One thing Britt and Wingo have managed to do consistently is show that they don’t know much about stylometry. Whether that is in regard to what constitutes proper methodology, or even how to read the dendrogram correctly. I realize that is blunt, but it’s what has been seen time and time again, and the discussion on the Johannine documents only reinforces this.
Starting off, the fact that “Exhibit 4” breaks up the Gospel of John into separate clusters isn’t surprising. The reason, as discussed in regards to chapter 7 and methodology, is that neither Stylo, or any other stylometric process, can accurately run such short lengths of documents. There is no possible way that based on the limited word counts here that an accurate result will be produced.
Instead, what will happen is that chapters will be lumped together based on themes in those chapters. The reason for this is simple, themes dictate what sort of vocabulary you will be using. This is even more the case in Greek here, because theme will also, at times, dictate what case of a word will be used. As Britt and Wingo don’t factor this in, we can be certain this will have an effect, as we already demonstrated above in the discussion about methodology.
Besides the major flaws in their methodology, they further compound this by misrepresenting the results while seemingly talking in circles.
They start this by talking about the Farewell Discourse, which is found in John 14-17. According to their results, it falls in a cluster of its own. They claim that some make the argument that there was an original version of John, and that later chapters were added, including this Farewell Discourse.
Who are those scholars who make this argument though? Again, they fail to cite any source. Finding a source shouldn’t have been difficult, as one just has to find an introductory text to the Gospel of John. That they can’t do their own homework here screams so much.
They claim that this proposal, that the Farewell Discourse was added later, is unlikely as, according to their questionable analysis, it appears that the Farewell Discourse came from another author. However, those scholars who subscribe to the view that the Farewell Discourse was added later; well, they acknowledge it was added later, probably by a different author. It’s the same argument Britt and Wingo are trying to make.
Their argument simply makes no sense, as they are arguing that some see the Farewell Discourse as being a later addition, but then argue that this doesn’t make sense because the Farewell Discourse is a different author. Their argument only gets more convoluted when they begin talking about John having been written as a group effort by one authorship community.
Their dendrogram doesn’t show just one authorship community though. Instead, we have three main clusters. As discussed previously, generally what we would do is draw a line vertically through the dendrogram, creating child branches. The natural spot for this would result in three separate clusters. This could then suggest three authorship communities, or authors.
Looking specifically at the branch that contains John 19 and 18, as well as John 2 and John 21, they claim that what this shows is that these chapters don’t indicate some later addition since John 2 is included in this grouping. But wouldn’t the clearer reading be that John 2 is related to John 18, 19, and 21, and was added at that time? If we are starting with the argument that things were added, a rebuttal to that isn’t that they couldn’t have been added later because John 2 is mixed with them. The minority passage here doesn’t dictate what’s true about the majority section.
Now, I’m not saying that anything was added to John at a later date. It’s a debated topic that I don’t think we need to weigh in on at this moment. But if we are making an argument in either way, it has to be consistent. Britt’s and Wingo’s argument is anything but. Because again, if we have three chapters that are suspected to be later additions, but they kind of turn up with one chapter that isn’t suspected to be a later addition, that one chapter doesn’t outweigh the other three. This is even more true when that one chapter is on its own branch.
Without the scale, we can’t necessarily say how distant John 2 is from either John 18 and 19, or John 21, but there is a good separation between at least John 18 and 19 with John 2. Looking at the manner that Britt and Wingo seem to read these graphs though, I think it’s safe to say that the reason the scale isn’t included is because the distance between texts isn’t even considered. As long as they are grouped together in some manner, they can make their assumptions based on whatever suits their needs.
Finishing off their argument, they claim that the text was a compilation is even admitted in John 21:24-25. They go as far as to say that none of the Gospel was even claimed to have been written by the “beloved disciple,” and that verse 25 implies that a lot was either left out or cut, and that this could be a reference to the other Gospels. I’d suggest that this interpretation shows that Britt and Wingo have never read these verses.
Verse 24 states, “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.” There is nothing here that suggests a compilation. Instead, it states that this disciple (often assumed to be the “beloved disciple”) wrote this gospel.
Now, one may argue that, but it says “we know that his testimony is true,” so obviously someone else is around. But this still doesn’t detract from the verse making it clear this is what this disciple is testifying. That it’s his account. Now, maybe this somehow implies that this disciple didn’t personally put pen to paper, and that these other figures, this “we,” were responsible for writing down the account. But even that is a stretch, as that’s not what the verse says.
If we look at our earliest mention of this though, the second-century Muratorian Canon, the argument that is made there is that:
“The fourth of the Gospels is that of John, [one] of the disciples. To his fellow disciples and bishops, who had been urging him [to write], he said, ‘Fast with me from today to three days, and what will be revealed to each one let us tell it to one another.’ In the same night it was revealed to Andrew, [one] of the apostles, that John should write down all things in his own name while all of them should review it.”
Obviously, this is later tradition, but these verses have been read rather consistently since their first mention. There is nothing here that states that these were compilations, and they clearly state that this disciple (the “beloved disciple”) wrote this account. How Britt and Wingo interpret this differently simply doesn’t make sense. And without them forming an actual argument, we can largely reject their stance as it doesn’t appear to be informed by the cited verses at all.
As for verse 25, which states, “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” There really is nothing here to suggest anything was cut, or that there is some reference to the other Gospels. Instead, what we see is that the author is saying they are leaving things out just because recording everything would be impossible.
The idea that this verse could refer to the other Gospels also doesn’t make sense. The claim here is that if everything were written down that Jesus did, the world itself couldn’t contain all of the books. This is most likely an exaggeration, but to suggest that what he really meant was that there are three other Gospels that were written, just doesn’t follow.
For one, the implication here is that these other stories are not even written. This would exclude the other Gospels then. Two, the other Gospels aren’t massive works. Even if we look at the claim in verse 25 as an exaggeration, it’s hard to think that what John was referring to was just three books. Three, the most direct reading of this verse is simply that there is a lot more to the story of Jesus that couldn’t possibly be recorded, that hasn’t been recorded.
Britt’s and Wingo’s interpretation here fails. It reads into these verses something clearly not there.