You either come to the text with a view of what is and isn’t possible in the world, which won’t allow any fresh evidence - which is not, perhaps, the best way of approaching a book like John, which is all about the challenge of the gospel to all existing world-views - or you come with at least an open mind to new possibilities hitherto unimagined. This isn’t the same as being gullible, or credulous. Nor are the extraordinary stories in the gospels designed, as some seem to have imagined, to portray Jesus as being able to do anything at all, simply for the sake of making a supernatural display. They are there, rather, as moments in the text when the strange glory of the Word-made-flesh shines through, not so much because Jesus can do whatever he wants but because this particular thing is so closely associated with what Israel’s God does at a key moment in Israel’s history. -N.T. Wright, John For Everyone, Vol 1, p.76