1. See Udo Schnelle, “Cross and Resurrection in the Gospel of John,” in The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John, ed. Craig R. Koester and Reimund Bieringer, WUNT 222 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 127–51.
2. Andreas J. Köstenberger, “The Seventh Johannine Sign: A Study in John’s Christology,” BBR 5 (1995): 87–103 (92–95).
3. Köstenberger (“The Seventh Johannine Sign,” 97–100), makes several unnecessary judgments regarding the connection between the seventh sign and the death/resurrection of Jesus. First, he inappropriately disassociates the crucifixion from the public ministry of Jesus, relying too strongly on source-critical theories that label chapters 1–12 of the Gospel as the Book of Signs (see Introduction). Second, he assumes the signs point to the crucifixion/resurrection and therefore cannot be included among them. But the signs point not to any single work of Christ but to that which is also accomplished by his person. Third, he defines the signs as “preliminary in nature” and having only a “temporary function” (98). But nothing in the Gospel demands such a definition. In fact, the signs are not best defined temporally but qualitatively, that is, as symbolic anticipations of a greater reality of which each sign is already a part (see comments on 2:11). Fourth, he minimizes the implicit connection between the seventh sign and the purpose statement (20:30–31), the narrator’s personal commentary (see above), even though he clearly assumes the statement works in tandem with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Finally, he suggests that the seventh sign as the death and resurrection would have “appeared inappropriate (if not blasphemous)” to Jesus’s disciples, who would have seen the crucifixion and resurrection as different in kind in their understanding of its salvation-historical and personal uniqueness. While certainly the death and resurrection is the climactic sign and does more than the work of any other “sign,” this does not imply it is not also a visible sign that can and should be understood in light of Jesus’s entire ministry. It not only accomplished what God intended but serves to instruct the disciples thereafter that everything that had been done to him had also been told by him and Scripture long before (see 12:16; cf. 20:9).
4. Cf. Hoskyns, Fourth Gospel, 539.
5. Keener, John, 2:1179.
6. See Jeannine K. Brown, “Creation’s Renewal in the Gospel of John,” CBQ 72 (2010): 275–90.
7. See Augustine, John, 110.6.435. Cf. Did. 14:1; Ign. Magn. 9:1; Barn. 15:8–9.
8. See Keener, John, 2:1180–81.
9. See Barrett, John, 562–63.
10. Paul S. Minear, “ ‘We don’t know where . . .’ John 20:2,” Int 30 (1976): 125–39 (126).
11. It is unlikely that a woman in a first-century context would travel alone at such an hour and to such a place.
12. Minear, “We don’t know where,” 130.
13. Contra Brendan Byrne, “The Faith of the Beloved Disciple and the Community in John 20,” JSNT 23 (1985): 83–97 (86). Cf. Moloney, John, 519; Bultmann, John, 685.
14. Michaels, John, 989.
15. Keener, John, 2:1183.
16. BDAG 767.
17. Rodney A. Whitacre, John, IVPNTC 4 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 473.
18. Cf. Calvin, John 11–21, 193.
19. Cf. Larry Darnell George, Reading the Tapestry: A Literary-Rhetorical Analysis of the Johannine Resurrection Narrative (John 20–21), StBibLit 14 (New York: Peter Lang, 2000), 57–64.
20. Reimund Bieringer, “ ‘They Have Taken Away my Lord:’ Text-Immanent Repetitions and Variations in John 20,1–18,” in Repetitions and Variations in the Fourth Gospel: Style, Text, Interpretation, ed. G. van Belle, M. Labahn, and P. Maritz, BETL 223 (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 609–30 (630).
21. Keener, John, 2:850.
22. Barrett, John, 403.
23. Fausto Salvoni, “The So-Called Jesus Resurrection Proof (John 20:7),” ResQ 22 (1979): 72–76 (74).
24. Chrysostom, John, 85.4.320.
25. Sandra M. Schneiders, “The Face Veil: A Johannine Sign (John 20:1–10),” BTB 13 (1983): 94–97 (96).
26. Ibid.
27. BDF § 459.2; cf. BDAG 1012.
28. Steven A. Hunt, “Nicodemus, Lazarus, and the Fear of ‘the Jews’ in the Fourth Gospel,” in Van Belle, Repetitions and Variations in the Fourth Gospel, 199–212 (208).
29. Augustine, John, 120.9.436; Luther, John, 69:297–98. See Minear, “We don’t know where,” 127–28.
30. Beasley-Murray, John, 373.
31. Wallace, Greek Grammar, 558.
32. Ridderbos, John, 633.
33. Kelli S. O’Brien, “Written That You May Believe: John 20 and Narrative Rhetoric,” CBQ 67 (2005): 284–302.
34. BDAG 189. Cf. Bultmann, John, 685.
35. BDAG 735.
36. The Gospel can use the singular, however, to refer to one particular passage (see 19:37). Some of the suggested references include Psalm 16:10, Hosea 6:2, Jonah 1:17, and Isaiah 53:10–12 (cf. 1 Cor 15:4).
37. Morris, John, 737. Cf. Hoskyns, Fourth Gospel, 540.
38. See N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God 3 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 685.
39. Luther calls the testimony of Scripture “the external Word” of Christ (John, 69:297).