Читать книгу Man Jesus Loved - Theodore W. Jr. Jennings - Страница 18

The episode of the tomb does not add a great deal to our hypothesis concerning the nature of the relationship between Jesus and the beloved. Nothing here is inconsistent with the view that theirs was an erotic friendship. But because Jesus himself is not present, little in the tomb account supplements the nature of their relationship either.

The main figure in the account of the empty tomb is Mary of Magdala, whom we first met by name as a witness to Jesus’ execution (19:25). She finds the tomb empty, and she is the one who first brings word of this event to the others. Although Peter and the beloved come running to the tomb and enter it, she rather than they encounter Jesus here.¹²

The hypothesis of an erotic friendship between Jesus and his beloved disciple at least serves to clarify the text and to “flesh out” some of the details of that relationship.

We notice first that Mary finds the beloved and Peter together. In the next chapter, we see that this piece of circumstantial evidence supports, though does not require, the view that the beloved is Andrew, Peter’s brother. Whether or not they are brothers, they are clearly at least companions. The supposition that Jesus’ relation to the beloved was an erotic one makes the relationship between Peter and the beloved more intelligible. According to the text, each has particular reasons to seek out the other’s companionship. The beloved has witnessed the death of Jesus. He may be found here seeking consolation. Peter has denied one he followed and loved. Who else to turn to in order to unburden himself and seek forgiveness than the one who was the beloved of the one he had denied?

The race to the tomb tells us that the beloved is faster but that he waits for Peter before going in. One could suppose that he is faster because he is younger. One might suppose that he waits for Peter because here, as elsewhere, Peter is represented as the boldest (despite his cowardice at the trial).¹³ One may suppose that the loved one hesitates also because he is still traumatized by the sight of the mangled bleeding corpse of his lover only some hours before.

In any case, Peter enters first and sees the grave clothes. The beloved then also enters (seeing no disfigured body) and sees and believes.

Obviously the beloved is by no means the sole witness. Mary is the first, followed by Peter, and then the beloved. Thus the episode does not serve to establish the peculiar authority of the beloved, only his personal status as the beloved.

While the beloved believed, he is not necessarily exemplary of subsequent faith. Rather his status serves to make intelligible his reserve at the entrance to the tomb. The lover is dead, and nothing more was to be expected of him since “they did not yet know the writing that he must rise from the dead.” What then is the object of this “belief”? Thus far simply that the body is not in the tomb. Mary supposes that the body has been stolen or hidden (vv. 11–15).¹⁴

Even if, on the basis of the empty tomb, we supposed that the beloved “believed” that Jesus had risen from the dead, this status would not make him a paradigm for the faith of the church which is subsequently identified, in the episode with Thomas, as the believing that proceeds without having seen (20:29).

The episode at the tomb serves to confirm that the beloved is neither an independent source of authority in the church nor a representative of the church as such but is a particular disciple.¹⁵ The beloved disciple appears to have a noncompetitive relationship with Peter, the leader of the disciples. The final scene of the narrative confirms this.