What should we make of John 19:35 and the third-person language of the gospels?

Not every part of the gospels (and Acts, which is a continuation of one of the gospels) is written in the third person (e.g., Luke 1:1-3, Acts 16:10, John 1:14, 21:24-25). But most of the language is third person. Why the third-person language if some of the authors were eyewitnesses?

Acts' Corroboration Of Thomas' Place In John

I want to add a lesser point to what I discussed in my last post. Thomas doesn't have the prominence Philip does in the lists of Jesus' disciples in the Synoptics and Acts. But there is something unusual in Acts that adds some small corroboration to Thomas' somewhat prominent role in the fourth gospel. Notice that Thomas is mentioned sixth, just after Philip, in Acts 1:13. So, there's some pairing of Philip and Thomas outside of John's gospel. They're the two disciples given the most additional attention when moving from the Synoptics to John, and they speak one right after the other in John 14:5-8. We shouldn't expect the lists of the disciples to always have every disciple in the same order. Different ones will come to mind in different orders and in different associations on different occasions. The lists in the Synoptics and Acts have some consistencies, but also some inconsistencies, which is common with lists of names and other kinds of lists in other contexts in life. Still, Acts 1:13 provides an example of not only Philip being somewhat prominent, but also his being remembered alongside Thomas.

Synoptic Corroboration Of Philip's Prominence In John

Some of Jesus' disciples who never speak as individuals in the Synoptics do so one or more times in the fourth gospel. Or they're more prominent in John than in the Synoptics in some other way. And that can be used as an argument against the historicity of the Synoptics or John, typically against John's historicity.

It's not much of an objection, given how selective authors have to be, especially when they're covering as much ground as the gospels do. And we have many examples of such selectivity in other contexts in life in which the historicity of the sources involved is widely accepted. Even in the Synoptics/John context, we know John gave little attention to some themes he surely had heard about and accepted (e.g., Jesus' statements about the kingdom of God, his exorcisms).

But there's a neglected line of evidence in the Synoptics (and Acts) that corroborates the material in John that I'm focused on in this post. All of the lists of the disciples give Philip a somewhat prominent place, just after the foremost disciples (Matthew 10:3, Mark 3:18, Luke 6:14, Acts 1:13). He's always listed fifth. That aligns well with Philip's place in John, where he isn't at the level of Peter or John, but there are a few contexts in which he's prominent.