demands a date after 64 A.D. Three references to excommunicationfrom the synagogue (9:22; 12:42; 16:2) allude to the Birkat ha-minim, a "TestBenediction" used by the rabbis to exclude from the synagogue all heretics andperhaps especially Christians. Since the "Test Benediction" was instituted in the mideighties, it is reasonable to conclude that the Gospel was composed sometime after85 A.D.How long after is impossible to determine. But external evidence in the formof papyrus fragments found in Egypt suggests some ten or fifteen years later, i.e.,between 85 and 100 A.D. The Rylands papyrus, the papyrus Egerton 2, P66, andP75 all date to approximately 150 A.D. These papyrus finds prove that the Gospelexisted in Egypt in the first half of the second century. If one allows forty or fifty yearsfor the Gospel to become known and copied in Egypt, one comes on the basis ofexternal evidence to the same conclusion suggested by the internal evidence, i.e., 85-100 A.D. for the date of the Gospel.By the end of the second century, the Fourth Gospel was accepted, along withthe three Synoptics, as canonical in Gaul (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.1.1-2), inEgypt (Clement of Alexandria, so Eusebius, Church History 6.14.5), in North Africa(Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.2), and in Rome (Muratorian fragment).The AuthorWhoever the author of the Fourth Gospel was, one thing is certain: he wantedto remain anonymous. He wanted only to be known as the disciple whom Jesusloved. He speaks about himself in 13:23 as the one who at the Last Supper "wasreclining on Jesus' breast . . . whom Jesus loved."; in 19:23-26, 35, as the disciplewho stood beneath the cross, was given the care of Jesus' mother, and witnessed thedeath of Jesus; in 20:2-10, as the disciple who ran with Peter to the tomb on Eastermorning and, upon seeing the burial cloths, believed; in 21:7, as the disciple whoalone recognized the stranger on the shore as Jesus; and in 21:20-23, as the discipleabou...
