Question:

I refer to this particular interaction.

https://www.evidenceforchristianity.org/index.php?option=com_custom_content&t ask=view&id=5395

The one questioning you seems to be referring for the most part to the Gospel of John, but I note in your reply, you avoided commenting in "John", like the plague, but rather brought other things into it that were not relative (sic). Could you please address the points as to "John" the poster made. I personally did not write the initial enquiry, but even so, I have a sense of frustration at the fact you tended to intentionally avoid anything to do with John.

Answer:

I was not involved in the interaction between this person and Brian Colon. I believe that the charges made by this very angry person were so radical and unsupportable that it is hard to even respond to such claims. This is my honest opinion. Anyone who claims that the four gospels were all written in the second century simply has not looked at the evidence. No scholar, liberal, conservative or otherwise will make such an unfounded claim.

In any case, in his response, Brian did not try to "prove" that John wrote the book, but only to respond to the comments made by the questioner.  Typical of the weak arguments of this person is that he claims that John certainly did not write the gospel because he was an uneducated fisherman. I assume this is what you want me to respond to, as it is the only argument he makes specifically against John. His argument that the existence of the Rylands Papyrus does not prove John wrote the letter is true, of course. No one claims that the existence of this manuscript proves who wrote the book! All it does is establish that the gospel of John was in general circulation by AD 125.

So, back to the other argument. Here is why I believe this is a very weak argument. I agree that the Book of John shows evidence of a reasonably good education. Particularly, it shows some sensitivity to philosophical terms used among the Greeks (for example, his use of logos) . This person says the fact that John was an uneducated fisherman is proof that he could not have written this letter. He makes a rather obvious error here. It is true that in AD 30 the 20-25 year old John (admittedly a bit of a guess on the age, but most would accept this as an approximate age for John) was not highly educated. However, the book of John was written more than forty years later. We know from Acts 6:1-7 that the apostles devoted themselves to studying (not that we would have needed this passage to know this!). We also know that John spent many years living in Greek-speaking Ephesus, which was a great center of learning. It is not the least bit surprising that a very intelligent man could, in the course of 50 years, acquire a lot of learning. By this time, John certainly had been reading and writing in Greek for decades. The assumption that he remained an unschooled fisherman for this entire time is just plain wrong. This is truly an extremely shallow argument against the claim that John wrote this book. The best I can tell, this is the only argument against John being the author of the book of John that is raised by the letter you refer to.

John Oakes