The book purports to be from "John to the seven churches of Asia" (i,
4). This John is declared to be the Apostle John and its authority is
based upon this claim. Smith's "Bible Dictionary" says: "The question
as to the canonical authority of the Revelation resolves itself into
a question of authorship. Was St. John the Apostle and Evangelist
the writer of the Revelation?" If John the Apostle and the author
of the Fourth Gospel were one, as assumed by the "Bible Dictionary,"
then the question of its authenticity and canonical authority must be
abandoned, for the author of the Fourth Gospel did not write it. There
is nothing in common between them. The German theologian, Lucke, says:
"If all critical experience and rules in such literary questions
do not deceive, it is certain that the Evangelist and Apocalyptist
are two different persons." De Wette says: "The Apostle John, if he
be the author of the Fourth Gospel and of the Johannine epistles,
did not write the Apocalypse." Regarding this conclusion, Ewald says:
"All men capable of forming a judgment are of the same opinion." Among
the eminent critics and commentators who take this position are Luther,
Erasmus, Michaelis, Schleiermacher, Credner, Zeller, Evanson, Baur,
Renan, and Davidson.
The Apostle John wrote neither the Fourth Gospel, the so-called
Epistles of John, nor Revelation. That he did not write Revelation
is shown by the following:
1. The author does not claim to be an apostle.
2. He refers to the Twelve Apostles (xxi, 14) in a way that forbids
the supposition that he was one of them.
3. The Apostle John is declared to have been illiterate and incapable
of writing a book.
4. It is addressed to the seven churches of Asia, and yet the seven
churches of Asia, to which it is addressed, rejected it.
The Alogi maintained that it was a forgery which came from
Corinth. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, writing in the third century,
says: "Divers of our predecessors have wholly refused and rejected
this book, and by discussing the several parts thereof have found it
obscure and void of reason and the title forged."
Concerning its rejection by modern churchmen, the Edinburgh Review
(No. 131) says: "The most learned and intelligent of Protestant
divines here almost all doubted or denied the canonicity of the book
of Revelation. Calvin and Beza pronounced the book unintelligible,
and prohibited the pastors of Geneva from all attempts at
interpretation." Dr. South described it as "a book that either found
a man mad or left him so."
Luther, in the Preface to his New Testament (Ed. of 1522) writes:
"In the Revelation of John much is wanting to let me deem it either
prophetic or apostolical."
CHAPTER XI.
PAULINE EPISTLES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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