This is John's testimony, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?"
Confessed and denied not; and he confessed, I am not the Christ ...  The double use of "confessed" derives from the statement in the first clause that there was a confession and the identification in the second clause of what the confession was.  The unique construction reflects Jewish idiom. Thus, Josephus wrote of King Saul, "Saul confessed that he was guilty and denied not the sin."[37]  Numerous little touches like this throughout the Gospel make it absolutely certain that the writer was Jewish.