Disciple whom Jesus loved

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The phrase the disciple whom Jesus loved or Beloved Disciple is used several times in the Gospel of John, but in none of the other accounts of Jesus. In John's gospel, it is the Beloved Disciple who asks Jesus during the Last Supper who it is that will betray him. Later at the crucifixion, Jesus tells his mother "Woman, here is your son"; that he indicates the Beloved Disciple is the common interpretation.^{[citation needed]} To the Beloved Disciple he says, "Here is your mother." When Mary Magdalene discovers the empty tomb, she runs to tell the Beloved Disciple and Simon Peter. The Beloved Disciple is the first to reach the empty tomb, but Simon Peter is the first to enter.^{[citation needed]}

In art, the Beloved Disciple is portrayed as a beardless youth—the figure of the Student—but often mistaken for a woman. He is usually shown in major scenes from the Gospel of John, especially the crucifixion and the Last Supper. Many artists have given different interpretations of John 13 (verses 23-25}, in which the beloved disciple is resting his head against Jesus' chest.

[edit] Identity of the Beloved Disciple

Jesus and the Beloved Disciple, polychromed and gilded wood, c 1320

Since the Beloved Disciple does not appear in any of the other New Testament gospels, it has been traditionally seen as a self-reference to John the Evangelist, and this remains the mainstream identification.^{[citation needed]} An issue is the identification of the Evangelist with John the Apostle; that is, whether the apostle is the same man as the evangelist. (See the authorship of the Johannine works for more information on this unresolved issue.)

In the appendix to the gospel (John 21:24), there is an explicit testimony that the Beloved Disciple is testifying to the accounts told in John's gospel: "It is this disciple who testifies to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true." Hugh J. Schonfield imagined the Disciple to be a highly placed priest in the Temple and unavailable to follow Jesus in his ministry in the north. Schonfield uses this theory to account for the Beloved Disciple's absence in the north and accounts of Jesus' ministry in the Temple during the week before the Crucifixion.^{[citation needed]}

Martin L. Smith, SSJE writes that the author of John's gospel may have deliberately obscured the identity of the Beloved Disciple in order that readers of the gospel may better identify with the disciple's relationship with Jesus:

"Perhaps the disciple is never named, never individualized, so that we can more easily accept that he bears witness to an intimacy that is meant for each one of us. The closeness that he enjoyed is a sign of the closeness that is mine and yours because we are in Christ and Christ is in us."^[1]

Professor Rafael Gyllenberg ^[2] points out that the place on the right hand of Jesus does not belong to a named disciple, who could be proud of his special position. It appears as the author of the Gospel of John uses the anonymous Beloved Disciple to illustrate the words of Jesus in Mark 9: 33-35 and Mark 10:35-45. For the same reason he neglects the sons of Zebedee, who are mentioned only once (John 21:2). Peter cannot be neglected, but even him the author puts down. The Beloved Disciple reminds us of the fact that Peter was not unique. Peter did not sit at the right hand of Jesus during the last supper; he did not follow Jesus to the cross; the news about the empty tomb was not based on Peter's testimony alone, and he did not at first recognize the resurrected Jesus. To teach us that in front of Jesus we are many who can share the intimacy, the author of the Gospel of John needed the anonymous Beloved Disciple to balance the authority of Peter. Contrary to others, the disciple whom Jesus loved does not perish. Those who believed that the Beloved Disciple will not die (John 21:23) were in a sense right. For the Church, the Beloved Disciple is therefore much more important than Peter.

As John's gospel gives the specific figure of the Beloved Disciple such an anonymous title, the title is sometimes given by modern readers to other disciples to emphasize their favor with Jesus.^{[citation needed]}

Some writers suggest that the Beloved Disciple in the Gospel of John really was originally Mary Magdalene, claiming that Mary's separate existence in a few common scenes with the Beloved Disciple, such as in John 20, were later modifications, hastily done to authorize the gospel in the late 2nd century. In the Gospel of Mary, part of the New Testament Apocrypha, a certain Mary who is commonly identified as Mary Magdalene, is constantly referred to as being loved by Jesus more than the others.^[3] In the Gospel of Philip, also from Apocrypha, the same is specifically said about Mary Magdalene.^[4] For example, compare these passages from the Gospel of John and the apocryphal Gospel of Philip:

Philip There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary his mother and her sister and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary (NHC II.3.59.6-11) (Robinson 1988: 145).

John Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said... (John 19:25)

It is said that there is a correlation between these two texts.^{[citation needed]} Arguably it is possible that an early canonical version of the Gospel of John directly influenced later Gnostic traditions. The three women mentioned at the foot of the cross are the exact same women mentioned in Philip, with Mary being Jesus' "companion" or beloved disciple.^{[citation needed]} Clearly the Gnostic text is confused in its grammar, stating that Mary's sister was also Jesus' sister in the same passage, obviously an error.^{[citation needed]}

In 1909, E. G. King wrote a book entitled "The Disciple That Jesus Loved: A Suggestion" which put forward the theory that the disciple was actually the rich young man mentioned in Mark 10:21.

The idea of a beloved or special disciple is sometimes evoked in analysis of other texts from the New Testament Pseudepigrapha. In the Gospel of Thomas, Judas Thomas is the disciple taken aside by Jesus. In the Gospel of Judas, Judas Iscariot is favored with privy enlightening information and set apart from the other apostles. Another more recent interpretation draws from the Secret Gospel of Mark, existing only in fragments. In this interpretation, two scenes from Secret Mark and one at Mark 14:51-52 feature the same young man or youth who is unnamed but seems closely connected to Jesus. As the account in Secret Mark details a raising from the dead very similar to Jesus' raising of Lazarus in John 11:38-44, the young man is identified as Lazarus and associated with the Beloved Disciple.

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] References

• Charlesworth, James H. The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John?. Trinity Press, 1995. ISBN 1-56338-135-4.
• Smith, Edward R. The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved: Unveiling the Author of John's Gospel. Steiner Books/Anthroposophic Press, 2000. ISBN 0-88010-486-4.