1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?

[davidmartin]

I will observe for now that the final redaction of the gospel of John itself seems to have been written by somebody other than the beloved disciple, since several key texts speak of this disciple in the third person and imply that he is already dead (I am using the masculine pronouns for him because the gospel itself does, too). Would you agree with that much?

Yes I do see a final redactor making those changes. It may the beloved disciple was always a 'he' in the version he was redacting, just that the origins before then would not have been, or been ambiguously worded

What is very interesting to me is things like "Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."

This sounds plain enough but to a gnostic immersed in concepts like beings 'wearing' other beings and so on, this is highly suggestive language
Only after studying gnostics long enough did this occur to me. Happens all the time in gnostic texts
It jibes with the idea of orthodoxy 'dressing a well known person in 'orthadox' clothing and 'leading them', ie putting words in their mouth, where they don't want to go. This necessitated a mundane 'explanation' by the redactor who must have been aware of this, but it was too late to take it out
This kind of stuff makes me think the group it originated in had some familiarity with such concepts, but not that they were 'gnostic' per se
Like I said I don't think real Gnostic groups approved of Mary too much

If you'd like an ever more bizarre thought, the disciple who would never die... but who Jesus said 'I didn't say they wouldn't die'
Well, someone that dies but doesn't die could mean re-incarnation, ie Helen's reincarnation in woman after woman... But that is wild speculation of the 'Dan Brown' type! It barely deserves a mention

[Ben C. Smith]

I will observe for now that the final redaction of the gospel of John itself seems to have been written by somebody other than the beloved disciple, since several key texts speak of this disciple in the third person and imply that he is already dead (I am using the masculine pronouns for him because the gospel itself does, too). Would you agree with that much?

Yes I do see a final redactor making those changes. It may the beloved disciple was always a 'he' in the version he was redacting, just that the origins before then would not have been, or been ambiguously worded

Okay, good. What indications do you find in the text, then (presumably before that final redaction), that Mary is the beloved disciple?

[davidmartin]

Well, there's that textual analysis that has flagged some oddness in various places around the BD in terms of grammar and things, as if something has gone on here by a redactor. That's vague, I know. I'd never claim to be able to comment on this, I don't know Greek or have read up on this in detail
In John Jesus appears only to Mary alone. Her role is amplified compared to the synoptics, especially if connected to the anointing or even woman at the well (which seems like a mini-version of Mary's proclamation at the end).
Then the Gospel of Philip and Mary, and Dialog of the Saviour all calling her the beloved companion (the least gnostic of the gnostic writings)
I don't want to get into the relationship aspect, its a distraction to me. It's her role post-crucifixion that's interesting if its possible to trace an influence, circumstantially through the body of early writings
At the end of the day, i'd only recommend it, if it solves any problems. If it doesn't then it deserves to be a fringe theory, but if it does then it's worth creating models and playing with scenarios incorporating her, that's all i'm doing. I'm not Dan Browning around

[Ben C. Smith]

In John Jesus appears only to Mary alone. Her role is amplified compared to the synoptics, especially if connected to the anointing or even woman at the well (which seems like a mini-version of Mary's proclamation at the end).

Why do you think the gospel names Mary openly at this appearance (and at the cross) but disguises her as "the beloved disciple" elsewhere, including at the appearance in chapter 21? What is the point of sometimes saying "Mary Magdalene" and sometimes saying "the beloved disciple," but never equating the two?

Then the Gospel of Philip and Mary, and Dialog of the Saviour all calling her the beloved companion (the least gnostic of the gnostic writings)

Yes, and yet inside the gospel itself it is the Mary who lives in Bethany who is loved:

John 11.5: 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

Do you think that this Mary who lives in Bethany and Mary Magdalene (= "of Magdala") are supposed to be the same Mary in this gospel? If so, why are they never identified as such? If not, why would an author who thinks of one Mary as "the beloved disciple" go out of his/her way to state outright that Jesus loves another Mary (along with her siblings)?

[davidmartin]

good questions!
you could get there if there were a wish to minimise her role, just like Thomas gets a bit of a negative review
if the cross and first witness were widely known traditions these events would have to remain
it could be that 'mary' traditions, either within churches or expressed by competing groups meant that any further importance of her role would lend support to them, especially if they claimed a lineage of some kind
something like that could explain a reluctance or desire to re-emphasise things, after all the beloved disciple is still unnammed, although that could even have been in the original too. modesty is an option
also possible is allusions that were unclear to begin with, because they wouldn't have been accepted if explicit, I think there's some of those

i tend to feel the various Mary's do also obscure the picture a bit and suspect they are the same person. i think the redactor was fairly mild and left a lot of clues behind for us to puzzle over, not intentionally perhaps. for all we know he was in a bit of a hurry and didn't agonise over each one! quite possibly the unredacted version was popular and too many changes would have been a bit of a problem

[Ben C. Smith]

For my money, none of the Maries is likely to be the beloved disciple, partly because none is male, and the beloved disciple is presented as a male. If there has been a switcheroo somewhere along the line, with the disciple's female sex hidden behind masculine pronouns, I would need to see the evidence; it is not impossible, but it is also not inherently probable in any way. It cannot rightly be the default view.

If the beloved disciple is someone named elsewhere in the text, then it is probably Lazarus, who is male and whom Jesus is said expressly to love. Also, most if not all of the "beloved disciple" pericopae happen in Judea in the second half of the gospel, and Lazarus both lives in Judea and shows up in the second half of the gospel. Finally, a rumor that the beloved disciple would not die (John 21.23) actually ties in rather well with the idea that Lazarus has already died once (John 11.14). Among individuals named in the gospel, Lazarus is the one to beat. Other claims (John of Zebedee, Thomas, Mary Magdalene, and so on) fall short of ticking as many boxes as Lazarus.

But I personally doubt that anybody named in the gospel is supposed to be the beloved disciple, at least in a deliberate sense, mainly because it would be weird to disguise his identity part of the time but not all of the time. I take the beloved disciple to be a historical personage, because his death seems to have caused a sort of crisis which had to be allayed (John 21.23 again). I take the "we" of John 21.24 to be the redactors of the gospel, and I take the man indicated in John 19.35 to be the beloved disciple; the claim is that this disciple wrote "these things" down and that the redactors packaged it all up after his death.

At the same time, however, the scenes in which the beloved disciple appears come off as ancient fan fiction to me, of the kind by which the fan inserts him/herself into the existing narrative. In this case the existing narrative is that presented in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, at least, and I do not think that the historical personage known in this gospel as the beloved disciple actually participated in any of the scenes in which he appears in the gospel; his presence looks like a fiction designed to grant the gospel a kind of eyewitness authority.

Any robust hypothesis will, in my view, have to account satisfactorily for these and rather many other data. I would also say that some explanation for both the beloved disciple and Lazarus being especially beloved by Jesus is in order; IOW, if Lazarus is not the beloved disciple, then why tell us three times how much Jesus loved Lazarus (John 11.3, 5, 36)?? I do have tentative answers to such questions, and an hypothesis that I have been working on for many years, but not everything is in place just yet; there are still some things going on, mainly outside of the gospel itself, which bear explaining. But step by step. YMMV.

[davidmartin]

ah well you may be right, Lazarus fits quite well. A potential messiah candidate himself if you ask me
Mary being the 'BD' doesn't really effect my own ideas too much, which has Mary 'doing stuff' for years afterwards as the main point, and having 'something' to do with John's gospel and a significant role in subsequent decades which impacted orthodox and gnostic alike, and us I guess!
come to think of it, isn't is odd no 'gnostic lazarus' ever appeared, the revelation of lazarus what a perfect name, how the heck did they resist that!