The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved

[patrick457]

I would go in the opposite direction as the OP and, instead of asking and looking at why John can’t be “the disciple beloved by Jesus,” look at why exactly people thought that it was John.

Let’s ask: what do we know about this beloved disciple from the Gospel itself? First off, we see that a disciple is often associated with Peter in the narrative. In most of these instances, he is never given a name.

• John identifies Jesus as the ‘Lamb of God’ to two of his disciples, one of which was Peter’s brother Andrew. The two follow Jesus and stay with Him for the rest of the day. Andrew then introduces Peter to Jesus (1:35-42)
• “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved,” at the insistence of Peter, asks Jesus while reclining at supper as to who will hand Him over (13:23-25)
• The “other disciple” goes with Peter into the courtyard of the high priest (18:15-16)
• The “other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved” runs with Peter towards the empty tomb (20:1-10).
• “That disciple whom Jesus loved” recognizes the man standing on the shore as Jesus and points this out to Peter (21:7).

(The only appearance I skipped here is in 19:26-27, where the beloved disciple stands near Jesus’ cross beside His mother.)

The idea being, who do we know of in early Christianity who has this close affinity with Peter? In the Synoptics, we often see the trio Peter, James and John (the sons of Zebedee) at certain key moments such as the Transfiguration and the Agony in the Garden. Now James son of Zebedee of course has died early on way before this Gospel was supposed to have been even written (Acts 12:1-2), leaving only John as a possible candidate - unless of course we suppose that the Gospel was penned when James was still alive way earlier than is commonly assumed, or that James came back from the dead just to author this work. And indeed we see Peter and John together in a few contexts, such as the preparation of the Passover meal (Luke 22:7-13), and the healing of the lame man in the Beautiful Gate, their arrest, and the aforementioned preaching to the high priests and the aristocratic rulers (Acts 3-4). Paul in Galatians, one of the earliest texts in the New Testament, also makes reference to “James and Cephas and John” in Jerusalem (2:7-9).

As a lot of people have noticed, one of the ironies in John’s Gospel is that John himself is absent from the narrative: aside from John the Baptizer, we never encounter any John mentioned by name within the story. The closest we could get is the reference to the “sons of Zebedee” in chapter 21, and even that reference seems to be rather opaque. So where is John?

Going back to the list of the appearances of the “other disciple”/“beloved disciple” above, we can see that in 1:35-42, we are introduced to two of John the Baptizer’s disciples, one of whom is identified as Andrew and the other left nameless. These three are apparently the very first disciples that Jesus has gathered within the Gospel. The parallel tradition in the Synoptics identifies Jesus’ first disciples as being Peter and Andrew, and James and John (Matthew 4:18-22 and Mark 1:16-20; Luke 5:1-11 names only Peter, James and John). If we identify this anonymous disciple as being the same person as the (also anonymous) “other disciple” or the “beloved disciple,” since in the Johannine account Andrew is already named, this leaves only two of the sons of Zebedee as possible candidates. And since we can apparently dismiss James for the reason given above, this leaves us only with John son of Zebedee. Well, why isn’t he called “the beloved disciple” then, we could ask. For an obvious reason: at this point in the story, Jesus had just met him. The unnamed disciple is only called by this title later on in the story, from chapter 13 onwards.

Even if one disagrees with this interpretation, we can see here that the Gospel itself allows for the traditional identification of the beloved disciple as John, even somewhat encouraging it. But then again obviously it could allow it, or else its very first audiences were forcefully cramming a square peg into a round hole, if you’ll ask me.

 

[patrick457]

I’m going to provide a little background about priests here.

The priests (kohanim) who served in the Temple of Jerusalem are not a party of their own (most of them did not have a party affilliation; we know that some of the aristocratic higher echelons of the priesthood were Sadducees and that some ordinary priests were Pharisees, but most belonged simply to ‘common’ Judaism), but a class, and a large and important one at that. The ministry of the Jewish priesthood was mostly limited to sacrifices and other elements of the Temple cult. They were assisted in their duties by a lower order of clergy, the Levites, who performed various menial tasks. According to Josephus, himself of priestly heritage (Against Apion 2.108), there seem to have been 20,000 priests and Levites together. These (hereditary) sacred offices were not full-time occupations: any given priest or Levite only went to Jerusalem and performed his tasks for a few weeks each year. Both priests and Levites were divided into twenty-four ‘courses’, each of which served in the Temple a week at a time. All the courses were on duty during the three great annual festivals.

The Temple services were maintained chiefly by the capitation tax of a half-shekel payable annually on the first of Adar (February-March) by each male Jew twenty years old and upward, which Jews from all over the world paid. The wood-offering for the sacrifice was also a public donation, contributed annually on the fifteenth of Av (July-August). A further source of support was the freewill offerings, given in various ways, ranging from widely publicized donations to small change dropped into the thirteen trumpet-shaped coin boxes (for the concept think something like the Japanese saisen-bako) situated in the Court of the Women inside the Temple.

The priests derived their emoluments from sin-offerings and reparation-offerings which were normally their prerequisites; so were a considerable part of the grain offerings, the showbread, the breast and right shoulder of the thank-offerings, the skins of animals sacrificed as burnt-offerings, the first-fruits of grain and other produce, and of dough, the firstborn of cattle (or a monetary equivalent), the redemption of the firstborn worth five shekels, part of the proceeds of sheep-shearing and a large number of occasional dues. The tithe was allotted mainly to Levites, who paid a tenth of it to the priests. The tithe of Deuteronomy (14:22ff; 26:12ff) was interpreted at this time as a second tithe to be expended on animals slaughtered for ordinary use (as opposed to those used for sacrifices), of which the priests received certain portions (Deuteronomy 18:3). The high priests of course increasingly appropriated the lion’s share of these for themselves, that at one point it drove ordinary priests to desperate straits.

Aside from this partial sustenance, for most of the year, priests and Levites stayed in their respective hometowns and performed other jobs except for farming, since they were forbidden to work the land. Others worked as scribes (in a Jewish context, ‘scribes’ referred to people who did not only write documents by hand as a profession, but who could also exercise functions we would now associate with notaries, lawyers, judges, and even financiers - hence the “scribes of the Pharisees” and the “chief priests and the scribes and the elders of the people”), but most priests apparently engaged in manual labor. Herod the Great had some priests trained in stonemasonry, so that they could build the most sacred areas (Antiquities 15.390).

 

[Vouthon]

Dear Patrick!

WELCOME, WELCOME, WELCOME TO THIS THREAD!

I am so glad that you decided to join in, since I was starting to get worried that this thread would never develop into an actual “discussion” but would largely turn into a situation where I kept droning on about my understanding of the Beloved Disciple, whilst other posters would just keep on saying, “The Church says its John, so its John” without any actual dialogue or meaninful discussion/debate.

I so glad that you have contributed not only significant dialogue with me, but have raised some REALLY good counter-arguements.

I have read your posts on previous threads and very much stand in awe of your depth of knowledge, scholarly skill and keen intellect. You are also a fair and open-minded person who considers other peoples’ opinions even if they differ from your own. So I look forward to discussing with you!

For the next two weeks, I am studying for Law Exams and so will have to bow out of the forum for a while. However when I return I will pick this thread up and debate the points you have raised.

Tonight, I will also read over your posts and reply to some of the points you have raised.

May God Bless you! (And Thank God for you!!! too!!!"

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

I understand

When I have the time (I am currently sifting through great mounds of paper-work and study texts for my upcoming law examinations) I hope to try and at least present my view as “possible”, even if you and the others still consider it not to be in any way “plausible”.

I aim to show that there is growing recognition of the Judean provenance and character of this Gospel on the part of scholars; the problem with the traditional ascription of this Gospel to John of Zebedee, taking into account much of the evidence collected by the likes of Richard Bauckman and Ben Worthington on the significance of the fragments attributed to Papias and reflected on later by Eusebius; and the Ben Boethus/Bethany Family hypothesis championed most recently and with such prodigious scholarly skill by Frederick Baltz amidst many other scholars and factors.

I apologize if I appear to be adding 2 + 2 and coming up with 10,000

The problem is that you are using Law methods to examine documents that according to Catholic view, must be dealt otherwise.
You mix documents according to your point of view. right for a lawyer.
Wrong for a Catholic Theologian. There are documents that are accepted by the Catholic Church other that are not.
You are making a potpourri where you put anything that comes into your hands.
Nice for a game, for Protestant Theology or for a novel like Da Vinci Codex but not for Catholic Theology.

 

[benedictus2]

How do you reconcile this:

There is in fact a theory that exists which proposes exactly this. After all, the “other disciple” was well known to the high priest (John 18:15)…

with this:

• The “other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved” runs with Peter towards the empty tomb (20:1-10).
• “That disciple whom Jesus loved” recognizes the man standing on the shore as Jesus and points this out to Peter (21:7).

considering that after the betrayal Judas was no longer part of the twelve and by this time has already hanged himself?

 

[patrick457]

How do you reconcile this:

with this:

considering that after the betrayal Judas was no longer part of the twelve and by this time has already hanged himself?

The idea that Judas was the beloved disciple was employed by Ludwig Noack in his 1876 book Die Geschichte Jesu auf Grund freier geschichtlicher Untersuchungen iiber das Evangelium und die Evangelien (The History of Jesus on the Basis of a free Historical Inquiry regarding the Gospel and the Gospels).

According to Noack, Judas penned the prototype which we now know as the Gospel of John around the 60s. True to the rationalism prevalent at the time, Noack imagines the miracles in this proto-Gospel to have been originally naturalistic, ordinary events. Albert Schweitzer (in his seminal work The Quest of the Historical Jesus) gives a description of what Noack imagined:

We arrive at the primitive Johannine writing when we cancel in the Fourth Gospel all Jewish doctrine and all miracles. Its date is the year 60 and it was composed by—Judas, the beloved disciple. This primitive Gospel received little modification and still shows clearly “the wonderful reality of its history.” It aims only at giving a section of Jesus’ history, a representation of His attitude of mind and spirit. With “simple ingenuousness” it gives, “along with the kernel of the historical material of the Gospel, Jesus’ thoughts about His own Person in the mysterious oracular sayings and deeply thoughtful and moving discourses by which the Nazarene stirred rather than enlightened the world.” Events of a striking character were, however, absent from it. The feeding of the multitude was represented in it as effected by natural means. It was a philanthropic feeding of a multitude which certainly did not number thousands, the numbers are a later insertion; Jesus fed them with bread and fish which He purchased from a “sutler-lad.” The healing of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda was the unmasking of a malingerer, whom the Lord exposed and ordered to depart. As He had bidden him carry his bed, and it was on the Sabbath, this brought Him into conflict with the authorities. His only “acts” were acts of self-revelation—mystical sayings which He threw out to the people. “The problem which meets us in His history is in truth a psychological problem, how, namely. His exalted view of Himself came to be accepted as the purest and highest truth—in His lifetime, it is true, only by a limited circle of disciples, but after His departure by a constantly growing multitude of believing followers.” The gospel of the beloved disciple Judas made its way quietly into the world, understood by few, even as Jesus Himself had been understood by a few only.

So yes, this ‘Logos Gospel’, and ‘proto-Luke’ that came about a decade after it, was for Noack the two earliest Gospels. Mark and Matthew then came into the scene, making use of proto-Luke, and by the mid-2nd century the the originals of John and Luke is said to have undergone redaction (Noack p(name removed by moderator)oints the addition of John 21 to the main body of the Gospel around this date). With these came the increasing vifilication of Judas, who was actually just trying to help Jesus die the way He wanted to. Later Christians apparently never understood his act and so Judas began to labeled as a traitor, according to Noack: I expect that we are supposed to believe that all those stories showing Judas’ tragic end started to creep in by this time. Schweitzer wraps up the chapter by giving a summary of the idea:

Judas, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who was a man of much resource, helped Him to avoid being arrested as a disturber of the peace by arranging that the “betrayal” should take place on the evening before the Passover, in order that Jesus might die, as He desired, on the day of the Passover. For this service of love he was, in the secondary tradition, torn from the bosom of the Lord and branded as a traitor.

 

[patrick457]

I’m going to quote from The Gospel according to John by Leon Morris:

 

[patrick457]

I’m going to quote from The Gospel according to John by Leon Morris (pp. 665-6, commentary on 18:5):

…] Another disciple is now introduced, but not named. He is simply described as “known to the high priest.” Footnote 35: “On this point cf. Dodd, “It is now generally recognized that γνωστὸς implies something more than mere acquaintance. It means that the person so described was a member of the High Priest’s circle, possibly a kinsman and himself of priestly birth, or at any rate one who stood in intimate relations with the governing high priestly family” (HTFG, pp. 86-87). Horsley provides documentary evidence for the use of the term in the papyri in the sense “close friend” (New Docs. 4, p. 143).] It has often been suggested that he was John, the beloved disciple. Footnote 36: Murray takes this for granted. Westcott thinks that “The reader cannot fail to identify the disciple with St. John” (the expression used here, ἄλλος μαθητής, is used of the beloved disciple in 20:2, 3, 4, 8). Calvin, however, calls this a weak conjecture.”] In favor of this is the fact that if so, it would explain some of the peculiar knowledge of this Evangelist. It would mean that he had a close connection with Jerusalem and access to sources not normally open to the Christians. But against it is urged the improbability that a son of Zebedee would occupy a position of such eminence. Footnote 37: It is possible to account for it, however. One line of argument is that John seems to have come from a priestly family. The woman Salome, who stood by the cross of Jesus, appears to have been his mother, as a comparison of Mark 15:40 and Matt. 27:56 shows. John does not mention Salome, nor his own mother specifically, but he does speak of the Virgin Mary’s sister (John 19:25) in such a way as to lead to the conclusion that she is Salome. Now Mary was related to Elizabeth (Luke 1:36), who is called one of “the daughters of Aaron” (Luke 1:5). Salome thus had priestly connections. The conclusion is that John came from a priestly family and could well have come in contact with the high priest in connection with his priestly duties. This is supported by the passage in the letter of Polycrates (c. A.D. 190) which says that John “was a priest wearing τὸ πέταλον” (Eusebius, HE 3.31.3). The passage is obscure. It is not known for certain what the πέταλον was, nor whether others than the high priest might wear it. But Polycrates certainly supports the view that John was a priest. There is nothing improbable about all this, but the reasoning comes short of proof. Others point out that there was a large trade in salt fish between Galilee and Jerusalem and that Zebedee was a sufficiently well-established citizen to employ workmen (Mark 1:20). They suggest that there is nothing unlikely in holding that merchants in a big way may have had contacts with the high priest, possibly even to the extent of supplying his household with fish. This, again, is possible, but it cannot be demonstrated. The most that we can say is that quite reasonable ways in which the son of Zebedee might have become known to the high priest have been suggested.] Other names have been suggested, such as Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus. Such men would have the entree to the high priest’s house and one of them may well have known Peter. But all this is conjecture. There is really no way of identifying him. But his acquaintance with the high priest was such that he was readily admitted to the courtyard, whereas Peter was not.

 

[nordskoven]

The “free historical inquiry” of Noack means “free” as in Gnostic/Free-Mason. No mention is made of Judas’ being possessed by Satan; or the admonition about Judas’ action that evil must come; see that it doesn’t come by you. The suggestion that the man from the pool of Bethesda was a malingerer is curious. Did they have Workman’s Comp that would have rewarded a malingerer?

Better we should wonder how a presumably illiterate girl, the Virgin Mary, could possibly voice the Magnificat, every line of which is from Holy Writ. This woman has the mind of a bard, not privy as a female to read Torah scrolls, but able to memorize enough at least to the extent that she can collect cogent passages to shape into her Magnificat.

John was Jesus’ cousin, of the lineage of David. Just as Jesus was dismissed as a mere Nazarean, so John was dismissed as a scruffy fisherman. Is it possible people with advanced degrees believe that this represents advanced intelligence as a kind of class snobbery? I’ve known enough genius farmers with little formal education to need to craft a secret identity for John. So let’s discuss Shakespeare’s real identity. Same elitist incredulity there.

 

[steve53]

Patrick, I think in a lot of this, you go in a greater detail than is merited by the sources. Especially egregious is using Old Testament tradition and decide that was the way of the Priesthood in Jesus’ time.
From Josephus, it is strongly suggested that the High Priesthood did indeed become a cult-like group unto their own. Maybe a Mafia would be a better term. Even though a mix of Sadducee and Pharisee, the Sadducee dominated, and made the Temple very lucrative, and the ruling priest families very wealthy. It became so bad that, as the Roman occupation caused a relative wealthy Jewish non-priest middle class to form, the Jew non-priests turned against the high Priesthood for being hypocrites and refused to give alms and tithes and the like. The Priests then STOLE from the wealthy Jews.
Not a pretty situation.
Josephus was probably in error saying that the Second Temple was run by 20 thousand priests. The population of Jerusalem was likely 50,000 at most, and you have to figure that most Priests had wives and families, and there were ancillary businesses that had to serve their needs, etc. So dividing by ten (the Josephus Error factor) gives us a number of 2,000 inner circle priests of the Second Temple, with novitiates and hired workers filling things out. Makes more sense.
There is no evidence that in the Second Temple period, priests would come out of the country to put in time at the Temple. Just didn’t happen. Towns did have their own Sanhedrins, and usually followed dictates from Jerusalem, though the Jews were a contentious lot when it came to God’s law. The Second Temple, at times, would demand that certain men come to Jerusalem to be “tried”, but I don’t remember a Christian-era member of the High Priestood going out into the country to meet out justice. That would be a daring thing to do, and expose the priest to retribution from the accused family.
Remember, when Josephus was appointed by the High Priesthood to be a general in the new Jewish army, he spent more time fighting armies organized by other Jews who didn’t agree with the Priesthood than not!
Part of the dilemma of the High Priesthood was that, while it was to their advantage that the Romans basically had them serve in all of the administrative functions that usually would be taken on by Romans, it also alienated them from the common people, as more and more they were being perceived as being in Rome’s back pocket. The wealthier they became, the more this perception grew.
So then enter the Christians, who were a thorn in the side of the Priesthood, and whom the Romans were apparently even protecting. Festus protected Paul and sent him to safety in Rome! Felix even assassinated a High Priest, Jonathan, for challenging him!
So while the High Priesthood had the majority of Jews on “their” side, there was a growing percentage of Zealots, wealthy non priests, and-gasp!-Christians, who had no need for them, as saw them as collaborators. On top of this, it appeared that the Romans also were not deferring to them as much as they had, despite the High Priesthood maintaining as significant presence as possible in Rome.
Hagan links this process to an amazing six-year period in history, which began with the execution of the Jerusalem Christian leadership in A.D. 62, continued on to the persecutions of the Christians in Rome by Nero in A.D. 64, and finally the Jewish revolt itself, in A.D. 66.

ot-I think you are really dancing around the issue of Peter and John’s literacy. Of course they were not. Saying that “letters” means some sort of college degree or Union Certification borders on the ridiculous.

 

[patrick457]

No mention is made of Judas’ being possessed by Satan; or the admonition about Judas’ action that evil must come; see that it doesn’t come by you.

I guess it was something that got tacked on when Judas’ Gospel was redacted then?

The suggestion that the man from the pool of Bethesda was a malingerer is curious. Did they have Workman’s Comp that would have rewarded a malingerer?

That’s actually one not uncommon way to rationalize some of the healings in the Gospels: a number of the people whom Jesus ‘healed’ were actually frauds and con artists. Hence, what Jesus really did was to expose them as fakes by making them unwittingly give themselves out.

The film adaptation of Hugh Schonfield’s The Passover Plot uses this formula for the one ‘healing’ it includes: the blind man of Bethsaida. Jesus unmasks the fraud by spitting on his eyes, causing the ‘blind’ man to open his eyes in surprise.

 

[dean24us]

This is interesting,OP.

I would love to see some of the wonderful, amateur apologists on this forum engage the OP instead of some, not all, shutting him down with “the church says it is so and that’s that.”

It’s important to know what you believe and why you believe it so that you can witness to the world and defend your faith. That is what apologetics is about.

I couldn’t agree more TrueLight, especially on the last sentence of your post. I have gotten to the point where the “because the Church says so” posts don’t any register in my brain – they are both discouraging to people posting questions & comments and are 100% contrary to the intent of apologetics.

With regard to the OP, I did some reading on the subject and it appears that this has been a topic of debate since around the 3rd century AD. My recommendation: continue to compile your research and (if you feel your hypothesis still holds up after scrutiny) write a paper on the subject. This might sound outlandish, but considering your topic of study (law), you might be able to structure the paper using the tools and methods of law: rules of evidence, etc. Depending on the law school you’re attending (especially if it is associated with a Catholic college/university), you might be able to publish your findings in the university’s legal journal.

 

[benedictus2]

The idea that Judas was the beloved disciple was employed by Ludwig Noack in his 1876 book Die Geschichte Jesu auf Grund freier geschichtlicher Untersuchungen iiber das Evangelium und die Evangelien (The History of Jesus on the Basis of a free Historical Inquiry regarding the Gospel and the Gospels).

According to Noack, Judas penned the prototype which we now know as the Gospel of John around the 60s. True to the rationalism prevalent at the time, Noack imagines the miracles in this proto-Gospel to have been originally naturalistic, ordinary events. Albert Schweitzer (in his seminal work The Quest of the Historical Jesus) gives a description of what Noack imagined:
We arrive at the primitive Johannine writing when we cancel in the Fourth Gospel all Jewish doctrine and all miracles. Its date is the year 60 and it was composed by—Judas, the beloved disciple. This primitive Gospel received little modification and still shows clearly “the wonderful reality of its history.” It aims only at giving a section of Jesus’ history, a representation of His attitude of mind and spirit. With “simple ingenuousness” it gives, “along with the kernel of the historical material of the Gospel, Jesus’ thoughts about His own Person in the mysterious oracular sayings and deeply thoughtful and moving discourses by which the Nazarene stirred rather than enlightened the world.” Events of a striking character were, however, absent from it. The feeding of the multitude was represented in it as effected by natural means. It was a philanthropic feeding of a multitude which certainly did not number thousands, the numbers are a later insertion; Jesus fed them with bread and fish which He purchased from a “sutler-lad.” The healing of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda was the unmasking of a malingerer, whom the Lord exposed and ordered to depart. As He had bidden him carry his bed, and it was on the Sabbath, this brought Him into conflict with the authorities. His only “acts” were acts of self-revelation—mystical sayings which He threw out to the people. “The problem which meets us in His history is in truth a psychological problem, how, namely. His exalted view of Himself came to be accepted as the purest and highest truth—in His lifetime, it is true, only by a limited circle of disciples, but after His departure by a constantly growing multitude of believing followers.” The gospel of the beloved disciple Judas made its way quietly into the world, understood by few, even as Jesus Himself had been understood by a few only.
So yes, this ‘Logos Gospel’, and ‘proto-Luke’ that came about a decade after it, was for Noack the two earliest Gospels. Mark and Matthew then came into the scene, making use of proto-Luke, and by the mid-2nd century the the originals of John and Luke is said to have undergone redaction (Noack p(name removed by moderator)oints the addition of John 21 to the main body of the Gospel around this date). With these came the increasing vifilication of Judas, who was actually just trying to help Jesus die the way He wanted to. Later Christians apparently never understood his act and so Judas began to labeled as a traitor, according to Noack: I expect that we are supposed to believe that all those stories showing Judas’ tragic end started to creep in by this time. Schweitzer wraps up the chapter by giving a summary of the idea:
Judas, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who was a man of much resource, helped Him to avoid being arrested as a disturber of the peace by arranging that the “betrayal” should take place on the evening before the Passover, in order that Jesus might die, as He desired, on the day of the Passover. For this service of love he was, in the secondary tradition, torn from the bosom of the Lord and branded as a traitor.

What’s Noack’s credibiity and how does he go around Tradition and the ECFs?

 

[inkaneer]

The Catholic Church says it is John, therefore it is John.

I am not aware that the Catholic Church has made that determinination dogmatically. I came across this same mindset regarding the alleged apostleship of Judas and Matthias. There has been no official pronouncements by the Church that the Gospel of John was actually penned by the Apostle. Therefore, it is open to personal interpretation. That being said, I think the idea expressed before that the “disciple that Jesus loved” was present at the Last Supper needs to be further explored.

In John 21:20 we find this:

"Peter turned and saw following them the disciple whom Jesus loved, who had lain close to his breast at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?”
[John 21:20 RSV]

Lu 22:11 and Mr 14:14 do not tell us who was present except Jesus and His “disciples” No mention is made of the number.However Mark 14:17-18 states:

"17 And when it was evening he came with the twelve. 18 And as they were at table eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.”

So too Matthew 26:20-21 indicates Jesus ate the Last Supper with just the Twelve disciples [They were not Apostles yet for they were yet to be sent].

"When it was evening, he sat at table with the twelve disciples; 21 and as they were eating, he said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” [Mt 26:20-21 RSV]

It would appear therefore that the “disciple that Jesus loved” was present at the Last Supper and since Jesus sat with the twelve disciples had to be one of those disciples. However, just because the scripture says he sat with the twelve does not exclude others being there. The scripture does not say Jesus sat at table with only the twelve.

 

[Nicea325]

Who do you think was the “disciple whom Jesus loved”?

I know that traditionally this is viewed as John the Apostle, however I no longer believe this to be the case.

After doing a lot of study into the subject, I’ve come to a few (personal) conclusions:

1. The Beloved Disciple is of an upper class, priestly family
2. The Beloved Disciple is Judean and not Galilean
3. The Beloved Disciple was known by the High Priest
4. The Beloved Disciple was most likely a member of the Beloved Bethany Family (ie Lazarus, Martha or Mary)
5. I believe this family too be the very same aristocratic, priestly family known in the Jewish Talmud as the “Ben Boethus Family”. This consisted of an Eleazer (Lazarus) who had been High Priest in about the year 4-3 BC, a Martha and a Mary who were both considered to be the wealthiest women in First Century Judea. Mary was remembered in the Talmud as a vain, beautiful young woman who had long, pretty hair which she braided.
6. I believe that the identity of the Beloved Disciple was concealed in the Gospel of John primarily for reasons of safety. The Boethus were too prominent to be signalled out as Jesus’ “beloved family”, particularly since Eleazer (Lazarus) had been risen from the dead by Jesus and was nearly himself executed by the Jewish Hierarchy (spared only because of his prestige and authority in Second Temple Judaism).
7. John, the author of the final copy of the Gospel of John and its redactor, was the son of Martha and her first husband. He is remebered in Jewish tradition as a young Priest who used to carry the sacred vessels into the Jewish Temple. In Christian tradition he was known as John the Presbyter, a young priest who wore the “petalon” - a metaphorical reference to his High Priestly heritage. He was the designated successor of the Johannine Community, which under him split into the Orthodox Johannine Community under his leadership which was part of the Catholic Church, and the Secessionists under the heretic Cerinthus, who challenged John the Presybter’s authority and became the first Gnostics later known as the Naassenes.
8. In the Letter of 2 John, the “elect lady” and her “elect sister” mentioned respectfully by John the Presbyter in this epistle are not Churches but the two sisters Martha and Mary, called “Elect” because of their prominence in the Beloved Bethany Family.
9. The Beloved Disciple penned the original copy of the Gospel of John, which was later redacted and edited by Presbyter John, who brought it to its final canonical state. He wrote 2 John and 3 John, whereas 1 John came from the reflections of the Beloved Disciple.

I welcome anyone to challange this idea and when I have time I will show why I believe it to be the truth.

Its is my FIRM conviction that the original copy of the Gospel of John did not come from the pen or even the memoirs of St John the Apostle, a Galilean fisherman.

That is all fine and peachy,but what empirical evidence do you have from biblical scholars and theologians? Either Catholic,Protestant or Orthodox?

 

[patrick457]

Patrick, I think in a lot of this, you go in a greater detail than is merited by the sources. Especially egregious is using Old Testament tradition and decide that was the way of the Priesthood in Jesus’ time.

Well, that was the Law after all. Even after centuries of interpretation and expansion you’d expect that it would still be the base of all these regulations.

Josephus was probably in error saying that the Second Temple was run by 20 thousand priests. The population of Jerusalem was likely 50,000 at most, and you have to figure that most Priests had wives and families, and there were ancillary businesses that had to serve their needs, etc. So dividing by ten (the Josephus Error factor) gives us a number of 2,000 inner circle priests of the Second Temple, with novitiates and hired workers filling things out. Makes more sense.

Upon further reading, that is certainly plausible.

There is no evidence that in the Second Temple period, priests would come out of the country to put in time at the Temple. Just didn’t happen. Towns did have their own Sanhedrins, and usually followed dictates from Jerusalem, though the Jews were a contentious lot when it came to God’s law. The Second Temple, at times, would demand that certain men come to Jerusalem to be “tried”, but I don’t remember a Christian-era member of the High Priestood going out into the country to meet out justice. That would be a daring thing to do, and expose the priest to retribution from the accused family.
Remember, when Josephus was appointed by the High Priesthood to be a general in the new Jewish army, he spent more time fighting armies organized by other Jews who didn’t agree with the Priesthood than not!

Well, how about Zechariah then, who apparently lived in “the hill country of Judaea” and not in Jerusalem itself? (Though I guess you might argue that Luke is wrong here)

ot-I think you are really dancing around the issue of Peter and John’s literacy. Of course they were not. Saying that “letters” means some sort of college degree or Union Certification borders on the ridiculous.

“Of course”? How did you know? Were you there?

 

[steve53]

Zacharias, the father of JB, had no mean position in the Temple, taking care of the candles and incense in the inner chambers of the Temple, in the fourth courtyard. In part of the two large wings of the Great Temple, there were probably rooms where basic maintenance-type Priests could stay. So maybe he had a long shift of several days?
But Judah, where is apparently came from, has recently been discovered and it is within walking distance of Jerusalem and Temple. And people walked in those days a lot. So they were serious walkers and likely kept up a fast pace. So a commuting Zacharias is not unreasonable. I thought that your point was that Priests based far away from Jerusalem would come in and do duty during the major festivals, which , IMO, is a bit of a stretch. The Temple had plenty of minor festivals as well as the four major ones, so it is reasonable to think they had their own in-house system for getting things done.

There is no reason to the think that Jesus was literate from his known circumstance of growing, and to put that spin on certain passages in the NT is really stretching it. As I have posted somewhere before, Jesus was of uncertain parentage, and so was an outcast for that reason alone. He spent his early years as a refugee, so he never got “in the groove” in a religious sense, where the promising young men were given special attention. He came from a poor family, and had to work to survive.
Not the background of someone who read and wrote in those days.

I am guessing that modifying Josephus’ number, that there was a core of five thousand aristocrats, including High Priests, who controlled Jerusalem. Josephus and his family would have been among them.

Just was at the Vatican today. That is one huge place!

 

[LilyM]

The “free historical inquiry” of Noack means “free” as in Gnostic/Free-Mason. No mention is made of Judas’ being possessed by Satan; or the admonition about Judas’ action that evil must come; see that it doesn’t come by you. The suggestion that the man from the pool of Bethesda was a malingerer is curious. Did they have Workman’s Comp that would have rewarded a malingerer?
.

They had lots of informal charity, and even today in poorer countries people will either deliberately maim themselves or their children or fake illness so as to live by begging and find it easier to do so than try to find work.

There is a very funny treatment of this very topic in the movie Monty Python’s Life of Brian. You can probably do a searcfolk you tube under ‘alms for an ex-leper’ and see the scene. Fantastic.

Steve, I can’t see Jesus being illiterate. Jesus went to read in the synagogue in Nazareth. Rather than reading the assigned text for the day, He opens the proffered scroll to a different part of Isaiah and reads what HE wants to read. Hardly something an illiterate would be capable of.

 

[patrick457]

They had lots of informal charity, and even today in poorer countries people will either deliberately maim themselves or their children or fake illness so as to live by begging and find it easier to do so than try to find work.

There is a very funny treatment of this very topic in the movie Monty Python’s Life of Brian. You can probably do a searcfolk you tube under ‘alms for an ex-leper’ and see the scene. Fantastic.

Steve, I can’t see Jesus being illiterate. Jesus went to read in the synagogue in Nazareth. Rather than reading the assigned text for the day, He opens the proffered scroll to a different part of Isaiah and reads what HE wants to read. Hardly something an illiterate would be capable of.

To play the devil’s advocate for now (I would post my reply for Steve later), one line of argument would say that Luke isn’t reliable at this point of his gospel.

 

[LilyM]

To play the devil’s advocate for now (I would post my reply for Steve later), one line of argument would say that Luke isn’t reliable at this point of his gospel.

What about the other evidence - the writing in the sand during the episode of the woman caught in adultery? The numerous references to Him as Rabbi or Rabboni (rabbis certainly had to be literate!)