1. 30: And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book:

2. 31: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, he Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

3. (John 20.30–1)

The previous verse to these contains Christ's words to Thomas, ‘because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed’ (John 20.29). Nineteenth-century commentators like Thomas Arnold and William Bright regarded Thomas's seeing Christ, and recognizing him as God, as the fulfilment of the affirmations in the prologue of the Word as God, who is Life and Light (John 1.1–4). Christ's subsequent statement – ‘blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed’ – seems almost to be addressed to the reader, as the final verse of chapter 20 implies (‘that ye may believe’). All this has the effect of rounding off the gospel, and yet there is then chapter 21, which describes how Jesus showed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias and which ends with another, perhaps alternative closing statement: ‘And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.’ As Westcott commented in 1880, ‘It is impossible to suppose that it was the original design of the Evangelist to add the incidents of chapter 21 after the verses which form a solemn close of his record of the great history of the conflict of faith and unbelief in the life of Christ.’ In Westcott's view, chapter 21 was clearly written by the author of the gospel, but is ‘evidently’ an appendix.