John\u27s Gospel in Current Literature

Who wrote the Fourth Gospel? For centuries there had been almost unanimous agreement on this point. Tradition, based on very ancient authorities, as well as the book itself all seemed to agree that it was the work of John, the Beloved Disciple, son of Zebedee. But about the turn of the eighteenth century, students of the Bible were shaken by voices which dared to question this supposedly impregnable claim. In England a man by the name of Evanson ( ca. 1790) attributed the Gospel to some Platonic philosopher of the second century. Six years later a German named Eckermann took up the refrain, with more and more voices joining the chorus