This post contains the positions of Witherington, Tabor, Charlesworth, and Ehrman.
Summary of the info below this table:
| Scholar | Choice | Various “For” Arguments | Various “Against” Arguments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tabor | James | James is head of Movement and as his family stays in Jerusalem he, as the oldest, would be caretaker of the family and the one given Jesus’ mother at the cross. Jesus would have followed Jewish tradition. | |
| Charlesworth | Thomas | 1. The BD is at the cross so he must be too young to be crucified. Thomas also had to see the wounds as he was the only one who witnessed them being inflicted. 2. Thomas and the beloved disciple never appear in the same scene. 3. Young Thomas outran Peter. | |
| Goodacre | John son of Zebedee | The same man is consistently alongside Peter. John, son of Zebedee, is conspicuous by his absence in John’s gospel. [Goodacre does not think John son of Zebedee wrote the Gospel according to John.] | none of the special Zebedee stories are included in the Fourth Gospel – Witherington.* Jump John son of Zebedee is not the BD as at the end of the Book of John the writer refers to the sons of Zebedee fishing and does not call them by name. That is surprising if the author knew one was the BD. Tabor ** |
| Witherington | Lazarus | 1. John 12 &13 relates to meals and one is at Lazarus’ house—Lazarus was the host. The host sat next to any special guest, i.e. Jesus. The BD was “reclining” with Jesus; hence Lazarus was in the host position, reclining next to Jesus. Jump 2. None of the sons of Zebedee stories is in John. |
.* Ben Witherington III, in works such as John’s Wisdom and his commentary John (New Cambridge Bible Commentary), observes that the Gospel of John does not include the distinctive Synoptic traditions in which the sons of Zebedee (James and John) are featured prominently.
By “special Zebedee stories,” he is referring to the following episodes found in the Synoptic Gospels:
1. The Call of James and John — Matthew 4:21–22, Mark 1:19–20, Luke 5:10
In the Synoptics, James and John are explicitly called from their father Zebedee’s boat while mending nets. In John’s Gospel (John 1:35–51), disciples are called, but the sons of Zebedee are not named in that narrative.
2. The Nickname “Boanerges” (“Sons of Thunder”) —Mark 3:17
Mark alone records that Jesus gave James and John the nickname Boanerges, meaning “Sons of Thunder.” This detail is absent from John.
3. The Samaritan Village Incident — Luke 9:51–56
James and John ask Jesus whether they should call down fire from heaven on a Samaritan village that rejected him. John’s Gospel contains no parallel to this episode.
4. The Request for Seats at Jesus’ Right and Left —Mark 10:35–40, Matthew 20:20–23
James and John (or their mother, in Matthew’s account) request places of honor in Jesus’ glory. This ambition narrative is not found in John.
5. Their Role in the “Inner Circle” Episodes
- Raising of Jairus’ daughter — Mark 5:37
- Transfiguration — Matthew 17:1–9; Mark 9:2–8; Luke 9:28–36
- Gethsemane — Matthew 26:37; Mark 14:33
In the Synoptics, Peter, James, and John form a privileged inner circle at key moments. John’s Gospel omits the Transfiguration and Jairus’ daughter entirely and does not single out James and John as an inner circle in Gethsemane.
Summary of Witherington’s Observation:
- The Fourth Gospel never names James the son of Zebedee.
- It never narrates any episode in which James and John function as a distinct pair.
- It omits all the Synoptic traditions that uniquely feature them.
- The only explicit mention is John 21:2, which refers collectively to “the sons of Zebedee,” without naming or characterizing them.
Scroll down to see Witherington’s transcript with his position.
.** Tabor — In the closing chapter of the Gospel, the writer lists several disciples who were present but refers to the sons of Zebedee without naming them. John 21:2 (NRSV) — “Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together.”
Dr. James Tabor – Who Was the Mysterious “Disciple Whom Jesus Loved?” December 20, 2015
Extract – Given these factors it seems to me that James the brother of Jesus surfaces as the best candidate. He is the one who takes over leadership of the followers of Jesus. The “mother and brothers” of Jesus are mentioned in the book of Acts as if they are intact and together (Acts 1:14). Although Luke is reluctant to name either Jesus’ mother or the brothers, given his emphasis on the dominance of Peter and eventually Paul as the main apostles, that he knows the tradition of the intact Jesus family, together in Jerusalem, gathered with the other followers is surely telling. And all the more so that he later has James as the clear head of the Jerusalem community (Acts 15:12-21). To have some other individual such as Lazarus, or the fisherman John, now functioning as caretaker over the family, just makes no sense at all with James present and functioning as leader of the community.
In this video at about 17 min [embedded in a page at this site] Tabor says that John son of Zebedee is not the BD as at the end of the Book of John the writer refers to the sons of Zebedee fishing and does not call them by name. That is surprising if the author knew one was the BD.
Q: Could James be Jesus’ brother? – Tabor recommended here a paper by mathematician Andrew Sills here and in Sills’ folder in DropBox. Here we will consider a question of identity among certain persons in the New Testament that lends itself to a much more straightforward probabilistic analysis.
The ratio of these two probabilities 0.0000317 ÷ 0.000000469 is about 67.6, i.e. the scenario that Jesus’ brothers James, Simon, and Joses are among the Twelve Apostles is more than sixty-seven times as likely as the traditional scenario that the brothers are separate from the Apostles, based on name frequencies
Dr. James H. Charlesworth – “Powerful Evidence that Thomas is the Beloved Disciple!!”
Charlesworth believes that Thomas is the BD. The transcript of this video is in Scholars/James Charlesworth in DropBox.
Thomas demands criteria and that proves he has seen Jesus die and a spear enter his side. Only the beloved disciple saw that. No other disciple is at the cross.
What are our conclusions?
- Thomas and the beloved disciple never appear in the same scene. They are most likely two names for the same person.
- Thomas is the hero in the concluding chapter of John.
- He makes the consummate confession. In the most theological gospel. He offers a final confession. My Lord and my God. Thomas is the one who is a disciple whom Jesus loved.
Why have scholars missed this? Because they hear about doubting Thomas. Thomas does not doubt. He questions claims. He’s the ideal student. He knows how to ask. The key question.
There’s no doubting, Thomas. The Greek is kai meikinu alapistos. And what does that mean? It means be not faithless.
Mark Goodacre –
NT Pod 38: Who is the Beloved Disciple in John’s Gospel? 12-minute lecture
- Mark believes John, son of Zebedee is the BD. His statement in a response to a comment reflects his overall reasoning in my view: “My point is simply that anyone reading or hearing the Fourth Gospel with a knowledge of other early Christianity and Christian texts will naturally see this character as the same man who is consistently alongside Peter, and that is John. It does not require any kind of leap of the imagination, and it is a link that many made.”
- The transcript of this audio mini-lecture is in Scholars/Mark Goodacre in Dropbox.
- The video’s description provided this list of key texts referenced by Goodacre: John 19:26-27, John 19:35, John 21:24, John 13:23-25, John 18:15-18, John 21:20-23, Luke 22:8, Acts 3:1, Acts 12:2, Gal. 2:9, John 1:35-42
Who was the Beloved Disciple? by Mark Goodacre. A 47-minute BAS Lecture.
The audio transcript from this longer lecture is in Scholars/Mark Goodacre in DropBox. The Following paragraphs are from the Transcript.
He appears with Peter in chapter 13 at the Last Supper. He appears again with Peter at Peter’s denial in chapter 18 of John. And then another case I’ve already mentioned in chapter 21, he’s with Peter after the resurrection.
So if we knew a little bit about early Christianity and we read this account and we asked ourselves the question, who do we know of in early Christian texts who was always at Peter’s side? Who is there in early Christian texts who is represented as being alongside Peter repeatedly? There’s only one candidate for that, and that candidate is of course John, John the son of Zebedee. After all, if you read Luke’s gospel, he alone is with Peter at the preparation of the Passover, Luke chapter 22. If you know Acts of the Apostles, he’s there at the beautiful gate where the man is healed.
Another Goodacre lecture — “Who was the Beloved Disciple? John for Readers of the Synoptics”
Ben Witherington – Was Lazarus the Beloved Disciple? Monday, January 29, 2007
He makes his case in this long lecture provided at SBL where he must have upset many.
Extract – One of the things which is probably fatal to the theory that John son of Zebedee is the Beloved Disciple and also the author of this entire document is that none, and I do mean none, of the special Zebedee stories are included in the Fourth Gospel (e.g. the calling of the Zebedees by Jesus, their presence with Jesus in the house where Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter, the story of the Transfiguration, and also of the special request for special seats in Jesus’ kingdom when it comes, and we could go on). In view of the fact that this Gospel places some stress on the role of eyewitness testimony (see especially Jn. 19-21) it is passing strange that these stories would be omitted if this Gospel was by John of Zebedee, or even if he was its primary source. It is equally strange that the Zebedees are so briefly mentioned in this Gospel as such (see Jn. 21:2) and John is never equated with the Beloved Disciple even in the appendix in John 21:2 and :7– the Beloved Disciple could certainly be one of the two unnamed disciples mentioned in vs. 2).
Extract – At John 13:23 we have the by now very familiar reference to a disciple whom Jesus loved (hon agapa this time) as reclining on the bosom of Jesus, by which is meant he is reclining on the same couch as Jesus. The disciple is not named here, and notice that nowhere in John 13 is it said that this meal transpired in Jerusalem. It could just as well have transpired in the nearby town of Bethany and this need not even be an account of the Passover meal. John 13:1 in fact says it was a meal that transpired before the Passover meal. This brings us to a crucial juncture in this discussion. In Jn. 11 there was a reference to a beloved disciple named Lazarus. In John 12 there was a mention of a meal at the house of Lazarus. If someone was hearing these tales in this order without access to the Synoptic Gospels it would be natural to conclude that the person reclining with Jesus in John 13 was Lazarus. There is another good reason to do so as well. It was the custom in this sort of dining that the host would recline with or next to the chief guest. The story as we have it told in Jn. 13 likely implies that the Beloved Disciple is the host then. But this in turn means he must have a house in the vicinity of Jerusalem. This in turn probably eliminates all the Galilean disciples.
The comments to the post are extensive and Witherington often responded at length. There is a lot of good info there.
For Bart Ehrman’s presentation of the pros and cons of various arguments go to his post The Gospel of John: Who Wrote It, When, and Why? February 20, 2025
Extract: Another view is that the BD is a fictitious character used by the author to show what true discipleship is like (in contrast especially to Peter but also the others.) I [Bart] lean toward that option myself. I do not think it’s useful to do what everyone is tempted to do, namely throw out guesses about the true identify of the BD.
