Mary Magdalene as the co-protagonist in the Gospel of John

This article offers a new answer to the identity of the Beloved Disciple—an anonymous character in the Gospel of John who is depicted as Jesus' closest companion and the gospel's main source of eyewitness memory. The study brings together two lines of scholarship that have usually been treated separately: the proposal that Mary Magdalene was the Beloved Disciple, and the view that she was the same person as Mary of Bethany. When these three characters are combined, they form a coherent co-protagonist who appears in every chapter from John 11 onwards. By bringing narrative, textual and historical evidence into dialogue, the study invites a reassessment of Magdalene's role in early Christian history.