the authorities refused to accept this Gospel as the book of John, Irenaeus , a disciple of Polycarp the disciple of John, was living. He did not make any statement to negate those who refused to accept the book and did not testify that he had heard Polycarp saying that this Gospel was the book of John, the Apostle.

Had it been the book of John, Polycarp must have known it. It cannot be the truth that he heard Polycarp saying many secret and profound things which he related but did not hear a single word about a matter of such importance. And it is even more unbelievable that he had heard it and forgot, since we know about him that he had great trust in verbal
statements and used to memorize them. This is evident from the following statement of Eusebius regarding the opinion of Irenaeus about verbal statements:
�I Listened to these words with great care by the grace of God. And wrote them not only on paper, but also on my heart. For a long time, I have made it my habit to keep reading
them.�

It is also unimaginable that the remembered it and did not state it for the fear of his enemies. This argument also rescues us from the blame of refusing the genuineness of
this Gospel from religious prejudice. We have seen that it was refused in the second century AD and could not be defended by the encient Christian.
Celsus, who was a pagan scholar of the second century AD, fearlessly declared that the Christians had distorted their Gospels three or four times or more. This change of or
distortion changed the contents of the text.

Festus, the chief of the Manichaeans and a scholar publicly announced in 4th century AD:
�It has been established that the book of the New Testament are neither the books of the Christ, nor are they the books of his apostles but unknown people have written them and
attributed them to the apostles and their friends.�

THE FOURTH ARGUMENT:
The Catholic Herald, printed in 1844,includess the statement in vol.3on page 205 that Stapelin said in his book that the Gospel of John was undoubtedly written by student of
scholar in Alexandria. See how blatantly he claims it to be a book of a student.

THE FIFTH ARGUMENT:
Bertshiender, a great scholar said:
�The whole of this Gospel and all the Epistles of John were definitely not written by him but by some other person in the second century A.D.�

THE SIXTH ARGUMENT:
Grotius, a famous scholar, admitted: �Three used to be twenty chapters in this Gospel. The twenty-first chapter was added after the death of John, by the church of Ephesus.�

THE SEVENTH ARGUMENT:
The Allogin, a sect of the Christians in the second century AD, disowned this Gospel and all the writing of John.

THE EIGHT ARGUMENT:
The fist eleven verses of chapter 8 are not accepted by any of the Christian writers and it will soon be shown that these verses do not exist in the syriac version. If there were any authentic proof to support it most of the Christian writer would have not
made such statements. Therefore the opinion of Bertshiender and Stapelin is undoubtedly true.

THE NINTH ARGUMENT:
Horne in chapter two of vol.4 of his commentary says:
�The information that has been covered to us by the historians of the church regarding the
period of the four Gospels is defective and indefinite. It dose not help us reach any meaningful conclusion. The ancient theologians have confirmed absurd statements and written them down. Subsequent people accepted them just out of respect to them. These false statements thus were communicated from one writer to another. A ling period of time has passed, and it has become very difficult to find out the truth.�
Further in the same volume he says:
The first Gospel was written either in 73 A.D. or 38 A.D. or in 43 A.D. or in 48 A.D. or in 61, 62, 63 and 64 A.D. The second Gospel was written in 56 A.D. or at any time after it up until 65 A.D. and most possible in 60 or 63 A.D. The third Gospel was written in 53
or 63 or 64 A.D. The fourth Gospel was written in 68, 69, 70 or in 89 or 98 A.D.�