Dr. Harris' Internal Evidences are most engaging to me.
Thanks all the same his arguments are sound and having read some higher critical articles on John I have not been much impressed.
I think that the higher critics would have put John into the 3rd century by now if not for the Rylands fragment gumming up their mutual backslapping.
They must be really pi**ed that history intruded itself into the midst of their esoteric discussions.
　
John wrote John; deal with Harris' arguments, then I'll throw in a few of my own.
Harris' arguments are based on faith. But I will deal with the misinformation anyway.
The first claim was that that the author was a Jew. Out of all of the Gospels, John is the most unJewish of the Gospels. Throughout it, the author condemns the Jews. The blatant anti-semitism in the Gospel of John just seeps through. Everywhere from John blaming the crucifixion simply on the Jews (to the point in which the suggestion is that the Jews actually crucified Jesus) to the Jews being called the sons of Satan.
As for being aware of Messianic, all that John seems to be aware about is that there was a Messianic tradition. However, the Jesus described in John simply does not fulfill Messianic prophecy. John doesn't even begin to describe Jesus as the Messiah. Instead, he recreates the idea of the Messiah into something it wasn't. Instead of a Messiah that is going to free the Jews from a foreign oppression, the Messiah is instead for the Gentiles. Not Jewish at all.
For his response about women, that was the normal response regardless of being a Jew of a Gentile. So it is a moot point.
For importance of religious schools, that is never even mentioned. There is little importance put on it, and in Galilee, it wasn't a very important thing in the first place. All that is asked is about how he can know so much without being taught. And regardless of being a Jew, that would have been asked.
For disparagement of the Diaspora Jews, that wasn't really something Jewish. The Diaspora Jews were still Jews. And they were still accepted as Jews.
Finally, a hostility towards Gentiles and Samaritans. The Jesus of John seems to be quite open to Gentiles and Samaritans. The fact that he would drink with a Samaritan woman shows that Jesus, in the case of John, was not hostile towards Samaritans. That is quite unJewish.
As for being familiar with Jewish customs, not really. Basically, that would have been general knowledge. And really, John does not go into much detail. Not anymore detail than a "God-fearer" would have been aware of.
For reflecting Hebrew words and sentences, that simply is not true. Much of what is in John can be seen in a Pagan light. More so, many of the Hebrew ideas attributed to Jesus simply are not normal Hebrew ideas. The Messiah becomes something very different. The terms such as Son of God, Son of Man, etc take on a new light within John. All one has to do is compare the use in John with the use in Jewish works, such as Enoch.
As for being aware of the topography of the area, that means very little accept he lived in the area. There were many Gentiles in the area, and many "God-fearers" in the area.
As for knowing OT quotation, many Gentiles and "God-Fearers" were aware of the LXX and the Jewish scripture.
As for the idea of the Logos, it is more like Philo than anything else, or at best, Greek in nature. It wasn't really part of the Jewish culture in the area of Palestine.
I don't fee like covering the rest of the information because one, it stretches the facts and relies on misinformation and a flawed view of Judaism, especially Galilean Judaism, which Jesus and his apostles would have been a part of.
Further, the author never even names who the beloved disciple is. To locate it with John is a matter of faith. We see many other individuals who were supposedly the beloved disciple. Mary Magdalene, in recent time, has been called such. Thomas, Peter have both been called such. The fact is, we have no evidence that John is the beloved disciple.
