Is the Fourth Gospel as it now stands the work of one man? (We shall exclude from this discussion the Story of the Adulteress in 7:53–8:11 which is not found in the earliest Greek witnesses; see § 30.) The solution commonly accepted before the advent of biblical criticism was that this Gospel was the work of John son of Zebedee, written shortly before his death. We shall discuss the identity of the author in Part VII below; but, even
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