There are many Johns in the New Testament, the most prominent of whom are John the Baptist, John son of Zebedee (one of the Twelve), and John Mark, the author of the earliest gospel and the sometime companion of Paul and Barnabas. To this we may add John of Patmos, if he is someone different than John son of Zebedee. We may certainly conclude that John was a popular name among Jews in that era! But which John is the one associated with the Fourth Gospel? And if that John is the same as the Beloved Disciple, why doesn’t the text of the Fourth Gospel indicate this directly? Furthermore, should we assume that the person who wrote the book of Revelation is the same as the person responsible for the Fourth Gospel? And what about the “old man” or “elder” who authored the Johannine letters? Is he any of the above Johns? It’s hard to tell the players here without a program. Let’s begin with a brief orienting summary and then move on to unpack the relevant data.
First, the only New Testament document that specifically mentions a John being involved with it is the book of Revelation. Revelation 1:1 refers to the servant John who received the revelation. Depicted as a prophet or seer, this John—John of Patmos—is never called an apostle or identified with John son of Zebedee. In fact, the majority of scholars who have studied Revelation have concluded with good reason that its language and style are so different from the other Johannine documents that it is unlikely that John of Patmos wrote those other texts.
Second, though this will come as a surprise to some, both the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine epistles are formally anonymous—that is, no author is named within their texts. The superscripts to these documents (by which I mean wording such as “The Gospel according to John,” or “The Second Letter of John”) were added after the fact, probably in the second century, based on ideas that some early Christians had about who may have written these documents. We must bear in mind, however, that these are later guesses, sometimes based on oral tradition, sometimes not. Nothing in the documents themselves indicates that John son of Zebedee is the author. In fact, the Fourth Gospel suggests that it may have been penned by the Beloved Disciple, who is not mentioned until John 11 or perhaps John 13. The Johannine epistles give us only a slight clue to authorship, calling the author “the old man” or “the elder,” but the majority of scholars are convinced that these letters are close enough in style and substance that they seem to go back to the same person who wrote the Fourth Gospel—the Beloved Disciple apparently.
There are a variety of good reasons to think that this author is not John son of Zebedee, not the least of which is that the Fourth Gospel leaves out all the special Zebedee stories we find in the synoptics involving events that John was a special eyewitness of (for example, the raising of Jairus’s daughter, the transfiguration, and the request for special seats in the kingdom). Yet there is a strong stress in the Fourth Gospel on the author being an eyewitness of other events in the life of Jesus. The most reasonable conclusions are the following: (1) John of Patmos wrote Revelation but not the gospel or epistles of John; (2) the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine epistles were not written by John son of Zebedee either; (3) rather, those documents were penned by the Beloved Disciple, who is someone else—a Judean disciple of Jesus, as we shall see.
Now let’s unpack these ideas a bit more. Bear in mind that we are dealing with a mystery wrapped in an enigma, to borrow an old phrase. We must look closely at this question of who the Beloved Disciple may be and which parts of the Johannine corpus he may have generated. The urgency of doing so should be clear: whatever else one can say, he was an intimate of Jesus and of Mary. We are clearly in the inner circle and the inner sanctum of Jesus when we are dealing with him.
I use the word “him” advisedly. Some have conjectured that the reason for the anonymity here is that the Beloved Disciple was a woman—specifically, Mary Magdalene. The problem with this conjecture is that it crashes on the hard rocks of the text of John 19:25–27, which names both Mary Magdalene and separately the Beloved Disciple, who is called Mary’s “son,” standing at the foot of the cross. In addition, we know that the Beloved Disciple was someone who hosted the meal recounted in John 13 and reclined with Jesus on a couch. In early Jewish society, which was a very stratified culture with specific male-female boundaries, a woman could not have reclined with Jesus. Indeed, women were not likely to be reclining at this meal at all, even separately; if traditional Jewish protocol was being followed, they were more likely to be serving.147 Finally, most scholars think that the Johannine epistles were written by the same person who was identified as the source of the Fourth Gospel materials, who called himself an old man or male church elder (ho presbuteros). Clearly this person was not a woman.
An equally unfruitful conjecture is that the Beloved Disciple was an ideal figure of a disciple, not a real person. This theory also crashes on the hard rocks of John 19:25–27, which says that Jesus turned over his mother to this quite specific person; and again, Jesus reclined at table with this person. Furthermore, John 21 suggests that this person was fishing with Peter in Galilee on one occasion when Jesus appeared. No, this is not an ideal figure of a disciple; it is a real person whose community dubbed him the Beloved Disciple, though as noted above, at the time of the epistles he called himself simply an old man or elder. Who then could he be?
JOHN OF PATMOS AND THE JOHANNINE CIRCLE
It is important in a historical study like this to move from the more certain to the less certain, so we will begin with John of Patmos. As the vast majority of scholars recognize, Revelation is not a pseudonymous document. Its author identifies himself at the beginning of the work as someone named John. But which John? Later Christian tradition identified him as John son of Zebedee, but this notion developed at least a half century after Revelation was written (the earliest possible witnesses are Justin Martyr and Irenaeus from the mid and late second century, respectively—Justin, Dial. 81.4; Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 4.20.11) and during an era when connecting sacred documents to apostolic witnesses was considered crucial, especially if such documents were to be given some sort of canonical status.148 There was an urgency on the part of the orthodox to connect the Fourth Gospel to one of the Twelve or an eyewitness, especially because the Gnostics liked this Gospel too much.
How then does the author actually identify himself? At the outset John claims to be a visionary and a testifier and a servant. If that latter term was intended to carry the fuller resonance it sometimes does in the Old Testament prophetic corpus, in the Pauline writings, and elsewhere, he is claiming also to be a prophet. References in Revelation 10:11 and 22:9 make it apparent that this is the way the author chiefly views himself. In short, the author is John the seer, who offers up prophetic testimonies and proclamations.
The discussion of which John this might be has been necessarily complicated by the attempt to try to figure out the interrelationships among all the writings that came to be associated with the name John, only one of which—Revelation—explicitly names its author John. Linguistic study of these writings makes it quite unlikely that these five documents were all written by the same person. These differences were noticed as early as the middle of the third century by Dionysius of Alexandria, who was then quoted favorably by Eusebius. Various differences in diction, for example, rather strongly favor the conclusion that the person who produced the final form of Revelation did not also author the other Johannine documents, which among themselves are similar. Yet it is also true that there are terms like Logos that are applied to Christ only in the Fourth Gospel and in Revelation. In addition, there are passages that reveal similarities of diction and usage between those two works.149
The question, then, is how to explain the similarities as well as the differences between these works. While a person’s style does evolve over time, a total change in style and usage is most unlikely. And that’s the sort of change we’re talking about. The gospel is written in rather plain and simple Koine (a common form of Greek), whereas Revelation uses a vocabulary that is complex and a syntax that is often prolix.150 For example, one out of every eight words in Revelation is a word found nowhere else in the New Testament. Only some of this can be explained by the different subject matter in Revelation and the Fourth Gospel and Epistles.151 On the whole, then, this internal evidence strongly favors the conclusion that the person who wrote Revelation did not also write the Fourth Gospel or the epistles. Nonetheless, John the seer apparently has some sort of relationship with those who wrote the rest of the Johannine corpus and/or with their communities.
In my view John the seer is a prophet from the Johannine community operating at a time when there was no apostolic presence left in that community. (See, for example, Revelation 22:14, which views apostles as a foundation of the church, apparently in the past.) Were this man John son of Zebedee, it would be passing strange that he does not identify himself as an apostle or as an original disciple of Jesus in the letter portion of Revelation, where credentials would have contributed to the rhetorical establishment of the author’s authority in relationship to his audience. Nor does he identify himself as the old man/elder, as the author of the epistles does. In fact, there is nothing in Revelation that establishes John’s personal authority. His vision has the authority of a revelation from Jesus for which John is the mouthpiece—which is to say, he reflects the derived authority of a prophet. This leads to two conclusions: John of Patmos is not likely John son of Zebedee; and it is even less likely that he is the Beloved Disciple or the old man/elder of the Johannine epistles.
THE OLD MAN AND THE BELOVED DISCIPLE
It seems unlikely that the Beloved Disciple is the same person as John son of Zebedee. I come to this conclusion because the Fourth Gospel has all sorts of unique traditions about what Jesus did in Jerusalem and its environs; and yet it has none of the special Zebedee Galilee traditions we find in the synoptic gospels, as noted earlier, nor does it have the synoptics’ Galilean miracle tales (with the exception of the tandem feeding of the five thousand/walking on water).
Since the John to whom tradition attributed the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine letters was not specified, there was considerable controversy in the early church about whether John the elder was the same person as John son of Zebedee. Even as late as the time of Eusebius, it was debated whether 2 John and 3 John should be included within the canon because of their author’s old man/elder designation,152 whereas the Fourth Gospel and 1 John were not disputed in this way, it having been assumed they were penned by John the apostle, son of Zebedee. In fact, we can go well after the time of Eusebius and hear Bede in the eighth century still saying about 2 and 3 John, “Some think that this and the following letter are not of John the Apostle but of a certain John the Presbyter, whose tomb has been pointed out in Ephesus up to the present day. Indeed, Papias, a hearer of the Apostles and bishop in Hierapolis, frequently mentions him in his works. But now the general consensus of the church is that John the Apostle also wrote these letters.”153
The problem with this entire debate is that it is hard to deny that the vocabulary and style of the three letters is similar enough to suggest a common author, and at the same time there is enough similarity between the gospel and especially 1 John to suggest a common author or source for these documents as well. Some have argued that the style of the Johannine epistles places these letters into the category of an assumed higher style chosen for some particular rhetorical aim or end, but in my view that is not the case. That there is rhetoric, and indeed rhetoric of some finesse, is clear. However, the letters should not be seen as examples of “speech in character,” as if the writer were speaking in someone else’s voice. In other words, the style appears to be genuine, not a matter of artifice, and so it tells us something about the author.
The “old man” speaks for himself quite clearly and directly. He sees himself as an authority figure who can address both local and more remote congregations in a definitive way. It is my view that these letters provide us with a glimpse of the author and his view of his audiences probably sometime in the 80s. The elder, or old man, is addressing congregations that are experiencing serious internal difficulties and that are familiar with many of the traditions later (perhaps in the early 90s) enshrined in the Fourth Gospel. At a still later date—in the middle 90s and during the reign of Domitian—John of Patmos was to address some of these same communities, drawing on the Johannine tradition in some respects, but making his own modifications.
Let’s assume, then, that the same person wrote both the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine epistles, and that he’s a different man than both John son of Zebedee and John of Patmos. Now the question becomes, Is the elder the Beloved Disciple?
To answer that question, we have to know more about the Beloved Disciple. Most scholars will say that he is first mentioned directly in John 13:23, where he’s depicted as reclining next to Jesus at the meal mentioned earlier. This has also led to the conclusion that he must be one of the Twelve, since this is the Last Supper meal—or is it? We have here nothing like the so-called words of institution: “This is my body…. This is my blood.” In fact, we are told in John 13:1 that this meal transpired before the beginning of the Passover festival—in other words, earlier in Holy Week. Prior to this meal, the last meal mentioned that Jesus took was at the house of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha in Bethany, just outside of Jerusalem. John 12:2b, which tells of that early meal, reads very much like John 13:23. There is another important connection between the meal at that household and the meal in John 13. The latter account refers to “the one whom Jesus loved.” It is incorrect to say that this is the first time in this gospel that such a phrase has come up. We in fact find it on the lips of Mary and Martha in John 11:3: they importune Jesus, begging him to come because “the one whom you love is ill.” Can this be mere coincidence? Since the author of these gospel traditions tends to do nothing by accident, and much that he writes is highly symbolic, I doubt it. If we link John 11:3 with John 12:2b and 13:23 in that order (which is how the texts would have been heard, since this gospel was used as an oral narrative to proclaim the Good News), it seems more than reasonable to conclude that our author indirectly tips his hand here: when he refers to “the Beloved Disciple,” he means Lazarus, a Judean disciple.
This conclusion explains much about this disciple and this gospel. Lazarus had a close, indeed intimate, relationship with Jesus such that he was singled out as one whom Jesus especially loved, but he was not one of the Twelve. Rather, he was a Judean eyewitness of Jesus’s ministry. This conclusion also explains why it is that this gospel is bereft of so many of the Galilean miracle accounts and various other Galilean tales. Instead we have Judean miracle tales about the man born blind, the man at the pool of Siloam, and of course the raising of Lazarus. And of course, if the Beloved Disciple is the one who took Mary into his own home, we know now how he learned of the Cana miracle tale: from Mary herself. But there is more.
This person had direct access to the house of Caiaphas the high priest, so that he could follow Jesus in after his arrest, as John tells us in 18:15.154 Would a Galilean fisherman have had such access, or is it more probable that a Judean follower of Jesus—one who lived in the vicinity of Jerusalem—would? Surely in terms of historical probabilities the latter is more likely. Consider as well the fact that the synoptics are quite clear that while the Twelve had deserted Jesus and were not present at his crucifixion, the Beloved Disciple is clearly there near the cross. If those accounts are right, then the Beloved Disciple cannot be one of the Twelve. Or again consider the tradition suggested in John 21:22–23 that the Beloved Disciple would not die until Jesus returned. Surely such a tradition would be more likely to arise about a person who both had been raised from the dead by Jesus and had lived to a considerable old age. On the basis of cumulative evidence, I conclude that it is likely that the Beloved Disciple was a Judean eyewitness and disciple of the ministry of Jesus, who could testify to what Jesus said and did, particularly when he was in the vicinity of Jerusalem; and the most likely candidate to be this disciple is the one whom John 11:2 says Jesus especially loved—Lazarus.
CRY FOR THE BELOVED DISCIPLE (JOHN 11:1–44)
We are now in a position to review data from the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine epistles to see what more we can learn about this intimate of Jesus, beginning with John 11.155 In the following chapter we will consider the Beloved Disciple’s later ministry in Ephesus and its environs, but here we must focus on the gospel tales.
The story of the raising of Lazarus in John 11 is the climax of the so-called book of signs—that is, the first half of the Fourth Gospel, which records the seven sign miracles. This climax is no surprise at all if the person raised is the author of the traditions in this gospel. He would naturally include (indeed highlight) his own story in the narrative. In addition, this narrative deliberately foreshadows what will happen to Jesus, not only in the death and resurrection of Lazarus but also in the anointing of Jesus, which foreshadows his burial. We have met Lazarus’s sisters elsewhere in the Lukan narrative, in Luke 10:38–42, and that earlier characterization matches up remarkably well with the portrayal here. We know, then, that this was a Judean family of Jesus’s disciples with whom he had a special relationship.
The Lazarus account is the longest continuous narrative in this entire gospel, which makes sense if it is a firsthand report from the author and his family about what happened. It is also the most miraculous of the sign narratives. The story begins on an ominous note. Lazarus, the one whom Jesus loves, is very ill, so Mary and Martha send a messenger pleading for Jesus to race to Bethany. Their message to Jesus—“He whom you love is ill”—is as open-ended as Mary’s announcement to Jesus that the folks in Cana have run out of wine (compare 11:3 and 2:3). Likewise, Martha’s later statement that God will grant whatever Jesus wishes parallels Mary’s instruction to the servants in Cana: “Do whatever he tells you” (compare 11:22 and 2:5). In both stories the hope is that Jesus will find a way to act despite the apparently hopeless nature of the situation. Just as the best wine was saved for last in John 2, so here the best miracle is saved for last. Just as Jesus brought new life to the wedding party celebrating the union of two lives, so here he brings new life quite literally and reunion to a family he has known and loved. But it is one of the major themes of this gospel that Jesus can act only when the Father gives him the go-ahead, not when a human being—whether his mother, a brother, or a disciple—importunes him. Thus, while it may appear that Jesus is unfeeling toward someone he is said to love, in actuality he is simply obeying the Father’s directives.
The case of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus demonstrates that there were stay-at-home disciples of Jesus from the first; not all the disciples traveled with Jesus. But Jesus was in their home on more than one occasion, as Luke 10 and John 12 show. Nonetheless, Lazarus is introduced as a new character in the narrative in John 11:1–44, though the audience is expected to know who Mary is: “the one who anointed the Lord with perfume.”156 Almost immediately Lazarus is named as the one whom Jesus loved—the only male disciple in this entire gospel to be so singled out by name as one whom Jesus loved. This fact is so striking that we have to account for it.
This story is filled with pathos. Not only do Mary and Martha lose Lazarus, but they may also lose their right to the property they have been inhabiting. Males were normally the heirs of all property in that culture, in order to keep it in a particular kin group. The focus of the story, though, is on the faith response (or lack thereof) of Mary and Martha.157 We are not told what illness Lazarus suffers from, but it proves to be fatal.158
Jesus, hearing that Lazarus is ill, makes the astonishing pronouncement that it is for God’s glory. What he seems to mean is that God will use this occasion to reveal his life-giving and powerful nature. In any event, Jesus remains two more days where he is before announcing that he is going back to Judea. His disciples are dismayed, for they fear the Jewish officials there.159 Thomas finally says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” The portrait of Thomas here comports with what we find later in John 20. He is skeptical and lacks faith. His response to Jesus’s announcement should not be seen as an indication of courage.
When Jesus finally arrives in Bethany (which is described as two miles from Jerusalem), Lazarus has already been in the tomb for four days. This is significant because some early Jews believed that the spirit of the deceased departed after three days, and at that juncture there was no hope of resuscitation.160 We are then told that many Jews (again, likely a reference to Jewish officials) had come to mourn with the family. This and the story in John 12 about anointing Jesus’s feet with costly nard both suggest that we are dealing with a family of considerable social status, well known in Jerusalem, which comports with the Beloved Disciple knowing Caiaphas the high priest. Grieving would normally go on for about a week after someone of importance passed away. Thus this process is still in full swing on the fourth day after Lazarus has died, when Jesus arrives.
It is interesting that the two sisters have the same lament, almost word for word, for Jesus: “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” Martha adds, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” This faith statement should not be taken to mean that Martha is expecting Jesus to raise Lazarus on the spot. Rather, she expects perhaps a promise that he will be raised with the righteous on the last day. This becomes clear when she objects to Jesus having the tomb opened, as there will be a foul odor of the decaying corpse. Early Jews did not have the embalming arts that Egyptians did. They simply used spices in the winding sheet to retard the odor, especially during the mourning period. But here the tomb is already sealed up with a stone, meaning that no one is attending to or visiting the body at this juncture. The objections of the sisters reflect the fact that they do not yet understand that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Contact with Jesus produces miraculous results, even for a man four days dead.
The theme of Jesus’s great love for this family is continued as Jesus weeps (apparently in part over the lack of faith of those around him). Nevertheless, whether the faith exhibited is weak or lacking in this case, Jesus will act; and he raises Lazarus. Not surprisingly, the response to Jesus’s great miracle is mixed—some put their faith in Jesus, and some go to the officials, precipitating the council that leads to Jesus’s arrest, trial, and execution. The raising of Lazarus is apparently the straw that breaks the camel’s back for the officials.
This leads to a further point. Skipping ahead again to Caiaphas’s house on the day of Jesus’s arrest, if the man mentioned there with Peter is in fact Lazarus, we can understand why he is there. It is talk of his own resuscitation that has led to the arrest of Jesus, and perhaps he is seeking to head off disaster. He is known to the high priest, after all. Perhaps he has even heard rumors of a plan to try to kill him (that is, Lazarus) as well, as John reports in 12:10—the ultimate irony. But what sort of plan could it be to execute a man who had been raised from the dead, as if death could put a stop to what Jesus was doing?
Some have objected that Lazarus could not have been the man who went to the high priest; they claim that a former dead man would not have been allowed into Caiaphas’s house, especially if it was leprosy (see Mark 14:1–3) that killed him. But that objection is unwarranted. A good Jew would rid himself of a state of ritual uncleanness by going through the mikvah, the ritual purification bath, offering a sacrifice, and asking a local priest to certify that he was “clean” and free of disease or unclean spirits. We may presume that Lazarus, being a good Jew, went through these steps; and since he lived near Jerusalem, we may assume that the priest in question had passed on this information to the high priest in Jerusalem.
BANQUETING WITH THE DEAD (JOHN 12:1–11)
The story of the meal in John 12 begins as though it’s a separate tale (“Six days before the Passover Jesus arrived in Bethany, where Lazarus lived…”), and so it probably is. In all likelihood the placement of the Lazarus story is theological rather than chronological: it provides a fitting climax to the narration of the sign miracles and aptly foreshadows what will transpire with Jesus. This then means that the meal takes place some considerable time later than the raising. The meal is in fact said to be given in Jesus’s honor, not as a celebration of Lazarus’s raising. Still, the gospel writer pointedly remarks that Lazarus is reclining at table with Jesus, a comment that prepares us for the Beloved Disciple reclining with Jesus at what many assume to be the Last Supper in John 13:23. Now, it is important to note the protocol for such banquets, the pecking order that determines where the guests sit: the host normally reclines on the couch with or next to the chief guest. This strongly suggests that the Beloved Disciple is the host at the meal depicted in that later account, meaning that it takes place in his home—that is, in the home of a Judean disciple, not a Galilean one.
But back to John 12:1–11, which includes not only a shared meal but the anointing of Jesus by Mary. This story is more circumstantial than other anointing stories in the New Testament, and it names the woman who anointed Jesus—Mary of Bethany. The other stories include a Markan account that looks to be an abstraction from the original eyewitness tale (which we find here) and a Lukan account that relates a different sort of anointing at a different house by a different woman—a sinful one.161
The irony in this story is thick, for Jesus in effect interprets Mary’s act as anointing him for burial as he sits next to the man he just raised from the dead! Mary here takes the role a servant would normally play. Anointing a person’s feet was done for hygienic purposes, to keep the skin from cracking due to the heat, and it was an especially welcome gesture of hospitality. However, in our story, Mary has chosen not to use ordinary olive oil but rather nard, an expensive perfume, the ancient equivalent of Chanel No. 5.162 It was something someone would normally use in small quantities only, and certainly not for anointing feet. Mary uses a whole pound—much more than she needs to use. So her gesture is meant to be seen as an extravagant act rather than a normal act of hospitality. It is a gesture of great love, and presumably gratitude for what Jesus did for Lazarus. When Judas Iscariot complains about the waste, Jesus deflects his criticism by making the novel suggestion that Mary is anointing Jesus in advance for his burial. This is the probable meaning of “Leave her alone; let her keep it,” since the ointment itself has all been poured out.163 This burial comment more closely links the story of Lazarus, sitting next to Jesus and recently out of the tomb, with Jesus, soon to enter a tomb.
For our purposes the importance of this narrative is twofold. First, it demonstrates the ongoing relationship of Jesus with this Bethany family, whose home he was in on more than one occasion. This is a family Jesus cared greatly about, an intimate part of his family of faith. Second, as noted earlier, this story establishes Lazarus as one who reclines with Jesus at meals, which prepares us for the Beloved Disciple reference in John 13. John 11 (the account of Lazarus’s raising) prepared us for John 13 by naming Lazarus as one whom Jesus loved—the only male so named in this gospel. Now John 12 further prepares us by indicating that their relationship included sharing a couch in a dining setting. We then have the two clues we need for the story in that next chapter.
THE LONG FAREWELL (JOHN 13–21)
One of the objections, perhaps the major one, to seeing Lazarus as the Beloved Disciple is that John 13:23 does not mention him by name. This is not a very compelling objection for the very good reason that we know not only that the Beloved Disciple is the one whose memoirs are enshrined in this eyewitness gospel testimony but also that he was not responsible for the final compiling and editing of his memoirs. Other references make this abundantly clear. Notice, for example, how the Beloved Disciple is spoken of in the third person in John 19:35: “The man who saw this has given testimony, and his testimony is true.” This would be a strange way for Lazarus to speak of himself. Or again in John 21:24 even more clearly: “This is the disciple who testifies to these things and wrote them down. We know his testimony is true.” Who is the “we” here? Clearly it is someone or some ones distinguishable from the Beloved Disciple. The most reasonable conjecture is that “we” is the community of which this man was later a part and that it assembled his testimony after he died.
It is quite believable that that community, in love and reverence for their founder, called this man the Beloved Disciple; it is much more difficult to believe, with all that Jesus said about servanthood and humility, that there was a disciple who singled himself out with the title “the one whom Jesus loved [best or most].” In other words, phrases such as “the one whom Jesus loved” and “the other disciple” weren’t self-references; they were ways that this community referred to their founder. Lazarus, on the other hand, identified himself simply as Lazarus. This gospel in various ways reflects both the original source, Lazarus—as well as redaction by a later hand (something we see, for example, in the advance reference to Mary’s anointing in John 11:2). And perhaps we know who gathered Lazarus’s memories and edited them—John of Patmos when he returned to Ephesus after Emperor Domitian died. This would explain why this gospel was labeled in the second century as written by an elderly John.
The good historian will do his best to account for all the data with an adequate theory. In my view, the theory that best incorporates the data suggests that Lazarus, the Judean disciple, is the source of this gospel material, some parts of which reflect his hand more directly than others, and that someone else edited and preserved the traditions he wrote down—perhaps John of Patmos. Bearing these things in mind, we can now look at the rest of the stories about the Beloved Disciple through the eyes of the community—as they saw him playing a crucial role during the last week of Jesus’s life, at the cross, at the empty tomb, encountering the risen Jesus. It was these things that equipped him to bear witness to Jesus, even though he was not one of the Twelve. (In this respect he was somewhat in the position of Paul, who likewise never claimed to be one of the Twelve.) Indeed, in due course, the Beloved Disciple was to call himself the old man/elder, as suggested earlier.
John 13:21–27 is a very interesting story, because it suggests that the Beloved Disciple is one of Jesus’s confidants, one whom the others trust to ask Jesus the awkward question of who will betray him, and one to whom he directly entrusts the information that the betrayer is Judas. The portrayal of the Beloved Disciple in this account is tender. He is said to recline on Jesus—indeed, to recline on Jesus’s bosom—and this surely recalls John 1:18, where Jesus himself is said to be in the bosom of his Father. This disciple is much like his master. G. R. Beasley-Murray observes, “The Evangelist introduces the Beloved Disciple as standing in analogous relationship to Jesus as Jesus to the Father with respect to the revelation he was sent to make known; behind this gospel is the testimony of the one who was ‘close to the heart’ of Jesus.”164
If one envisions that the Beloved Disciple is introduced here to the audience, it is certainly not likely that he should be seen as synonymous with John son of Zebedee. The outsider hearing this tale would never have guessed that identification, whereas if he had already heard John 11–12, he might well guess it was Lazarus. This story suggests that the Beloved Disciple is from Judea, if he is the host of this meal, which is why he reclines with Jesus. Notice that nothing in John 13 suggests that this is a meal confined to the Twelve and Jesus. Indeed, the host of a Passover or earlier festival meal would normally be present with those who were feasting in his house. But which of the Twelve had a house in Jerusalem? Fishermen from Galilee are unlikely candidates.
We do not hear of this disciple again until John 18:15–16, where Peter and “another disciple” follow Jesus into Caiaphas’s house. That he is the same person as the Beloved Disciple is made perfectly clear in John 20:2, where Mary Magdalene runs to Peter “and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved.” What is interesting about the portrayal here and in John 20–21 is that the Beloved Disciple comes across as being more in the know than Peter, having more contacts and recognition in Jerusalem than Peter, being closer to Jesus than Peter, being less problematic than Peter, not denying Jesus like Peter, not needing to be restored like Peter, and knowing how to get to Jesus’s tomb faster than Peter. Taken together, we may see this portrayal as an attempt by the later Johannine community to help legitimize itself, even though their founder was not one of the Twelve. That he is nonetheless a disciple is implied in 18:17, where Peter is asked, “You are not also one of his disciples, are you?” Though Peter denies Jesus, the Beloved Disciple never does—indeed, among the men he is last at the cross and first at the empty tomb.
In our study of Mary, we already examined John 19:25–27 (which puts Mary and the Beloved Disciple near the cross) so we need not traverse that ground again, but here we can say that Jesus’s decision to entrust his mother to the Beloved Disciple showed extraordinary trust in the man from Bethany. Jesus’s trust speaks volumes about his friend. He was not only the one whom Jesus loved; he was the one whom Jesus trusted with his other loved ones.
John 19:34–35 brings us once more in contact with our man. This time he is depicted as one who saw the piercing of Jesus’s side and watched the blood and water flow forth. This is interesting in light of the later reflections we find in 1 John 5:6–9, a passage we will take up in the next chapter. This scene is important because it bears witness to the true humanity of Jesus; he is no apparition on the cross, a theme heavily stressed in 1 John.165 Here our man is depicted as reflecting on the mystery and meaning of the Passion of Jesus, and he affirms that his testimony about this event is truthful. In subsequent verses he notes that it was he who understood, perhaps later under the guidance of the Spirit, how scripture was being fulfilled in what was happening to Jesus on the cross.
Not only is the Beloved Disciple, unlike the Twelve and the brothers of Jesus, present when Jesus dies; he is also the one, along with Peter, to whom Mary Magdalene comes running to announce the empty tomb in John 20:2. Hearing the news, he outruns Peter to the tomb, though Peter enters the tomb first. Neither of these men sees the angelic presence that Mary will see, but the text tells us that the Beloved Disciple “saw and believed” (20:8). But believed what?
The next verse says quite explicitly that the disciples did not yet understand from the scriptures that Jesus must rise from the dead. Is the Beloved Disciple being depicted here as believing in the resurrection of Jesus on the basis of the evidence of the empty tomb rather than on the basis of scripture? Various scholars have thought so.166 It is more likely, however, that what is meant is that the Beloved Disciple believed that Jesus’s life had come to an orderly conclusion and that Jesus, perhaps like Elijah, was being taken up into the presence of God. Had Jesus not previously spoken of being taken up into the presence of the Father? Unlike Mary Magdalene, the Beloved Disciple does not suspect that the body has been stolen or moved somewhere. He simply goes home trusting all is well, as 20:10 suggests.167
We encounter this disciple one final time in John 21:7, in the account where Jesus appears to the disciples as they are unsuccessfully fishing (an account we looked at in our earlier discussion of Peter). The Beloved Disciple hears Jesus call to them from the shore and says to Peter, “It is the Lord!” He is not named in 21:1, which lists a number of fishermen by name and adds that “two other disciples” are present. The Zebedees are mentioned together not separately in that list, and no attempt is made to connect the reference to them in verse 1 to the reference in verse 7 to the Beloved Disciple. In fact, this is the only clear reference to the Zebedees in the whole gospel! This certainly suggests that the Gospel of John was not written by John son of Zebedee—especially since John 21 is a epilogue, likely added later to the bulk of the Johannine stories.
It is likely, then, that our author is one of the two unnamed disciples referred to in verse 1. Verse 7 depicts the Beloved Disciple as a person who recognizes the voice of Jesus, as every good disciple is said to do—only here he is the only one who does so (cf. John 10:4). The story thereafter focuses primarily on the restoration of Peter, though the Beloved Disciple comes up again in verses 20–23, a passage that we will consider later. It seems likely, given those later verses, that this chapter was added to this gospel material to clear up how it could be that the Beloved Disciple had died and yet Jesus had not yet returned. One can see how such a question would arise if Lazarus was the Beloved Disciple and Jesus had raised him from the dead. Surely (the thinking would be) he would not have died again before Jesus came back. I will say more about this at the conclusion of the next chapter.
WHAT WE’VE LEARNED AND WHAT THAT KNOWLEDGE TELLS US ABOUT JESUS
Jesus had various close disciples. Some were from Galilee, like the Twelve and Mary Magdalene; some were from Judea, like Lazarus and his two sisters. In this chapter, I have made the case for one of those close disciples being the man whom Jesus raised from the dead in Bethany—Lazarus. I have argued that the evidence of this gospel taken as a whole certainly does not point to the Beloved Disciple being a Galilean disciple, much less John of Zebedee, but rather a Judean disciple, most likely Lazarus.
We have examined a series of important texts in this gospel and considered detailed questions regarding the authorship of the various Johannine documents. All this evidence points in one particular direction: the Beloved Disciple was an important follower of Jesus, not to be equated with either John of Patmos or John son of Zebedee. This disciple in fact was so important that Jesus entrusted his own mother into the man’s hands when Jesus died. As we shall see in the next chapter, he then took his gospel to Asia, where he founded the Johannine community, a community made up of a network of churches, largely comprised of Jewish Christians. Johannine Christianity, like Pauline Christianity, was to prove to be a major stream of the early Christian movement. Yet neither community was instigated or led by one of the Twelve! This is a point worth stressing. Much of the westward spread of the Christian faith was due to the work of believers who were not members of the Twelve!
We cannot know how close Jesus and Lazarus really were. We cannot know how often Jesus visited with Lazarus and his sisters. We cannot say how involved Lazarus was with the disciples in Galilee, if at all. Perhaps he got all of his information about the Galilean ministry from Mary and Peter and the others. Perhaps he learned much during his time in Galilee after Easter. What we can say is that this disciple was an eyewitness to the crucial climax of Jesus’s ministry and its Easter sequel. The tradition is clear that Jesus raised this man from the dead, something that would surely change anybody’s worldview and opinion of Jesus. It may well be this very fact that explains why the Fourth Gospel is such a distinctive testimony to Jesus, differing from the synoptics.
But what was the Beloved Disciple’s legacy, other than testifying to what he heard and saw at the end of Jesus’s life? We will examine this question in the next chapter.