OwenYounger said
I searched in earlier forum posts and didn’t see a discussion on this, and I apologize if the questions covers old ground. Here’s the question: In the final two verses of John, is the author claiming to have been the same person who was having the conversation with Jesus in the immediately preceding passage? Does this amount to a claim to have been an actual eyewitness to the risen Jesus?  

Dr. Ehrman has addressed the issue on his blog.  Here is what he said:

And then comes the key verse, 21:24. In reference to this beloved disciple, the verse says:  “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.”  This verse is widely taken to mean that the author (the one who “has written” these things) is in fact the beloved disciple.

But in fact, if you look closely at the verse, it says just the *opposite*.  Notice: the “disciple” is the one who testifies and wrote these things, and “we” know that it’s true.  Who is the “we”?  Obviously it is the author and those with him.  The author differentiates between HIM (the beloved disciple) and US (the author).  So the author is decidedly not claiming to be the disciple.  Instead, he is indicating that the beloved disciple, whoever he was, wrote down some of the things that he observed.

What this means, then, is that the Gospel of John does discuss this shadowy figure, the unnamed “Beloved Disciple,” but he does not identify himself with him or speak of him using the first person pronoun.  When the author DOES use the first person pronoun, it is precisely to differentiate himself from the beloved disciple.  So once again, we have a completely anonymous book.

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I agree with Dr. Ehrman here.  The author is not claiming to be the Beloved Disciple.  Rather, the claim of the author or authors is the she/he/they watched the Beloved Disciple beareth witness and write his accounts of the events which are in John.