Sense Perception and Testimony in the Gospel According to John

Book excerpt: In this book, Sunny Kuan-Hui Wang explores the relationship between sense perception and testimony in the Gospel of John. While Johannine scholars tend to focus on one or the other, she shows that sense perception and testimony are both significant and are used together with the intention of drawing readers into the narrative so that they become witnesses in an emotionally engaged way. It is argued that John's use of sense perception together with testimony is rooted in Jewish literature. Yet John also employs a Graeco-Roman rhetorical technique, enargeia , which appeals to the persuasive power of sense perception to make his narrative vivid. John does not downplay sense perception. Rather, he uses it in the context of testimony as a means of persuasion to draw the readers, in their imagination, into the experience of the first disciples and thus deeper into faith and witness.