Absolem Posted September 16, 2019 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 14 Topic Count: 49 Topics Per Day: 0.02 Content Count: 433 Content Per Day: 0.17 Reputation: 225 Days Won: 0 Joined: 04/25/2017 Status: Offline Birthday: 04/24/1990 Share Posted September 16, 2019 I understand that there is no claim of authorship within the gospel, aside from a confusing verse (24) I'm the final (21) chapter of the gospel. So if this account was written by John, the beloved disciple, why is it written in third person? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GandalfTheWise Posted September 16, 2019 Group: Royal Member Followers: 24 Topic Count: 40 Topics Per Day: 0.02 Content Count: 1,459 Content Per Day: 0.61 Reputation: 2,377 Days Won: 2 Joined: 08/23/2017 Status: Offline Share Posted September 16, 2019 The term illeism is sometimes used to describe referring to oneself in the 3rd person.  It's been long noted in scripture.  In the OT, God often referred to Himself in the 3rd person.   Jesus referred to himself as the "son of man".  Paul's discourse in II Corinthians 12 about a man caught up into heaven is considered by a number of scholars to be self-referential.  Outside of the Bible, it is a somewhat common rhetorical and literary method. Some writers choose 3rd person to avoid constantly interjecting I and me everywhere.  It takes the reader's attention to what is being talked about rather than the author's direct involvement.  I've read and heard various personal testimonies where someone wrote or talked about a topic in the 3rd person and then revealed it was about themselves at the end.  One example is a speaker I heard who was talking about bullying in school.  He started off talking about the out of place kid and the various things others did to that kid.  Then at the end, he revealed he was talking about himself.  He didn't want people focused on feeling sorry for him.  He wanted them focused on the acts and tragedy of bullying which he described in the 3rd person and then by shifting to 1st person at the end, he added much more authority to his presentation.  The author of John's Gospel likely didn't want to draw attention to himself but rather to what he'd seen Jesus do only bringing himself in at the end to point out everything prior was directly witnessed rather than hearsay. My understanding is that the scholarly debate over the authorship of the Johannine books (Gospel of John, 3 epistles of John, and Revelation) is usually focused on the testimony of early church fathers and other such historical evidence as well as internal information in the book rather than the overall choice of 1st or 3rd person for the majority of the book.  If someone is looking for complete and absolute proof of authorship, it doesn't exist.  However, as far as I can tell, the evidence seems consistent with John the son of Zebedee being either the direct author or the source of the material.  2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Absolem Posted September 16, 2019 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 14 Topic Count: 49 Topics Per Day: 0.02 Content Count: 433 Content Per Day: 0.17 Reputation: 225 Days Won: 0 Joined: 04/25/2017 Status: Offline Birthday: 04/24/1990 Author Share Posted September 16, 2019 Then he would be talking about someone talking about his testimony being true. 24:21. That's the only verse that throws me off. I can get the literary method of 3rd person but that verse seems strange even for the method of 3rd person. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnthebaptist Posted September 16, 2019 Group: Non-Conformist Theology Followers: 6 Topic Count: 118 Topics Per Day: 0.06 Content Count: 4,361 Content Per Day: 2.35 Reputation: 2,109 Days Won: 0 Joined: 02/25/2019 Status: Offline Birthday: 02/03/1953 Share Posted September 16, 2019 17 hours ago, Absolem said: I understand that there is no claim of authorship within the gospel, aside from a confusing verse (24) I'm the final (21) chapter of the gospel. So if this account was written by John, the beloved disciple, why is it written in third person? Off the top of my head, because he sees no reason to involve himself in the gospel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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