JOHN 3:16

Q: Who said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life?” Was it Jesus or John?

Since most of the Greek manuscripts that we have for John's Gospel were written without any punctuation, the answer is mainly a matter of opinion. Thus, KJV, J. B. Phillips, NEB and NAS have all of verses 10-21 in quotation marks, indicating that Jesus said it. But RSV stops the quotation at verse 15, indicating that these words are a comment made by the author, John. Parenthetically there is the same disagreement among translators regarding the exact ending of John the Baptist's comment which begins at John 3:27.

One possible tie breaker is to look for stylistic or thematic features to decide if 3:16 makes more sense in Jesus' mouth or John's. In this particular case, the evidence is mixed.

1. Practically identical statements in verses 15 and 16 indicate that both may be by Jesus.

2. However, the similarity of verses 16 and 36a argue for John as the author of both.

In either case, the comment comes from a reliable source and should be believed.