An Interdisciplinary Inquiry into Dating the Fourth Gospel, Part I: John 5:2 and Papyrus 52

Abstract

In the nineteenth century, German scholar F.C. Baur (1792-1860) dated the fourth gospel from AD 160-170 (partly due to the influence of Hegelian philosophy1). Similarly ‘late’ datings of the fourth gospel continued to be offered by some scholars in the early twentieth century. As theologian Daniel B. Wallace reports: ‘In 1925 Delafosse saw 170-175 as the ceiling and in 1936 Loisy felt that “the first publication can hardly have been effected before 135-40.”’2 However, scholarship moved on, and by the middle of the twentieth century came to a consensus that the fourth gospel was issued no later than (though probably towards) the end of the first century.