Who was the Beloved Disciple?

Do you ever have those times when you want to stick out your tongue, and then, in a very child-like way, say, “Nana nana nana?”

More than ten years ago, I took a course.  I don’t remember the name of the course or who taught it.  I don’t remember what book I was reading or what we were discussing at the time.  What I remember is offering a different interpretation to a gospel text and being rebuffed for it.  What I expressed was pretty much dismissed.  If you know me, you know that when I express my thoughts, I feel very vulnerable, and being dismissed in this way brought up feelings of foolishness and shame.  Hmmm.  No wonder I'm still holding onto it.

The text was from the gospel of John 19:25-27:

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” ²⁷Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

My question was around this disciple whom Jesus loved.  Maybe it was a woman.  The text mentions three women standing at the foot of the cross and then Jesus says, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.”  Traditionally, people have referred to John as the disciple that Jesus loved.  John is also traditionally credited with the writing of the gospel. 

What if it wasn’t John?  What if the text is actually referring to one of the women standing at the foot of the cross?  After all, we know from the other gospels that all the male disciples ran and hid.  It was only the women who stayed with Jesus at the cross.  The passage refers to three women but it seems people would like to insert a fourth person, a male person.  Also, if it was John that stayed, why didn’t he also help with the burial of Jesus, along with Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea.

The course I’m currently taking on the scriptures of the New Testament offered a reading by Sandra M. Schneiders, from a book called, “Written That You May Believe: Encountering Jesus in the Fourth Gospel.”  Schneiders states that most people will say the beloved disciple must be male, because Jesus says, “Woman, here is your son.”  Schneiders has a different theory.

“First, most commentators agree that, whoever the Beloved Disciple was historically, in this scene the figure is not merely or even primarily an individual who is personally and priviately united to the mother of Jesus but a representative figure symbolic of some group that is to be united in a special way with her.  In that case the meaning of the verse is, ‘Woman, behold the one who is to be to you what I [Jesus] have been.”  Since Jesus is Mary’s son, the community represented by the Beloved Disciple becomes Mary’s new “son,” that is, shares the same relationship to her as Jesus had during his earthly life.”

Schneider’s ultimate theory is that the Beloved Disciple is not one person, but is representative of an ideal disciple, which could be either male or female. 

The article goes into much more detail about the Beloved Disciple, other unnamed disciples, the author of the gospel, and even a "redactor," one who may have modified the gospel later to make it more acceptable to the Greater Church of the time, specifically in removing women from key leadership roles.  I found it quite fascinating, especially since it confirmed my original suspicions, voiced and dismissed.  Now, it was only a guess at the time and I had no way of substantiating my theory, but I feel as if my original thought may not have been as foolish as it originally seemed. "Na Na Na Na Na Na."