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The Epistle Of 1st John

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AUTHORSHIP
The author of the Epistle of 1st John is not named in the letter, but church tradition has been strong in affirming John the Apostle, “that disciple whom Jesus loved” from (Jn. 21:7), as the author. The author declares himself as one who “we have seen with our eyes…and our hands have handled” (1:1) declaring him an eyewitness to the life and ministry of Jesus. John’s authorship was not brought into question until the twentieth century. The epistles of 2nd and 3rd John add to the controversy as they are attributed to a person called “The elder” who’s identity is also unknown (see v.1 in 2nd and 3rd John). The discussion of authorship asks two basic questions in the case of the Johannine corpus, first, were the books all written by the same author and second who was that author.
Comprehensive studies of both the style and content of the three epistles shows “striking similarities” indicative of single authorship. Even the casual reader of the Gospel of John and his First Epistle will be impressed by the similarity of words and phrases in the two books. John’s authorship of The Revelation has also been debated despite the four claims by John to be the author within the text its self (see 1:1, 4, 9, 22:8). According to Walvoord, attributing the authorship to John the Apostle depends on the validity of his being exiled to the island of Patmos, for which historical evidence is good.
The lack of evidence against Johannine authorship does not stop sceptics from

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