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Title: The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John? by James H. Charlesworth ISBN: 1-56338-135-4 Publisher: Trinity Press International Pub. Date: 01 November, 1995 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $30.00

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Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (4 reviews)

Rating: 2
Summary: Author should have paid more attention to Biblical Greek...
Comment: Perhaps if Mr. Charlesworth had a better working knowledge of Biblical Greek, he would have understood that the word often translated as "son" in John 19:26 also meant the gender-neutral "child." Although the word has historically been translated as "son," that is most definitely not the only possible, or the only likely, reasonable reading.

The Gospel itself invites speculation as to the gender (and the identity) of the beloved disciple, as the author chose not to use the accepted Greek word for "son," which would have solidified the gender indicated.

The Gospel quite clearly names Mary Magdalene as being present, but no male disciple. This too leaves a great deal of room for a reading that Charlesworth dismisses.

In fact, far from being a far-fetched idea, given the context of the Gospel itself it seems much more likely that Mary Magdalene is the witness, rather than any of the male disciples. Such a conclusion is not a radical wish or fantasy, but rather the fruit of careful and attentive study -- even if Charlesworth disagrees with this concept (of a female witness in such a position of power), still he should not dismiss it out of hand. Such a move displays merely the author's (and the Church's) own ideological wish-fulfillment, a stretching of the Gospels to fit their own desired reading.

What might have been an interesting and thought-provoking book is undermined by the author's own prejudice and unfortunate lack of depth in his reading of the Gospel of John. It is only through disciplined, rigoruous, and skilled readings of the Gospels that questions such as those Charlesworth raises may be resolved, and unfortunately, this book does not provide such a reading.

Rating: 5
Summary: Good Book, and good thesis!
Comment: I agree completly with Charlesworth, about Thomas! Some people try to associate a women with the title of "disciple" but they forget the context where Jesus were living.

Rating: 3
Summary: Charlesworth's thesis falls short
Comment: This book is an excellent survey of the scholarly research that has gone into the attempt to identify the anonymous Beloved Disciple of the Fourth Gospel. However, he fails to provide compelling arguments in support of his own thesis that the Beloved Disciple was the apostle Thomas. The chief reason for rejecting Thomas as the Beloved Disciple is MOTIVE. Charlesworth does not provide a plausible motivational hypothesis in support of his idea that the writer(s) of the Fourth Gospel concealed the identity of St. Thomas as the primary source behind this biblical text. The question here should be: "Why?" Thomas was one of the Twelve Apostles. Why would the writer(s) of the Gospel not be willing to identify one of the Twelve as their eyewitness source? ...Indeed, after careful consideration it is difficult to understand why they would have needed to suppress the identity of any MALE disciple mentioned in the Gospel. In his introduction to this book, Charlesworth says the following: "It is obviously inconceivable that the Beloved Disciple might have been a woman, perhaps Mary Magdalene, because from the cross Jesus told his mother, 'Behold your son'"(5-6). In quickly dismissing the possibility that the Beloved Disciple may have been a woman, Charlesworth probably rejected ideas that are more plausible than his own. The motive for concealing the identity of the Beloved Disciple may have been precisely because that disciple was indeed female, perhaps even Mary Magdalene. In fact, the recently discovered ancient Gnostic documents of the Nag Hammadi Library repeatedly refer to Mary Magdalene as the disciple whom Jesus loved the most. The Fourth Gospel was written at a time when the testimony of women was not considered to be very credible by the patriarchal power structure. Perhaps the reason for the anonymity of the Beloved Disciple in the Fourth Gospel was because the disciple was a woman and the final editor(s) of the text did not wish her gender to become an issue among possible detractors who would not accept their Gospel as credible if it was primarily based on the testimony of a woman. Charlesworth should have pursued this possibility rather than rejecting it outright with one sentence. There is a growing amount of research among many Scripture scholars which shows that women probably had more to do with the expansion of the early Church than traditional scholarship has led us to believe. The idea of a woman, perhaps Mary Magdalene, having been the Beloved Disciple may or may not actually be the case. But, it is a possibility that Charlesworth should have investigated. It is hardly "obviously inconceivable."