Jerusalem. James, brother of Jesus James D. Tabor argues that the beloved disciple is James, brother of Jesus (the type of relative to Jesus, brother or cousin, depends on how one translates the word). One of several pieces of evidence Tabor offers is a literal interpretation of John 19:26: "Then when Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, Woman, behold your son." However, elsewhere in the Gospel, the beloved disciple refers to the risen Jesus as "the Lord" rather than as "my brother". Tabor also cites a passage of Jesus referring to James as "my beloved" (twice) in the apocryphal Second Apocalypse of James as indicating James to be the beloved disciple. This passage reads: Reasons for concealing the identity by name Theories about the reference usually include an attempt to explain why this anonymizing idiom is used at all, rather than stating an identity. Suggestions accounting for this are numerous. One common proposal is that the author concealed his name due simply to modesty. Another is that concealment served political or security reasons, made necessary by the threat of persecution or embarrassment during the time of the Gospel's publication. The author may have been a highly placed person in Jerusalem who was hiding his affiliation with Christianity, or the anonymity may have been appropriate for one living the withdrawn life of an ascetic, and one of the many unnamed disciples in the Gospel may have been either the beloved disciple himself or others under his guidance, who out of the humility of their ascetic commitment hid their identity or subsumed their witness under that of their spiritual master. Martin L. Smith, a member of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, writes that the author of the Gospel of John may have deliberately obscured the identity of the beloved disciple so readers of the gospel may better identify with the disciple's relationship with Jesus: Art In art, the beloved disciple is often portrayed as a beardless youth, usually as one of the Twelve Apostles at the Last Supper or with Mary at the crucifixion. In some medieval art, the beloved disciple is portrayed with his head in Christ's lap. Many artists have given different interpretations of John 13:25, which has the disciple whom Jesus loved "reclining next to Jesus" (v. 23; more literally, "on/at his breast/bosom," ). References Further