with so many problems to solve , it would be a great help to select some one problem which might be the key to all the others , and begin there . if there is any such key-problem , then it is undoubtedly the problem of the unity of the gospel . there are three views of the fourth gospel which have been held . some critics , not many , argue that the gospel is the product of one mind and one hand . for them the problems of the fourth gospel exist only in the mind of its detractors . the difficulties which are felt by modern critics are due to the book being read and examined as it was never meant to be . there is some truth in this contention , and one must always remember that no book of the new testament was written with the special interests of a modern critic in mind . many of the questions which the searching scrutiny of the textual critic raises were of no interest to the author of the gospel . however , this kind of immaculate conception of John is difficult to maintain in the face of the contrasts with the other gospels and of the striking unanimity of scholars who have detected dislocations in the text . that the gospel is homogeneous is the orthodox view of the Roman Church . Loisy , who could not accept this view , was excommunicated in 1907 after a Biblical commission had answered three questions on the fourth gospel , and the Pope made their three answers articles of faith . the first article affirmed the authorship of the apostle John . the second said that the problems which arise from the comparisons with the synoptics can be reasonably solved by paying due regard to the time and plan and to the different public for which , or against which , the author wrote . the third article excluded any allegorical interpretation of the gospel . there is a whole group of theories which attempt to explain the problems of the fourth gospel by explanations based on assumed textual dislocations . the present state of the gospel is the result of an accident-prone history . the original was written on a roll , or codex , which fell into disorder or was accidentally damaged . an editor , who was not the author , made what he could of the chaos by placing the fragments , or sheets , or pages , in order . most of those who expound a theory of textual dislocation take it for granted that the gospel was written entirely by one author before the disturbance took place but a few leave it open to suppose that the original book had been revised even before the upheaval . the ingenuity of the theories is impressive and is the best argument against them . if the history of the gospel has been as fortuitous as they suppose , rational criticism is impossible . the critic hopes to discover order , sequence and purpose . the textual dislocators recount tales of disorder , of transposition , and of the wayward impulse of the editor , who at one moment compels admiration for his spiritual insight and at the next is rolling dice . fortunately , the introduction of chance into these schemes makes it possible to test them statistically . the result confirms the impression that ingenuity is their only virtue . one must not pass over the derangement theories without acknowledgment of the truth which they contain . the exponent of such a theory has seen some regularities in the structure of the gospel . the regularities are not simple nor are they continuous . the critic then assumes that the underlying order was based on the sheets , or pages , on which the original was written , and that the disorder was due to some rearrangements of those sheets or pages . to dismiss the textual-derangement theories out of hand is to discard some acute observation because it is incomplete and has been wrongly developed . the third type of theory would account for the difficulties of the fourth gospel in terms of its having been , at one time , a shorter book than it now is . in the enlargement of this little gospel some movements of the text took place . the commentator has long been a leading exponent of such a view . in his commentary on John , he sets out in detail the case for enlargement . a theory of this kind offers considerable advantages . it can explain the early substratum undoubtedly present in the gospel , and yet also account for passages which are not easily reconciled with early and accurate knowledge of the background of Jesus &apos;s life and work . it can offer a reason for the textual changes which is neither chance nor accident - two terms which too often cover the absence of any reason . the one real weakness of the commentator &apos;s case is that , in common with all his colleagues , he has not , until now , been able to exhibit exactly how this enlargement was effected nor has he been able to explain the textual movements by showing that such changes are part of a simple and coherent plan . to understand how this is possible it is necessary to examine the text of the gospel . chapter 3 . the text of the fourth gospel . the fourth gospel was almost certainly written in Greek . a modern text of the gospel represents the work of generations of scholars who have compared the many manuscripts of John and worked out the version which is most likely to have been the original wording . it is not possible to establish any one text with absolute precision . the most convenient one for the authors has been the text of A Souter . in this version of the text the fourth gospel is printed as just over 1,000 different nouns , verbs , and other parts of speech occurring 15,695 times in their different grammatical forms . there are other texts which could have been used , and ( as shown in table 1 ) it is not a matter of the greatest importance which text is used . at first sight the difference between Souter and the other texts is rather large . but the British text includes the paragraph 7.53-8.11 , the woman taken in adultery , and this accounts for 178 words out of 279 , which is the difference between the 15,695 words of Souter &apos;s text and the 15,416 of Nestle &apos;s . the omission or inclusion of this paragraph is a matter of editorial decision rather than scribal emendation , and it must be included in the gospel and studied , even if the result of the study were to decide that the paragraph should then be excluded . thus the difference between Souter &apos;s text and Nestle &apos;s is 101 words . if the true content of the text of the gospel is taken as the average of the two figures , then the difference is 101 words in 15,555 , a figure on which the textual critics may be congratulated . one can assume that Souter &apos;s version of the fourth gospel represents 99 per cent of the original text . of the remainder not much is of consequence , for the variant readings often concern verbal tenses , or word order , or the insertion or omission of qualifying clauses , not many of which affect the content or meaning of the text to any great extent . Souter &apos;s text is not identical with the original of John . the gospel would have been written by hand in individual letters ; block capitals are the nearest equivalent today . there would be no spaces between words such as we are accustomed to see and punctuation would be kept to a minimum . the comma , the full stop , the colon , and the interrogation mark are all modern additions to the text . the chapter and verse divisions of both old and new testaments date from the reformation . the chapters were marked by Stephen Langton , an Archbishop of Canterbury , and the verses by the Parisian printer Stephanus , who produced the 1546 printed edition of the new testament in Greek . the only punctuation which the originals might have had is paragraphos markings . the end of a section of the text was indicated by a little bar drawn under the first two or three letters of the line at which the section finished . the bar was the commonest marking , but others were also used . dots sometimes served in place of the bar , and there are cases where spacing is used as it is now used to mark a paragraph ending . frequently paragraphos markings were omitted . C H Roberts is of the opinion that in the original of the fourth gospel some markings would be used , although which , it is impossible to say . Professor E G Turner is inclined to take the view that the original of the gospel would be unmarked . the original of the gospel , whether written on a roll or codex , whether paragraphed or not , would be laid out in columns . this is the invariable practice of ancient manuscripts . a common size of column would hold about one third of a page of Souter &apos;s print . the writing instrument was a stylus , a wedge-shaped pen cut from a reed . the ink was a mixture of carbon black in water with gum Arabic as a solvent . the paper would be papyrus or parchment , and the form of the book a roll or codex . if , twenty years ago , one had asked a scholar what form the original of the gospel would have taken , he would have answered , without hesitation , that the book would have been a papyrus roll . the reason why he would have been so confident is , simply , that the great majority of surviving classical manuscripts are on papyrus rolls . to make a book of this kind , sheets of papyrus were glued edge to edge until a single sheet , often twenty to twenty-five feet wide , had been made . the edge of this sheet was attached to a wooden dowel and the sheet wound round this central pin . the roll made a simple and serviceable book . it was robust - the number which have survived the centuries is ample evidence of this - and it was easily stored . it had two disadvantages . it was generally a single-sided form of book , and it was not an easy form of book in which to find a reference . this last objection might have had some weight in ecclesiastical circles . in his natural history , 13 . 11-12 , the elder Pliny tells of the use of papyrus in roll-making . as Pliny was killed in the eruption of Vesuvius which overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii in A.D 79 , his information is contemporaneous with the new testament . the other form of book was the codex . in this the sheets were bound together down one edge much as they are in modern books . normally the sheets were bound in groups , called quires , and the quires were stitched together to make a book . a common size of papyrus codex page is ten inches by eight inches , the size of quarto paper today , and one hundred sheets make a large book . there are great variations in the codex form ; some have single-sheet quires , but most have multi-sheet quires . some codices were made up of double sheets folded and stitched through the fold . the difference between the codex and the roll is always clear . compared to the roll the codex was more economical ; it was generally written on both sides ; and it was a much easier book in which to find a textual reference . against these advantages the codex was fragile and might be bulky . it is sometimes possible to tell whether or not a particular text was written on a roll or a codex . rolls were prepared for writing , but any papyrus left unused at the end could be cut off . if the text was longer than the roll , a sheet could easily be glued on . the verso of the roll was blank , and one can not think of an author , Mark for example , sending out his gospel lacking the ending , while one whole side of his roll was unused . the codex form was not so accommodating . even in the case of the single-sheet quire , an extra sheet glued on might have to be gummed on over the binding , or the whole codex rebound . 