The Gospel According to The Beloved Disciple

This post is kind of a follow up to my Heresies of Asia Minor post, and with also some prior groundwork laid by my Mary Magdalene and Bethany post.

One of the reasons that I can't put too much stock in what The Early Church Fathers said is that the Patristic Tradition is pretty unanimous that the Gospel we commonly call "The Gospel According to John" was written by John Son of Zebedee brother of James who one of the Twelve.  But the fact is the text of that Gospel tells us who wrote it, and it's not one of The Twelve or someone named John.

At the end of The Gospel we're told "The Disciple who Jesus Loved" wrote The Gospel (21:20-23).  Normally an analysis will say Chapter 13:23-25 is the first time this Disciple is mentioned.  However if you just read The Gospel without bringing prior assumptions into it, it's clear that this verse is identifying someone we were already introduced to.

But first I need to note that most of the traditional Beloved Disciple verses use Agape, but chapter 20:2 uses Phileo.

In chapters 11 verse 3 the sisters of Lazarus inform Jesus of his death by saying "he whom thou lovest is sick" using Phileo.  Verse 5 says that Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus using Agape.  In verse 36 the Judeans observe "look how Jesus loved him" using Phileo again referring to Lazarus.

Chapter 12 depicts Lazarus sitting next to Jesus just as the Beloved Disciple does in 13:23-24.

The argument that the Beloved Disciple must be one of the Twelve is dependent on verses from the Synoptics that are taken as saying only the Twelve were at the Last Supper, but they don't actually say that, they emphasize the Twelve being there but do not say it was only the Twelve. In fact it is made clear in the Synpotics that someone else owned the house they had it in.

Chapter 21 does mention the Sons of Zebedee, so if you wanna assume the Beloved Disciple can't be mentioned by any other designation in this Gospel, that rules them out as well. 

Others have proposed this theory before me, but I have some differences from them.  For example I'm rather skeptical of the whole connecting Lazarus to the family of Beothus theory.

http://www.alanrudnick.org/2017/04/13/john-was-not-the-disciple-whom-jesus-loved/

https://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/bibleandculture/2007/01/was-lazarus-the-beloved-disciple.html

I also like to stress based on 11:5 that the designation can be expanded to include his Sisters, which helps explain 20:2, and I also still lean towards it being Mary who was entrusted with his mother in 19:25.

I also disagree with the idea that the ending of the Gospel is implying the Beloved Disciple had died before it's final publication.

But biggest of all, I don't think John the Presbyter was a student of the Beloved Disciple.  I don't think either John or the Bethany family ever went to Ephesus, Ephesus is mentioned quite a bit in the New Testament with no hints at any of them being there.  But Revelation 2 does refer to there being False Apostles in Ephesus, I think one of them claimed to be John and claimed credit for all five books traditionally ascribed to John, and then came to be sometimes known as John the Presbyter based on the 2nd and 3rd Epistles.  And because the "Apostolic Succession" of the early Church went back to his alleged students like Ignatius and Polycarp, that false attribution came to be accepted at face value.  In the authentic writings of Ignatius and Polycarp they never claim to be disciples of John or anyone else, and it seems Papias distinguished the John he knew from any of the Apostles.

There is an ancient Eastern Extra-Biblical Tradition that Lazarus received his Bishop's Omophorion from The Virgin Mary. It was apparently something she wove for him.  So there is some evidence their association was remembered.

Most even Atheist scholars agree that all three Epistles commonly called "of John" probably have the same author as The Gospel.  The first of them I don't even view as an Epistle since it doesn't have an Epistle style introduction or ending.  I think it was an Appendix to the Gospel.

It's Revelation that scholars have trouble seeing as being by the same author.  And I think that argument can hold up better then attempts to deny certain Paulian letters had the same author.  The issue is that usually The Gospel is given first dibs on being the true Son of Zebedde (though plenty of Atheists think none could have been written by a Galileen Fisherman) while I'm pointing out that Revelation is the only of these books who's author actually claims to be named John.

These books being dated to between 90 and 100 AD is often itself seen as evidence against them being written by Eye Witnesses because of the modern obsession with saying people didn't live as long back then.  The problem with that narrative is "average" life-span statistics are skewed by how there used to be higher infant mortality rates.  I think the Twelve Disciples were younger then Jesus to begin with, and Paul was younger then the Twelve.  In every era of history some people have successfully lived to 100, therefore some people born around 5 BC could have made it to 96 AD.

Quadratus letter to Hadrian says some people Jesus healed and rose form the dead were still alive at the time he wrote that letter.  That's a category Lazarus specifically fits into.  Simeon the second Bishop of Jerusalem was said to have been 120 when he was martyred during the reign of Trajan according to Eusebius.  If some theories about the Bethany family are true, he could have been the father of Lazarus and his sisters, or the same person as Lazarus, because the Simon of Matthew 26 and Mark 14 seems to have something to do with the Bethany family when you cross reference it with John 12.

Below is additional theorizing that is much more speculative.

Maybe part of the reason the Gospel became associated with the name of John is how it talks about John The Baptist at the beginning.  It's not the only Gospel to kind of begin with John but it's treatment of John is arguably unique.  John is the first personal name mentioned in the text.

The name Lazarus is often thought to be a nickname. (It being a presumed form of Eleazar never sat right with me, all other El theophoric names still begin an E in their Greek forms, and I don't think a spelling like Lazarus is ever used in Josephus of someone known to be an Eleazar.)  A theory that among other things complicates how he relates to the Parable in Luke 16.  So he could be someone also named John which was a common name.  However there are the Ossuaries at Dominus Flevit which have a Mary, Martha and Eleazer together.

Wikipedia pages about the Eastern Traditions of Lazarus and his sisters say they preached the Gospel in many lands not just Cyrpus, but I can't find specifics about that.  What I find unlikely about the Cyprus tradition is that Lazarus would be ordained by Paul and Barnabas when Paul's own definitions of Apostolic Authority would place Lazarus ahead of him.  Paul's time on Cyrpus with Barnabas is recorded in Acts 13 with no reference to them visiting Kition or ordaining any Bishops or meeting Lazarus and the Bethany sisters.

If the traditions of Lazarus on Cyprus do have some truth to them, it's notable that they only account for about 30 years after his Resurrection, which takes us to 60 AD or 66 AD at the latest.  I'm confident he did live a lot longer then that. 

Update April 2020:  I have decided that The Disciple who Jesus Agape when used of a single individual is Mary, and Magdalene and the sister of Lazarus are the same Mary.  And The Disciple who Jesus Phileo when used of a single individual is Lazarus.

I have abandoned my past flirtation with the idea of Mary Agdalene as Jesus Sister.  But I do still think "Mother's Sister" in John 19:25 should probably means "Maternal sister" and so I now think Mary of Cleophas is one of his Sisters. 

In verse 26 when Jesus "his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he apagao" both character refereed to here are ones identified in the prior verse.  The male pronouns are possibly just translating pronouns not actually originally meant to be gender specific.  When He says refers to this disciple as "son" so His Mother he means the legal meaning of sonship, not biology or gender.