While some scholars who postulate John 21 to be a later insertion to the
gospel by a person/group of people other than the author of chs. 1-20, there
are some scholars who, while believing to be an insertion, was inserted (1) a
very short time after the completion of chs. 1-20 and (2) was inserted by the
author of the gospel itself.
Stanley E. Porter, in an essay defending this thesis, stated that:
There have been a
number of more recent scholars—Lee McDonald included—who have argued that this
chapter was not a part of the original Gospel. It has been argued fairly
frequently, for example, that John 21 was not original, but was written by the
author of the Gospel and appended later, quite possibly soon after . . . I am
not sure when John 21 was included in the Gospel, but I believe there is no
substantive evidence for doubting that it was written by the same author as
wrote the rest of the Gospel and that it was attached to the Gospel very early—so
early as to leave no substantive (only suppositional and speculative) evidence
of it being later. (Stanley
E. Porter, “The Ending of John’s Gospel” in William H. Brackney and Craig A.
Evans, eds. From Biblical Criticism to
Biblical Faith: Essays in Honor of Lee Martin McDonald [Macon, Ga.: Mercier
University Press, 2007], 55-73, here, pp. 56, 73)
While the entirety of Porter’s essay should be read to understand his
arguments against the author of ch. 21 being the same author of chs. 1-20, one of the topics that Porter addresses is that of the vocabulary of ch. 21:
There are two kinds
of vocabulary items to note. First is a list of a number of vocabulary items
that are unique to John 21, as compared to the rest of the Gospel. These including
(according to Bultmann’s and Barrett’s lists): αιγαλος (“beach,” John 21:4), αλιευειν (“fish,” John 21:3), αποβαινειν (“get out,” John 21:9), αρισταν (“eat,” John 21:12), αρνιον (“lamb,” John 21:15), βοσκειν(“feed,” John 21:15), γηρασκειν (“age,” John 21:18), γυμνος (“naked,” John 21:7), δικτυον (“fishing net,” John 21:6, 8), εκτεινειν (“stretch out,” John 21:18), εξεταζειν(“ask,” John 21:12), επενδυτης (“outer garment,” John 21:7), επισρεφειν (“turn around,” John 21:20), ζωννυναι (“fasten,” John 21:18), ισχυειν (“be able,” John 21:6), ιχθυς (“fish,” John 21:6, 8, 11), μακραν (“far,” John 21:8), νεωτερος (“younger,” John 21:18), οιεσθαι (“think,” John 21:25), πηχυς (“cubit,” John 21:8), ποιμαινειν (“tend sheep,” John 21:16), προβατιον (“sheep,” John 21:16), προσφαγιον (“accompaniment/fish,” John
21:8), τρωια (“early,”
John 21:4), ουρειν (“drag,”
John 21:8), τολμαν, (“dare,”
John 21:12) τριτον (“third,”
John 21:1, 14, 17).
Some of these examples are quickly dismissed
such as επιστρεφειν,
where the lexeme is simply the prefixed form of a verb that appears elsewhere
in the Gospel (John 1:38; 12:40; 20:14, 16), or τολμαν, which is used no more
frequently in John 21 than it is in any of the other Gospels (Matthew 1x, Mark
2x, Luke 1x). What is worth noting is that, of the 28 words, seventeen of them
occur in the episode of Jesus’ appearance to the disciples while they are
fishing (John 21:1-14), with many of the words being related to fishing (e.g., “beach,”
“fish,” “get out,” “naked,” “fishing,” “eat,” “cubit”). As this is the only
fishing episode in John’s Gospel, these results are perhaps not too surprising
and the data not telling. Another seven words occur in the next episode between
Jesus and Peter (John 21:15-19), and reflect a high concentration of vocabulary
particular to their discussion of sheep (e.g., “lamb,” “feed,” “tend sheep,” “sheep”).
As Bultmann himself realizes, much of this material is “accidental and
conditions by the material” (Bultmann, John,
700).
The second list if of those words that are
used in unusual ways. Bultmann notes that αδελφοι (“brothers”) is used only in
John 21:23 as a designation for Christians, the disciples are addressed by
Jesus as παιδια (“children,”
John 21:5), the preposition απο (“from”) is used causatively on John 21:6 and partitively in v.
10 (rather than εκ), the
preposition επι (“upon”) is
used differently in John 21:1 than elsewhere in John’s Gospel, the verb φανερουν is used differently in John 21:1
than elsewhere, and πλεον (John 21:15) is used instead of μαλλον (John 3:19; 12:43).
This type of evidence is somewhat more
difficult to evaluate, as there are a greater number of factors to consider. These
include style, content and even significance of a variants as opposed to the
regular pattern. As a result, there have been detailed responses to some of
these suggestions (including responses to the first list as well). Ruckstuhl,
for example, says of the use of αδελφοι (John 21:23) for “Christian” that the
concept of Christian as a member of the community had not appeared in John’s
Gospel previously (Literarische Einheit,
143). He further contends that the use of εξεταζειν (purportedly for ερωταν, John 21:12) is in the sense,
not of ask but of “test” or “interrogate,” an example in which the use defines
the sense of the word (Ibid., 143). Ruckstuhl finds a parallel to the use of παιδια (John 21:5) in the use of τεκνια, which appears only in John 13:33.
Further, Ruckstuhl disputes the judgments regarding causal and partitive απο. He does not think that there
was a likely alternative for the former (21:6), and defends the sense in 21:10
of the use (Ibid., 144). Concerning the supposedly unusual use of επι in John 21:1, Ruckstuhl contends
that the sense in 21:1 is not that of “upon the sea” as in 6:19, but “of “on
the edge of the sea.” In that sense it is closer to the use of 6:21: επι της γης (“on the ground”). Ruckstuhl
also disputes that the use of φανεροω I John 21:1
is different, as the reflexive use is also found in John 7:4 (Ibid., 144).
A survey of the vocabularly evidence must
conclude . .. that the case for a distinction between John 21 and the rest of
the Gospel clearly remains unmade. (Porter, "The Ending of John's Gospel," 60-62)
