Kysar on the Fourth Gospel

somewhere in the years since my retirement, I began to realise the utter ridiculousness of many of our historical reconstructions in New Testament studies. It was relatively safe for me to decide that the entire Q hypothesis is a skyscraper built upon the end of a toothpick. However, it was a different matter when I questioned the popular theory that the FG was written soon after the Johnannine Christians were expelled from the synagogue. I am convinced that our historical reconstructions are too fragile to hold the weight of our interpretations. We may be able to unearth literary references to name persons and events. However, when we venture to link events, to propose insights into persons and their actions and in general to construct the ‘meaning of the past,’ we are doomed to claim as true only what profits us.