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?

Using third-person language to refer to yourself is unusual, but it happens often enough that the unusualness of it can easily be overcome by other evidence. People sometimes use third-person language when referring to themselves orally (e.g., Bob Dole, Donald Trump). It happens somewhat often in written communication as well. See the examples of such use of the third person in ancient sources here. John 21:24 explicitly says that the Beloved Disciple wrote the fourth gospel. The idea that somebody else wrote that verse is unlikely, and if it were true, it wouldn't change the fact that the verse provides evidence for early acceptance of such a use of third-person language. If the verse wasn't written by the author in the third person, then the person who wrote it was providing evidence that other relevant parts of the gospel were written by the Beloved Disciple in the third person. Either way, the verse is evidence in favor of the plausibility of an author writing of himself in the third person. The early and widespread attribution of the first and fourth gospels to eyewitnesses of Jesus provides further evidence that it was commonly understood that authors could refer to themselves in the third person. The gospels include many passages in which Jesus refers to himself in the third person (Matthew 8:20, Mark 2:10, Luke 6:5, John 3:13, etc.). It's unreasonable to suggest that documents approvingly quoting Jesus doing that wouldn't have thought they had the option of doing it themselves.

People shift their language like that in other ways as well. Sometimes an individual will refer to himself in the singular, but occasionally refer to himself in the plural as well, for whatever reason (humility, to share credit with other people, to spread blame to other people, etc.). See this thread for a discussion of the subject, including my post in the comments section on Paul's use of the plural of modesty in 2 Corinthians 10.

Before I get to the reasoning behind the gospel authors' use of the third person, I want to address how we ought to interpret John 19:35. The verse reads:

"And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe."

A traditional reading of the verse, in which the author is the Beloved Disciple, involves some difficulty. It involves a person referring to himself in the third person. That's unusual. But it makes enough sense and it happens often enough to not require much evidence to overcome the difficulty involved.

The alternative reading, in which the author isn't the Beloved Disciple, involves more difficulty. It involves a second individual testifying at the same time as the author, a second individual testifying about the same subject, the first individual being aware of what the second one knows, the second one providing his testimony to communicate something to the first individual's audience ("so that you also may believe"), and the second one having the same sort of motivation the author attributes to himself elsewhere ("that you may believe" in 20:31). A more efficient way of explaining the alignment of the two figures is that they're the same person. Notice the move from the past ("has testified") to the present ("is telling the truth"). Even when one person writes down the testimony of another person, the latter gives the testimony first. The providing of testimony and the writing don't occur at the same time. Even if the gap in time is small, there is a gap. And if the witness has already provided the testimony that's being written down, he probably wouldn't repeat that testimony as the writing is occurring. It could be objected that people sometimes say that somebody is testifying to something in the sense that he testified in the past and presumably stands by what he said in the past and, therefore, can be said to be presently testifying in that sense. It's true that we sometimes use the present tense that way. But that is a somewhat less natural way to take the language, and the author begins the verse by distinguishing between past and present. He made that distinction, and the present tense makes the most sense if the author is the Beloved Disciple. And the author's awareness of what the Beloved Disciple knows makes more sense if the author is that disciple. People have more awareness of their own knowledge than they have of the knowledge of others. We sometimes speak of what other people know, but we more often speak of what we know. The reference to being aware of what the Beloved Disciple knows makes more sense if the author is that disciple. For John 19:35 to speak of two individuals having so much overlap would be more unusual than an individual's referring to himself in the third person. The latter view is the less difficult and preferable interpretation.

If we were to conclude that two individuals are involved in 19:35, the scenario that would make the most sense within that framework is one in which the Beloved Disciple is still alive and is working with the author to produce the fourth gospel. But though such a scenario is different than one in which the author is the Beloved Disciple, it still involves a high view of the gospel's origins, its historical credibility, and so on. So, how much significance is there in appealing to a scenario in which the Beloved Disciple is so highly involved in the gospel without being its author?

We also have evidence for how to interpret 19:35, as well as for the authorship of the gospel more broadly, in the terminology and concepts found in 19:35 (and elsewhere) that are also found in what Jesus says to his disciples in chapters 14-17 (seeing, testifying, etc.). I expect to be saying more about the subject in a future post.

John 21:24 explicitly settles the issue of who the document claims its author is. The author is explicitly identified as the Beloved Disciple. It's likely that 19:35 implicitly communicates what's said explicitly in 21:24.

Why did the gospel authors write in the third person so often? It could have been for more than one reason. Objectivity is a reason often cited for why many ancient authors wrote in the third person. But I think the best explanation in the context of the gospels is in the uniqueness of their subject matter. There was value to identifying themselves to some extent, as every gospel author surely did, not just through material like the "we" passages in Acts and John 21:24, but also through oral reports of authorship that surely accompanied the initial circulation of the documents, document titles, tags attached to the documents, etc. There was reason for the authors to identify themselves to some extent. But there also was reason for them to step aside for the most part. Not only were they writing biographies of somebody else, instead of writing autobiographies, but they also were writing about a supremely important figure, the most significant person who ever lived. Using the third person would be one way, among others, of keeping the focus on him. And the plural of modesty (using "we" rather than "I") that I discussed in a thread I linked above is also relevant. Because of how the early Christians viewed Jesus, writing about him warranted modesty on the part of the author. Referring to yourself in the third person, like using the first-person plural rather than the first-person singular, is one of the forms that modesty could take. A common thread with this kind of language, whether first-person plural or third person, is distancing. And people can want to distance themselves for a wide variety of reasons (avoiding credit for something, avoiding blame, conveying objectivity through detachment, etc.). It's easy to think of multiple reasons why the gospel authors would want to distance themselves, and I think the importance of the person whose biographies they were writing is a likely partial or sole motive.