Hugo Mendez says that other writers in the ancient world were doing what he accuses the author of John's Gospel of doing. And that is the background against which we are asked to view John's Gospel. But I don't think we can do this unless we have a clear understanding of the works which are supposedly analogous to John's Gospel. One example cited by Mendez is the Life of Apollonius of Tyana. This work, however, seems to have been commissioned by an opponent of Christianity who may have wanted Apollonius to be presented as a rival to Jesus. In any case, the Life of Apollonius was written long after John's Gospel. So this is a very poor analogy.
Mendez also compares John to apocryphal gospels that have been falsely attributed to disciples such as Peter and Thomas. But there is an obvious problem with such a comparison. It is not as if no judgement was made at the time regarding the authenticity of the various gospels. On the contrary, a judgement was made, and John was accepted into the canon while numerous other gospels were rejected. Furthermore, there are good reasons for thinking that the early Church got it right about the canon. The canonical Gospels clearly reflect a first-century Palestinian setting while the apocryphal gospels are almost entirely devoid of background detail.
This is a point that Mendez touches on. He notes that there are authentic details in John but declares this irrelevant in view of the preponderance of "fictional" material in John. But not so fast. If John knows his stuff in a way that the apocryphal writers don't, we should not be so quick to assume that the allegedly fictional material really is fictional. No doubt John has chosen to present Jesus in his own way, but this does not rule out an eyewitness role for the author.
Hugo Mendez says that other writers in the ancient world were doing what he accuses the author of John's Gospel of doing. And that is the background against which we are asked to view John's Gospel. But I don't think we can do this unless we have a clear understanding of the works which are supposedly analogous to John's Gospel. One example cited by Mendez is the Life of Apollonius of Tyana. This work, however, seems to have been commissioned by an opponent of Christianity who may have wanted Apollonius to be presented as a rival to Jesus. In any case, the Life of Apollonius was written long after John's Gospel. So this is a very poor analogy.
Mendez also compares John to apocryphal gospels that have been falsely attributed to disciples such as Peter and Thomas. But there is an obvious problem with such a comparison. It is not as if no judgement was made at the time regarding the authenticity of the various gospels. On the contrary, a judgement was made, and John was accepted into the canon while numerous other gospels were rejected. Furthermore, there are good reasons for thinking that the early Church got it right about the canon. The canonical Gospels clearly reflect a first-century Palestinian setting while the apocryphal gospels are almost entirely devoid of background detail.
This is a point that Mendez touches on. He notes that there are authentic details in John but declares this irrelevant in view of the preponderance of "fictional" material in John. But not so fast. If John knows his stuff in a way that the apocryphal writers don't, we should not be so quick to assume that the allegedly fictional material really is fictional. No doubt John has chosen to present Jesus in his own way, but this does not rule out an eyewitness role for the author.