Who was the disciple that Jesus loved in the new testament?

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Here is the text frm the bible, example. Thanks in advance, Stephen Andrew.

The disciples began to look at one another, perplexed as to which of them He meant. 23One of His disciples, the one whom Jesus loved , was reclining at His side
 
Also in the bible, ""So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved , and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
 
And in John 21, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!”
 
And here in John 19:26: “When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, ‘Woman, here is your son.’”
 
It is generally assumed that the “beloved disciple” is John, though we don’t have certain knowledge of that. It might be somebody else, possibly even someone who was not one of the Twelve. It’s a question that academics in the NT Studies field still quarrel about.
 
Depends on how you mean that.
We obviously weren’t all at the Last Supper, reclining at Jesus’ side. We obviously all didn’t run to Jesus’ tomb and peek in.

However, the Church teaches that when Jesus from the cross said, “Woman, here is your son” to Mary and said “Behold your mother” to the disciple (John 19:27), he was actually giving Mary to ALL of us as our mother, not just to the beloved disciple. So in that situation, we are all referenced.
 
I agree with Tis_Bearself, but I do think it was a sort of literary device for the audience. However, I also think it is also St. John.
 
Can anyone tell me why the disciple was described that way? Did he love one more than another?
 
Perhaps, this is where he spoke to us before being born, then “he formed us from the clay, set us on a rock and he called us by name,” “The Disciple whom he loved.”
 
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debgab said:
Can anyone tell me why the disciple was described that way? Did he love one more than another?
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There is a lot of discussion on this. For some it is simply because the name John was used for John the Baptist so the author had to find another way to designate himself.

Most think it is a literary device to support the authenticity of the narrative. That is the view espressed in chapter 21; “ It is this disciple who testifies to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.“

But once you understand it as a literary device, it opens up further speculation about how the narrative is shaped by the narrator. Identifying himself as beloved, but without another name, says something about Jesus and his relationship to the narrator. The question is not “ Did he love one more than another?” but more like “ Does he love me?” It helps readers to answer that affirmatively, which is generally the point of the Gospel.
 
I always took it as a form of modesty by the author. St. John was there at the events, but he wanted to shine the light more on Jesus and less on himself. Since he was there at the Last Supper and at the tomb after the resurrection of Jesus, it made sense to include his presence in the writing but to refer to himself obliquely.
 
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