In the Gospel of John we read that near the cross of Jesus there was the Beloved Disciple. He was also present at the Last Supper.

Who was the Beloved Disciple?

Nothing in the Gospel or Epistles ‘of John’ identifies either the Beloved Disciple or the writer by name.

Through his major commentaries on the Johannine writings, the renowned biblical scholar Raymond Brown contended that the Beloved Disciple was not the ‘writer’ (i.e. responsible for the written Gospel) but the ‘author’ in the sense of authority behind the tradition that was incorporated in the written Gospel.

In the late 1970s, while working with Johannine Epistles, Brown came to realise that it was mostly unlikely that the Beloved Disciple himself was one of the 12 Apostles because, for example, they are never appealed to as authorities in the Gospel or Epistles.

The Beloved Disciple was a disciple of Jesus whose name we cannot recover… and therefore John of Zebedee was neither the author nor the writer.