| Probably the most profound irony of the Christian | | | | is it to you (Peter) if I will that he lives till I return." |
| religion is that so much commitment in faith and | | | | These words, purportedly spoken by Jesus, and |
| trust is demanded in return for so little in what | | | | referred to, on two occasions, in the Gospel of |
| can be substantiated or reasonably vouched for. | | | | St. John, suggests very strongly, that the death |
| The Gospel of St. John, the fourth gospel of the | | | | of John had caused some disquiet in the Christian |
| New Testament scriptures, is an illustration of the | | | | community concerning the belief in the second |
| vexing problem in the barter exchange of | | | | coming of Christ. It is well known that the early |
| evidence for faith. | | | | Christians had believed that the return of Christ |
| Even though the Gospel of St. John is traditionally | | | | would be in the life time of the twelve Apostles. |
| ascribed to John, who was of the inner circle of | | | | And that was what the Apostles themselves had |
| three disciples of Jesus, practically nothing can be | | | | believed judging from the synoptic gospels and |
| independently corroborated concerning the writer | | | | the Book of Acts. How aghast they would be if |
| of this book and his relationship, if any at all, to | | | | they could learn that two thousand years later his |
| the Apostle who died at ripe old age sometime | | | | return is still being awaited by Christians. |
| towards the end of the First Century A.D., | | | | The Gospel of John appears to have been written |
| probably during or just before the | | | | primarily to reassure Christians of the hope in the |
| commencement of the reign of the Emperor | | | | "coming of the Lord." This, in itself, would be a |
| Trajan. The book, however, contains sufficient | | | | legitimate purpose for writing a Johannine version |
| internal evidence to allow reasonably certain | | | | of the gospel, but the writer, in his anxiety to |
| conjectures of when, why and by whom it was | | | | convince his audience of the Christian hope of |
| written. | | | | Jesus' return, would appear to have indulged in |
| To start with, the Gospel of St. John was | | | | pure fabrication to aid his cause. |
| certainly not written by John himself, but by | | | | The story of the resurrection of Lazarus of |
| someone, very likely, a second generation gentile | | | | Bethany appears to have been fabricated to |
| Christian claiming John as the direct source of his | | | | convince second generation Christians that Jesus |
| information. We know nothing about this writer | | | | was the "resurrection and life." By any standard |
| besides his claim of having been a close associate | | | | of judgment, the Lazarus miracle, as related in the |
| of John in his lifetime. But objective biblical scholars | | | | Gospel of John, was the high point in Jesus' |
| have learned to be skeptical of the self-legitimizing | | | | ministry before his death and resurrection. It has |
| claims of apocryphal writers. We would, therefore, | | | | always appeared to me odd that Matthew, Mark, |
| better take this anonymous writer's claims with a | | | | and Luke, or some common source of the |
| pinch of the proverbial salt. | | | | synoptic gospels, would neglect to mention that |
| The internal evidence, however, tells us that the | | | | event in their accounts. While I do not belong to |
| book was written by a second generation | | | | the group of critics who argue that an incident |
| Christian with a Hellenistic cultural worldview. His | | | | recorded in a first gospel account and not in the |
| consistent use of the term "Eternal Life," in place | | | | next could only have been an invention of the |
| of the more Jewish "Kingdom of God," and his | | | | first writer, it is difficult to refrain from expressing |
| references and teachings about Jesus as the | | | | the view that the Lazarus story might have been |
| "Word"(Greek: Logos) betray the incipient pattern | | | | concocted by the writer of the Gospel of St. |
| of Hellenization which would blossom into the | | | | John. That the Apostle Matthew or the disciple |
| unguarded mysticism of Gnostic Christianity. His | | | | Mark, both writing their accounts of the life of |
| artificial and fictitious reconstructions of the very | | | | Christ within a few decades of his death and |
| Jewish Jesus in tortuously sophistic dialectical | | | | resurrection, could have commonly neglected to |
| confrontations with the people he refers to in | | | | mention that momentous incident at Bethany, can |
| detachment as "the Jews," all tell us plainly that | | | | be compared to Arnold Toynbee writing his book, |
| the writer couldn't have been directly representing | | | | A Study of History, and forgetting to mention the |
| the recollections of John who had spent most of | | | | Roman empire. The fact that the first three |
| his life as a Jew in the rustic province of Galilee. | | | | gospel accounts do not mention the Lazarus |
| The evidence from the closing paragraphs of the | | | | incident casts a dark shadow of doubt on the |
| book is that it was written by a member of the | | | | authenticity of the Lazarus story recorded in St. |
| late first century to early second century gentile | | | | John's Gospel. The circumstances of the Lazarus |
| Christian community, soon after John himself had | | | | miracle are such that, it either had been entirely |
| died, to dispel fears and rumors that the death of | | | | true or entirely false. No swoon theory could |
| John was evidence that Jesus would never return | | | | account for the story related in plain words in the |
| as Christians believed and hoped. Thus, we find | | | | Gospel of John. It is very significant that we read |
| the comment at the end of the book: "And so | | | | of the Lazarus story for the first time in the |
| went around the rumor that the disciple (i.e. John) | | | | Gospel of John, written at a time when most of |
| would not die (till kingdom come), yet Jesus never | | | | the people who had been eyewitnesses might |
| said to him that he would not die, but that, what | | | | have died. |