The Bones of Christ

“Where’s the sex and blood?” my college religion professor, Dr. King, asked after she’d read to us from the New Testament.

“The Old Testament—the Bible of the Jews—is filled with rape and incest, sex and death. Yet the New Testament is completely sexless! They aren’t telling us something!” she proclaimed.

“For instance, who was the Beloved Disciple mentioned by John?

And why doesn’t John identify this person?

“Is the Beloved Disciple’s lack of identity simply because he or she was a minor character lucky to have been mention at all?” my professor asked.

“Or was the Beloved Disciple such a major character—so fundamentally important to understanding the life of Christ—that the early chroniclers expurgated him or . . . her?”

Some take the Bible literally.

Others consider it to be literature.

I think the truth falls somewhere in between. I believe Jesus when he said, "…I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." (Mt. 10-34) The Disciple He Loved tells Christ's story—following the Gospels—from the point of view that Jesus was an exorcist until he became a revolutionary.

The Beloved Disciple was his lieutenant.

This is the story of a friendship between two men, and the woman they loved.

And it answers my professor’s question: “Where’s the sex and blood?”

If you know the Bible, you’ll recognize the plot, anecdotes, and parables, but this book makes the Son of Man so human, that he becomes transcendent.