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. 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.
In art, the Beloved Disciple is portrayed as a youth or beardless—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 13:23-25.
[edit] Identity of the Beloved Disciple
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. 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 Cruxifixion.
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. Some writers even suggest that the Beloved Disciple figure in the Gospel of John is Mary Magdalene, even though Mary is her own figure in the gospel and appears with the Disciple, such as in John 20. The idea of a beloved or special disciple is sometimes evocated in analysis of texts from the New Testament Apocrypha. In the Gospel of Thomas, Judas Thomas is the disciple taken aside by Jesus. In the recently rediscovered Gospel of Judas, Judas Iscariot is favored with privy enlightening information and set apart from the other apostles. In the Gospel of Mary, it is a woman named Mary (likely one of the women named Mary associated with Jesus). 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 fixed as the Beloved Disciple.
[edit] See also
[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.
