Who was the Beloved Disciple of Jesus?

There are many places in the gospels that refer to a "beloved disciple" or a disciple Jesus loved the most. This disciple is never named out right, so religious scholars have looked for clues to who could have possibly been this beloved disciple. Many have deduced that John, son of Zebedee must have been this disciple, but the things we know about this disciple tells us he couldn't have been the gentle beloved disciple Jesus entrusted the care of his mother and told the identity of the one who would betray him. We are going to take a look at one of the theories of who could have been this unnamed disciple: James son of Alphaeus. There are things we know about him from the scriptures, and things we have to investigate to know about him. FIrst off the twelve disciples were Simon Peter, James and John; sons of Zebedee, Andrew, Philip, Matthew, Bartholomew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas of Iscariot. All the disciples but three are named throughout the gospels, those three are: Bartholomew, Thaddaeus, and of course our James son of Alphaeus.

Let's start with what we know about John, son of Zebedee. He and his brother, James, are the two that fought for the seats at Jesus' right and left side. He is also known to have a fiery and ambitious personality. The nickname for him and his brother was "sons of thunder" because of their spirit and personalities. This doesn't follow the tender, gentleness that we see in the beloved disciple. The beloved disciple is never named, John on the other hand is mentioned throughout the Gospels as John, so if he was the beloved disciple I don't think he would have been mentioned by name or he would have had the addition of beloved disciple not a constant switch between the two.