One of the difficulties in the way of the reception of the Fourth Gospel is the raising of Lazarus from the dead, which the Synoptics do not record. A probable explanation is suggested by Grotius, who says, as Lazarus was living when the Synoptics were written, and as "the chief priests consulted that they might put him to death, because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away and believed on Jesus,"[62] the publication of the miracle would have exposed Lazarus to more intense hostility, and endangered his life.
Our author makes the strange assertion that "the Fourth Gospel, by whomsoever written--even if it could be traced to the Apostle John--has no real historical value, being at best the glorified recollections of an old man, written down half a century after the events recorded" (p. 467). This bold assertion ignores the fact that the impressions of early life are, as a rule, indelibly fixed on the memory. Of no historical value, though written by John! Our author knows perfectly well that such an event as the raising of Lazarus from the dead could never fade from the memory of those who witnessed it. Does he overlook, or suppress, the consideration that John's recollection would be daily refreshed by the teaching of the principles of a gospel which consisted of these events and discourses? We can as well conceive of the Duke of Wellington having forgotten, when he was eighty years old, the campaigns of the Peninsula and the battle of Waterloo, as John forgetting the memorable transactions in the life of his Master with which he was so closely identified. Besides, we do not know that the materials for John's book had not long before been noted down. It is not probable that he who wrote the Apocalypse in the year 68 would put nothing into writing of the memoirs until close upon the time when the book was published. Such is not the mode of authorship now, and was not then. Supposing the apostle to have died, leaving behind him unarranged materials, including notes and memoranda made at various times, and that these were, with fidelity, but with more scholarship than John possessed, transcribed, edited, and made a book of, entitled "The Gospel according to John," we have an explanation of the linguistic difficulty which does not overstep the limits of reasonable probability.