Since the internal evidence of the Gospel so strongly points away from the identification of the beloved with John the son of Zebedee, we may wonder how it happens that this traditional identification comes about. It is based upon conjecture that reaches anything like its current form only at the end of the second century, at least one hundred years after the Gospel was written and distributed. Even that traditional evidence is less than meets the eye.
Our main source for insight into the process of attributing authorship to the Fourth Gospel is Eusebius, a fourth-century church leader whose History of the Church was written in order to impress the emperor Constantine with the bona fides of that part of the Christian movement to which Constantine was becoming an adherent. The part of the Christian movement so favored was what was coming to call itself catholic in distinction from, for example, gnostic or Montanist versions of the same movement.
From Eusebius we receive the tradition that a certain Papias, a second-century bishop of Hieropolis, wrote an otherwise lost document claiming that in his youth he had learned from the “presbyters” of the preceding generation. In this connection, the name “John” occurs twice: once in a list of those who taught (past tense), which includes some names that appear to be from the “twelve” companions of Jesus (though Papias does not himself say this); and again, as “presbyter John” (in the present tense) in company with “Aristion,” who is also said to be a disciple of Jesus.
From Eusebius we also have the Greek text of Irenaeus’s claim that his own teacher Polycarp had heard the teaching of John in Ephesus. Neither of these texts associates this John of Ephesus with John the son of Zebedee.8 Irenaeus at the end of the second century apparently makes this connection rather than either Papias or Polycarp earlier in that century. Nor do the earlier sources identify either John the presbyter (of Ephesus) or John the son of Zebedee (of Galilee) with the disciple Jesus loved.
I agree therefore with Sanders in supposing that a certain presbyter John in Ephesus was connected with the editing and publication of our present Fourth Gospel. This presbyter John was not John the son of Zebedee who appears to have been martyred early in the Christian movement (see Mark 10:39). The identification of presbyter John with the Son of Zebedee emerges later in the controversy with the gnostics who may have claimed this Gospel as an authority for their views. Irenaeus succeeds in rescuing the interpretation of the document from the gnostics and so accepts the pious legend that it comes from one of the twelve, named John—hence John the son of Zebedee.
The presbyter John who is associated with the publication of the Fourth Gospel is apparently not “the disciple Jesus loved” since at least the twenty-first chapter clearly indicates that that disciple, whoever he may have been, had already died at the time that the document was finally edited and published.
The “external evidence” concerning the “authorship” of the Gospel turns out to be late, slender, and equivocal. The Gospel comes to be attributed by the end of the second century to an elder or disciple known as John. As part of a process of narrowing apostolic authority to the twelve and their intellectual descendants, this John is subsequently identified with John the son of Zebedee. This process includes making similarly dubious attributions of authorship, and thus of “authority,” to other texts. Thus the “first Gospel” came to be attributed to Matthew, an otherwise unknown tax collector who was one of the twelve. Another such exercise is the invention of the saga that the John Mark who accompanied Paul at one point became the secretary of Peter and wrote the second Gospel. Luke is identified as the author of the third Gospel on the basis of a conjecture derived from his inclusion with a number of other people in certain travel sections of Acts. In addition comes the production of a host of literature attributed to Paul. All of this is an attempt to stabilize legitimate authority in the second- and third-century churches under the leadership of “bishops” who understood themselves as deriving from the twelve.
Not only is the attribution of the Gospel to John the son of Zebedee almost certainly mistaken, a reading of the Fourth Gospel demonstrates that the beloved disciple is probably not even one of “the twelve.” Although the group of twelve plays a significant role in other narratives, they play almost no role in this Gospel. In fact, their only appearance is a reference to them in 6:66–71:
After this, many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. Jesus said to the twelve, “Will you also go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. . . .” Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve and one of you is a devil?” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was to betray him.
From this text we learn the following. (1) that Jesus had many disciples besides the twelve, and (2) Jesus put little stock in this group since it included his betrayer. There is no possibility of supposing that when the document refers to “disciples,” members of the group of twelve are specifically implied, especially since the Fourth Gospel does give prominence to disciples who are not of this group—Lazarus and Nathaniel, for example. The rather skeptical attitude toward the twelve is expressed in several ways in the text. The first method is the very paucity of reference to them as a group. Second is the way in which Judas is represented as one of this group. Third, Thomas the twin is identified as “one of the twelve” only when the text also reported that he did not yet believe (20:24). Thus, whatever may be the case with church tradition, the author of this text obviously did not put much stock in this group of twelve. In any case, this Gospel supposes that ongoing authority in the community is derivative not from the twelve, nor from the disciples generally, but from the paraclete sent by Jesus following his execution (16:7–15).
To this point, the disciple whom Jesus loved cannot with any confidence be identified on the basis of the text, either with one of the sons of Zebedee or with one of the twelve. Such identification is not necessarily ruled out absolutely, but the text provides us with no basis for such an identification and indeed points away from it.
If the disciple whom Jesus loved cannot automatically be identified as one of the sons of Zebedee or even as one of the twelve, who then are the candidates who, on the basis of internal evidence from the Gospel itself, might be identified as the disciple Jesus loved? In the following discussion, I attend to a number of possibilities. But here the issue does not focus, as it does in the commentaries, on the question of authorship of the Fourth Gospel. To be sure, some role in authorship is attributed to the disciple Jesus loved in the last reference to him (21:24). But our focus is on the disciple who is identified as the man Jesus loved. Thus, we take into account a number of alternative possibilities that the commentaries generally ignore on account of their one-sided concentration on the question of authorship.
Before turning to other possible candidates, the best approach may be to begin with who can be ruled out. That the beloved is Judas Iscariot does not seem possible. Although John does not report the death of Judas, thus removing him from the scene prior to the activity at the cross or the resurrection appearances, he is nevertheless clearly marked off as demonic. Already in 6:71, Judas is said to be “a devil,” and Judas eats the morsel that shows to the beloved that Judas is the traitor. The scene then ends with Satan entering Judas. While one could construct a narrative that reconciled all this with the figure of the beloved, the result would not be the narrative that we call the Gospel of John.
That the beloved disciple is Simon Peter is also not possible because the beloved is regularly mentioned along with Peter. To him Peter’s question is addressed (13:24); in company with him Peter runs to the tomb (20:2ff); and Peter inquires about his fate in 21:20.