and said to him, “Are you he who comes, or should we look for another?”
World English Bible
This verse is examined in more than one Scripture Analysis section. Each lens is shown on its own terms, in the section's own words; GEBible reaches no verdict of its own.
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and said to him, “Are you he who comes, or should we look for another?”
World English Bible
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
John 1:29-34 has John the Baptist not only recognize Jesus on sight as "the Lamb of God" but explicitly testify, "I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God." Matthew 11:2-3 and the parallel in Luke 7:18-20 have John, later in his ministry and from prison, send disciples to ask Jesus the basic question: "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?"
Critical scholarship: Widely regarded as a genuine contradiction.
Historical detail
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Matthew 11:2-5 has Jesus point to his miracles — blind seeing, lame walking, lepers cleansed, deaf hearing, dead raised — as the answer to John the Baptist's question whether he is the coming one. John 3:2 has Nicodemus reason backward from Jesus' signs to the conclusion that no one could do them unless God were with him.
Critical scholarship: Genuinely disputed among scholars.
Theology
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Each section sets the viewpoints side by side; you weigh the evidence. Here, "critical scholarship" means academic study, not a value judgment. How this is built →
Within each section, grouped by shared field or question type — not a cross-section comparison.
This citation refers to this GEBible page — the verse and the analysis gathered here. To cite the underlying scholarship, cite those sources directly.
"Matthew 11:3 — Scripture Analysis" GEBible, https://gebible.app/analysis/verse/matthew/11/3?version=WEB (retrieved 27 August 2026).