The Voice that Thundered (John 12:27-29)—Witness and History in the Gospel of John

Gary W. Sneller

Sometimes, biblical scholarship seems to squeeze the life

right out of the Bible. I am convinced that this is not the

intention, but too often that is the result. In its eagerness to

elucidate the text of the Bible, biblical scholarship often ends

up quenching the spirit of the Bible. Thomas Fawcett once raised

a provocative question about the impact that biblical scholarship

has on the “evangelistic presentation” of Christ. In his

critique of biblical scholarship over the debate about the

presence of myth in the New Testament, he pointed out:

For a long time the primary task of the exegete was seenas that of distinguishing between the historical facts in the gospels and the interpretive elements which were embedded in it. For many decades the New Testament scholar was concerned to build up a set of criteria for distinguishing between these two elements. Once this was done, it was believed possible to strip off the accretions of early church thought and to get back to the historical truth concerning the life and words of Jesus. While the scholar’s work was dominated by this perspective, the evangelistic interpretation of the Jesus-event was regarded as largely dispensable in the sense that it was a hindrance to the object being pursued. This meant, however, that those following this path usually ended up with very little indeed. … The Jesus uncovered by the methods of historical empiricism may have been granted historical status, but he was a man whose value for faith must be problematic.1

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In the end, Fawcett concluded, there was not much

“evangelistic Christ” left for contemporary faith. The life was

essentially squeezed right out of the Gospel’s presentation of

Christ. And in Johannine studies, the question of historicity

threatens to squeeze the life right out of the Gospel of John.

1. Scholarly Debate

It once seemed as though the question of the Fourth Gospel’s

historicity had been settled before any debate about the

historicity of the Gospels had even begun. When Clement of

Alexandria (and subsequently, Origen) in the second century

referred to the Gospel of John as “the spiritual gospel” in

contrast to the “somatic gospels” of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the

allegorical nature of the Fourth Gospel seemed to have been

firmly established. For hundreds of years, it was commonly

accepted that the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke

told the actual story of Jesus (with distinctive variations, of

course), while the Gospel of John presented a theological story

about Jesus. This thinking with regard to the Synoptic Gospels

changed dramatically with the Enlightenment. Spurred on by the

ideals of rationalism and critical thinking, biblical scholarship

began to question basic assumptions about the historicity of even

the Synoptic Gospels. Over time, the fortunes of “the quest for

the historical Jesus” in biblical scholarship ebbed and flowed as

the Synoptic Gospels were mined for some golden nuggets of

historical fact about Jesus. But for the most part, throughout

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this quest, the Fourth Gospel was dismissed from consideration

due to its obvious “theological” nature.

And then quite remarkably, the Gospel of John was brought

right into the forefront of the debate. While it is true that

conservative biblical scholarship never conceded the question of

historicity for the Synoptic Gospels and even made claims for

“the historical tradition” of the Gospel of John,2 it was a

liberal scholar, John A. T. Robinson, who was most instrumental

in bringing the Fourth Gospel into the scholarly debate about the

historical authenticity of the Gospel story of Jesus.3

Specifically, he argued that the Jesus tradition contained in the

Gospel of John, while distinct from that contained in the

Synoptic Gospels, was every bit as old as the Jesus tradition in

the Synoptic Gospels and therefore contained “surprisingly good

historical material in its narrative sections.”4 And although

Robinson’s conclusions never gained much traction in general

Johannine scholarship, it helped to create momentum and

legitimacy for conservative scholarship to embark on a new quest

for the historical Jesus incorporating evidence gleaned from the

Gospel of John.5

Today, a review of Johannine literature reveals a great gulf

dividing biblical scholars on the question of historicity and the

Gospel of John. On the one hand, are scholars like John Shelby

Spong (The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic) and Maurice

Casey (Is John’s Gospel True?) who flatly deny any historical

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truth in the Gospel of John; on the other hand, are scholars like

Craig L. Blomberg (The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel),

Richard Bauckham (The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple:

Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John), and

Andreas J. Köstenberger (Encountering John: The Gospel in

Historical, Literary, and Theological Perspective ; John, Baker

Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament) who conclude that the

Gospel of John essentially presents an historically reliable

portrait of Jesus. More common are scholars like J. Louis Martyn

(History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel) and R. Alan Culpepper

(Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel) who use the Fourth Gospel as a

window only into the history of the Johannine community instead

of into the actual life of Jesus. All of these scholars, I am

convinced, are trying to make the gospel text accessible and

believable for modern people. Some by removing (or interpreting

away) from the Gospel story all that seems unbelievable to modern

sensibilities; others by reinforcing the “historical reliability”

of the Gospel story. Yet in the end, something seems to be

missing. The life gets squeezed out of the Gospel.

It is not the purpose of this paper to examine the broad

scope of the debate about historicity in the Gospel of John, but

rather to focus on one particular feature of that debate—the

relationship between witness and history. By doing so, perhaps

we can gain a new perspective on the scholarly debate about

historicity in the Fourth Gospel and a new appreciation for the

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evangelistic presentation of Jesus the Christ in the Gospel of

John.

2. “Witness” in the Gospel of John

It is clearly evident from even a cursory reading the Gospel

of John that the word “witness” plays a very important function

in this Gospel story. The noun “witness” (marturia) is used 14

times in the Gospel of John (only 4 times in the Synoptics); the

verb “to bear witness” (martureo) is used 33 times in the Gospel

of John (only 3 times in the Synoptics).6 Some Johannine

scholars seem to naturally equate “witness” with “eyewitness,”7

especially those scholars seeking to affirm or establish the

“historical reliability” of the Gospel; but, “witness” as it is

used in the Gospel of John has a much richer meaning. Hermann

Strathmann, in his article on the Greek word group,

“martus/martureo/marturia/marturion,” in Kittel’s Theological

Dictionary of the New Testament, points out that the word group

did indeed have its natural setting in the legal sphere where it

was used to refer to “one who can and does speak from personal

experience about actions in which he took part or which happened

to him, or about persons and relations known to him, i.e. a

witness at a trial or in legal transactions of different kinds,”8

and thus also to the act of bearing such witness. In this legal

setting, the word group denoted an objective witness to “facts,”

i.e. something that served as “proof” or something that confirmed

a statement of fact or a commonly-accepted truth.

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But the word group was by no means restricted to the legal

sphere. Outside of the legal sphere, the word group was used in

the sense of a witness to facts in general, also to generally

established truths or views. Thus the word group pertained not

only to “the establishment of events or actual relations or facts

of experience on the basis of personal knowledge,” but also “to

the proclamation of views or truths of which the speaker is

convinced.”9 The word group related both to things

(facts/relations/actions) that can be empirically investigated

and to things (truths/views/convictions) which by their very

nature cannot be submitted to empirical investigation. It

included statements of fact that are observable from without,

plus ethical judgments, expressions of moral conviction or views

not observable from without (except through concrete actions).

It included statements about whether “something is or was really

so,” and statements about “something that is true and valid from

the standpoint of the one who states it.”10

These two complementary understandings of “witness” are

evident in the use of the word group in the Greek Septuagint.

“Witness” is used in the legal sense of attesting agreements or

judgments; but, a particularly religious sense is introduced with

regard to Israel’s witness to YHWH as the one true God and to

God’s saving acts in human history.11 Deeply embedded in the

religious experience of Israel were the realities of YHWH alone

as God and of YHWH’s saving acts in the context of their history

(i.e. human space-time). These realities were regarded as

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“facts”, but not the kind of facts that can be observed and

attested empirically like other externally demonstrable facts.

These were “facts” which are certain only to faith.12 Thus the

content of Israel’s witness to YHWH was a religious truth the

certainty/conviction/proof of which was based on personal

(human) experience, not abstract rational proof or concrete

empirical demonstration.

It is in continuity with this understanding of Israel’s

witness to YHWH and YHWH’s saving acts that John’s usage of

“witness” in his Gospel is best understood. Although John

clearly wants to anchor his story of Jesus in concrete history

(human space-time), his explicit purpose in writing his story of

Jesus is not to confirm the facts of Jesus’ history (i.e. the

historical facts of his life and ministry), but rather to

engender faith in the reader/hearer of his story of Jesus. And

various aspects of John’s telling of the Jesus story seem to

confirm this.

John’s purpose in writing his story of Jesus is explicitly

stated in 20:30-31—“Now Jesus did many other signs in the

presence of his disciples which are not written in this book;

but, these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

Christ, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have

life in his name.” Scholars may disagree about the nature of the

faith that John hoped to bring about through his telling of the

story of Jesus (i.e. whether corrective or evangelistic), but

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engendering belief in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, is

clearly the purpose for John’s telling of his story of Jesus.

This emphasis on engendering belief is evident simply by noting

how often John uses the word “believe” (pistueo) in his Gospel,13

but more importantly, it is evident in the connection between

witness and belief. Throughout the Gospel of John,

witness/testimony is given so that the readers/hearers might

believe in Jesus (and in the One who sent him) and through

believing have life in his name.14

This correlation between witness and belief comes to a climax

in the story of Thomas (20:24-29) who initially refuses to

believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead until he himself

saw and touched the wounds caused by the crucifixion instead of

simply believing the witness of the other disciples. And even

though a week later Jesus gives Thomas the opportunity to see and

touch his wounds, Thomas expresses his belief—“my Lord and my

God” (20:28)— without apparently even touching the wounds.

Jesus’ response to Thomas—“Have you believed because you have

seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come

to believe.” (20:29)—is often understood as a rebuke to Thomas’

unbelief, and in one sense it is, but more importantly, it is an

invitation by Jesus himself to all the readers/hearers of the

witness given in John’s Gospel to believe in him (as presented in

the Gospel story) simply on the basis of the witness given to him

without the actual personal experience of seeing, hearing, and

touching him.

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It is no coincidence that it is immediately after these final

words of Jesus that John closes his Gospel witness with his own

invitation to believe in Jesus (as presented in his Gospel

story). John’s story of Jesus that begins with a mention of the

witness of John the Baptizer, who “came as a witness to the light

so that all might believe through him” (1:6), now comes to a

close with an invitation to respond to the witness presented by

the Gospel of John. The challenge for the reader/hearer of the

Gospel is to believe in Jesus (as presented in the Gospel story)

without actually having seen the “fleshly”15 Jesus which in a way

is ironic for the reader/hearer of the Gospel since 5 times in

the Gospel story John explicitly seems to make an important

connection between seeing, witness, and believing (1:32, 34;

3:11, 32; 19:35). But, throughout his Gospel, John constantly

invites the reader/hearer to “see” in a deeper way, not simply in

a literal way (as an eyewitness). In the end, the story of Jesus

as presented in the Gospel of John is not so much “evidence that

demands a verdict,” but a witness that hopefully evokes a

response of faith.

And John’s rich symbolic language adds to this

understanding. John characteristically uses the word “sign” to

refer to the miracles of Jesus, and rather than a leftover word

from a presumed “signs source,” John seems to intentionally use

this word to invite the reader/hearer of his Gospel to experience

something deeper in these acts. They are not simply unexplained

“miracles” that defy the laws of nature, but truly signs that

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evoke wonder and invite a deeper response than simply, “wow,

isn’t that something amazing.” The way that John weaves his

telling of the signs into dialogue and discourse (encouraging

this deeper understanding for the reader/ hearer) and the way

that John correlates the signs and believing (or not believing)

in Jesus suggests once again that John in his Gospel is not so

much offering “evidence that demands a verdict,” but a witness

that is designed to evoke a response of faith.

The characteristic misunderstandings created by the words of

Jesus also seem to function in this manner. The confusion

created by these misunderstandings not only confounds Jesus’

dialogue partners in the narrative, but the readers/hearers of

John’s Gospel as well inviting the reader/hearer into a deeper

experience of Jesus than that afforded by an objective telling of

the facts of Jesus’ life and ministry (i.e. his words and works).

That deeper experience is a life of faith in Jesus as the Christ,

the Son of God. John’s purpose in telling his story of Jesus is

thus achieved not when the reader/hearer of his Gospel responds:

“Yes, I believe that Jesus said and did those things,” but rather

when the reader/hearer responds: “Yes, I too believe that Jesus

is the Christ, the one whom God sent into the world” and thereby

experiences the life that comes from God in his name. It is also

quite possible that the reader/hearer may respond to the story of

Jesus with unbelief.

The Gospel of John even includes a unique story which

suggests that John himself was well aware that a simple telling

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of the “facts” of Jesus’ life and ministry was not sufficient to

guarantee a response of faith. It is an easily overlooked story

about “the voice that thundered” (12:27-29) that John tells

during the narrative of Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem. Following

John’s telling of the “triumphal” entry of Jesus into Jerusalem

(12:12-19), John writes that “some Greeks” who had come to

Jerusalem to worship at the Passover festival approached Philip

asking to see Jesus. Philip first tells Andrew about their

request and then together Philip and Andrew go to tell Jesus.

Jesus’ response to the request is a characteristic non-sequitur:

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (20:23).

And even though this response in no way addresses the specific

request of the Greeks to see Jesus, for the observant

reader/hearer of the Gospel of John, the announcement that “the

hour has come” for Jesus “to be glorified” signals an important

transition in John’s story of Jesus. Then Jesus immediately

takes his announcement that the hour of glorification has come in

an ominous direction by talking about death (20:24-26) and his

soul is troubled (20:27a). He speaks out of this anguish: “And

what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is

for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify

your name” (20:27b-28a). Then a voice comes from heaven saying,

“I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” And it is

John’s description of the crowd’s response to this “event” that

offers insight into John’s own awareness that a simple telling of

the “facts” of Jesus’ life and ministry was not sufficient to

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guarantee a response of faith—“The crowd standing there heard it

and said that it thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to

him” (20:29). Was it a voice or was it thunder? The same

“event” (apparently “historical” like every other event narrated

in the Gospel) evoked two very different responses. And so it

could be for the reader/hearer of John’s story of Jesus.

A simple telling of the “facts” of Jesus’ life and ministry,

even an accurate and reliable reporting of those “historical”

events, is not sufficient to evoke faith. The “historical” story

of Jesus may be intriguing, it may be compelling, it may even

achieve a measure of scholarly consensus, but unless it evokes

faith, it really only amounts to thunder. John tells his story

of Jesus in a way that is designed to evoke faith. That is his

express purpose. His story of Jesus is not simply a

“historically reliable” report of the words and works of Jesus;

it is a witness to the reality of what John experienced in Jesus

and an invitation to the reader/hearer of his Gospel to

experience that reality as well.16 And if John is successful in

this purpose, then those readers/ hearers in whom faith is evoked

will acknowledge that they too have heard a heavenly voice in the

words of his Gospel and not simply thunder.

3. “History” in the Gospel of John

So, is John’s story of Jesus only fiction, then, and not

historical at all? Of course not! Even though scholars from

both ends of the theological spectrum correctly point out that a

story can present “truth” without it being “historically” real,17

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John is intentional about anchoring his story in concrete human

reality—the life of Jesus (an actual person). This is clear

first of all from the way he tells his story. The framework of

his story is in fact a narrative life of Jesus, not a revelation

discourse or an aretology, and it is a realistic life story from

the perspective of someone who lived in the first century C. E.18

Also, after beginning his Gospel in the ethereal world of the

eternal Word (1:1), John emphatically anchors his story of Jesus

in concrete human reality when he declares that the Word “became

flesh and dwelt/lived/tabernacled among us” (1:14).19

But more importantly, the validity of John’s witness depends

on the human reality of the life of Jesus. Fawcett is correct

when he notes:

The evangelists did not see themselves as creators [i.e.in the sense of making up out of their own imaginations the words and works of Jesus]. On the contrary, they saw themselves as doing no more than bringing out that which was already present in the life and work of Jesus himself. By the power of the pen they attempted to makeup to the reader for the fact that he [sic] was unable to see the glint in the eye of the Master or perceive the glory of God shining in his smile. Unless we are prepared to regard them as charlatans, therefore, we have to recognize a continuity between what Jesus was and what the evangelists portray. We must accept that their work was controlled throughout by two factors. They had to be true both to the empirical facts [i.e. the human reality] of which they bore witness and to theperception of transcendent reality which transformed thelife of many of those who experienced them.20

John’s story of Jesus is valid as a witness only if it is

anchored in something that John actually experienced (whether we 13

agree with his interpretation of that experience or not). But

John is not simply writing an objective, historically-accurate

account (pure history) of what he experienced in order to certify

the reliability of his telling of those events, he is writing in

such a way as to hopefully engender faith in the reader/hearer.

Thus his story of Jesus is inherently “interpreted history”.21

And in a recent book, Tom Thatcher argues persuasively that

John’s own consciousness about “remembering” the words and works

of Jesus (his “theory of memory”) affirms continuity as well

between the actual life of Jesus and John’s witness to it. But

this continuity is nuanced because of John’s purpose in writing

his Gospel. “The Jesus of the Fourth Gospel is an intentionally

historical figure,” Thatcher affirms, but John’s own candid

comments about “remembering” the word and works of Jesus

underscore the impossibility of “going back behind” the Gospels—at least, behind his Gospel—to what historians today would call an “original memory of Jesus,” to a simple recall of his deeds and words that could somehow provide a virtual experience of the “real” person. If such a thing ever existed, it is now gone forever, and comes to us embedded in a combination of recollections, Scriptures, and theological conclusions. It would neverbe possible, in other words, to go backward to a point when raw materials for the Jesus quest were truly “raw.”John would doubtless ask why anyone would want to. And while modern attempts to subtract early Christian interpretation and faith from the extant sources might produce a small pile of factoids, it must be understood that any image of Jesus built from those pieces would not be a “re-creation” but rather an entirely new Jesus—a third phase, Frankenstein Jesus, a Jesus who might speak meaningfully to modern spiritual tourists but who

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should not be confused with the person who lived in Galilee in the early first century.

The Gospels, especially John’s Gospel, will be most helpful in this restoration project when they are viewed as artifacts and relics rather than databases for a forensic memory of Jesus that never actually existed. John’s Gospel invites us … to meditate on the fact that some other person, twenty centuries ago,who lived not long after Jesus died and knew people who claimed to have known him … invites us now to remember Jesus just the way he did, to see the object of our common interest through his own eyes.22

John’s story of Jesus is clearly anchored in concrete human

reality—the life of Jesus of Nazareth, but his story is told in

such a way that it maximizes the possibility that the

reader/hearer will come to the same belief in Jesus as the

Christ, the Son of God, that John has and thereby find fullness

of life that comes from God. A story with the life squeezed out

of it (whether by removing or interpreting away from the Gospel

story all that seems unbelievable to modern sensibilities or by

doggedly reinforcing the “historical reliability” of the Gospel

story) could never accomplish this purpose.

4. Conclusion

The debate about the historicity of the Gospel of John is a

valid scholarly pursuit, but if that debate results in the life

being squeezed out of the Gospel, then that pursuit negates

John’s own express purpose in telling his story of Jesus. John

tells his story of Jesus the way that he does so that the

reader/hearer may encounter the same reality that he experienced,

come to the same faith that he has come to, and find the same 15

life that he has found. His story of Jesus, not simply as

history or fiction, but as a witness and an invitation has

endured throughout the centuries precisely because it has the

power to re-present “the evangelistic Christ” and thereby evoke

faith in the readers/hearers of his Gospel.

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ENDNOTES

1Thomas Fawcett, Hebrew Myth and Christian Gospel, (London: SCM Press, 1973), p. 32.

2E.g., C. H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963).

3John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press and SCM Press, 1976; The Priority of John, (London: SCM Press, 1985).

4Robinson, The Priority of John, p. 296

5Often identified as “the third quest for the historical Jesus.”

6In addition, marturia occurs 7 times in 1 & 3 John and 9 times inthe Apocalypse; martureo occurs 10 times in 1 & 3 John and 4 times in the Apocalypse; marturion also occurs 1 time in the Apocalypse.

7In fact, the word “eyewitness” is found only in Luke 1:2 and 2 Peter 1:16 and in both cases completely different Greek words areused—autoptes and epoptes.

8Gerhard Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament [TDNT] vol. IV, translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids,Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publ. Co, 1964), p. 476.

9Ibid., p. 478.

10Ibid.

11See especially Second Isaiah 43:9-13; 44:7-11. Note the language of 43:10—“You are my witnesses, says the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.”

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12The author of the Letter to the Hebrews superbly captures this thought in 11:1—“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

13Nearly 100 times and over half refer to believing “in Jesus”; compared to 9 times in Matthew, 10 times in Mark, and 8 times in Luke and only two of those instances (Mk 9:42//Mt 18:6; Mk 15:32//Mt 27:42) refer to believing in Jesus and one of those negative.

14Note especially 1:6-7; 19:35, but note also the connection between the “witness” of Jesus’ words/works and believing: 2:1-11; 4:39-42, 46-54; 5:19-24; 7:25-31; 8:21-30; 10:22-39; 11:45-53; 12:37-43.

15I intentionally used the Apostle Paul’s word from 2 Corinthians5:16 because the words “historical” or “earthly” carry too much theological baggage. By the word “fleshly”, I assert that Jesus of Nazareth was an actual human being and not simply a character in a fictional story.

16In this regard, I point to contemporary examples of evangelicalwitness given by many Christians today—not in the sense of proselytizing, but rather, “this is what God/Jesus did for me.”

17E.g. R. Alan Culpepper (Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, p. 236)—“The real issue is whether ‘his story’ can be true if it is not ‘history.’ … The future role of the gospel in the life of the church will depend on the church’s ability to relate both story and history to truth in such a way that neither has an exclusive claim to truth and one is not incompatible with the other.” and Craig L. Blomberg, (The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, footnote 6 p. 22)—“Theological truth may of course be communicated by literary genres across a spectrum from pure fact to pure fiction.”18I find myself in agreement with scholars like N.T. Wright who affirm the historical verisimilitude of the Johannine Gospel

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story of Jesus (i.e. true to first-century Jewish life), but not like Blomberg who is compelled to demonstrate that nearly every word of the Johannine Gospel story corresponds to the actual lifeof Jesus.

19Cf. 1 John 1:1-4—“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life – the life was made manifest and we saw it and testify to itand proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us – that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us;and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing this that our joy may be complete.”

20Fawcett, p. 33.

21Ibid.: “Historical fact and mythological interpretation are indivisibly complementary. There is no pure history, because it would have been meaningless without mythological interpretation. There is no pure myth because history lies at the root of all theevents.” Also, note Merrill C. Tenney, “Topics from the Gospel of John, Part III: The Meaning of ‘Witness’ in John,” Bibliotheca Sacra 132 (July, 1975): 229-241—“Marturia (‘witness’) does not refer primarily to the corroboration of Jesus’ historical existence andworks, though it is so used on occasion (John 15:27; 21:24; 1 John 1:2; 4:14), nor to particular events in the story (except inJohn 19:35). The witness is mainly to the character and significance of His person. The attestation of the factual history is only the first step toward the witness of His significance in the divine revelation and in the reality of experience.” (pp. 229-230) “Testimony of this kind is inescapably a blend of fact and interpretation. The interpretation is not something the witnesses have added on artificially afterwards. Events are already interpreted as we remember them, and really significant events are often memories we ponder over the years as we tell and re-tell them, quite possibly seeing new levels of significance in the process. Of

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course, the Gospels are a mixture of remembered fact and remembering interpretation. But all history that is of any interest at all is a blend of fact and interpretation. We can’t have bare facts.” (p. 241) Scientific research on the human brain and consciousness suggeststhat human perception of reality never has a one-to-one correspondence to actual reality. Our very perception of realityas humans is inherently interpreted. See Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained, (New York: Little, Brown and Company/Back Bay Books, 1992).

22Tom Thatcher, Why John WROTE a Gospel—Jesus, Memory, History, (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2006), pp.166-167.

WORKS CITED

Bauckham, Richard. The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John. GrandRapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007.

Blomberg, Craig L. The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel—Issues and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2011.

Casey, Maurice. Is John’s Gospel True? New York and London: Routledge/Psychology Press, 1996.

Dodd, C. H. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel. New Yorkand Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963.

Fawcett, Thomas. Hebrew Myth and Christian Gospel. London: SCM Press, 1973

Köstenberger, Andreas J. Encountering John: The Gospel in Historical, Literary, and Theological Perspective . Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002; Second Edition, 2013.

______________. John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: MI: Baker Academic, 2004.

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Culpepper, R. Alan. Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel. Philadelphia:Fortress Press, 1983.

Martyn, J. Louis. History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel. Nashville: Abindgon, 1979.

Robinson, John A. T. Redating the New Testament. Philadelphia: Westminster Press and SCM Press, 1976;

_____________. The Priority of John. London: SCM Press, 1985.

Spong, John Shelby. The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic.New York: HarperOne, 2013.

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