Why did the 'disciple whom Jesus loved' not reveal his name in the passages where he is mentioned?
John 21:7
ESV - 7 That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea.
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Asked June 13 2015
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Lawrie Yinka
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Tim Maas
Neither Matthew, Mark, nor John identified themselves in the first person (that is, as "I") in their gospels, although they appeared in each one (Matthew 9:9 and Mark 14:51-52, as well as the multiple third-person references that John made to himself in his gospel as "the disciple whom Jesus loved"). In my opinion, this was done both out of a sense of personal modesty (which is why neither Mark nor John even identified themselves by name), and so that they would not draw the reader's attention away from Jesus as the central focus of their narratives. (John also completely omitted multiple episodes in which the other gospels indicate that he and his brother James personally participated, such as the account in Matthew 20:20-23 and Mark 10:35-40, as well as the separate incident noted in Luke 9:51-56.) (It is similar in my view to Julius Caesar in the commentaries that he wrote about his military campaigns never referring to himself in the first person, but always in the third person (as "Caesar").)
Guy Hawthorne
It is generally acceped that the Apostle John was that Apostle referred to as the "one Jesus loved". Although Jesus loved all equally.
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