Proverbial sayings in St. John's Gospel

Abstract

For some time now, scholars have been in virtually unanimous agreement that the Gospel of John once ended at 20:31 and that the entire twenty-first chapter of John represents an epilogue to the original work. Indeed John 20:30-31 has such a concluding character that one would not expect the Johannine narrative to continue beyond the twentieth chapter except for the fact that there is a twenty-first chapter not only in our modern translations of the New Testament but also in the ancient Greek manuscripts and the ancient versions. In fact, there is no external textual evidence whatsoever that the Gospel of John ever circulated without the presence of John 21.