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Mary Magdalene is posited as the author of the Fourth Gospel in the sense in which antiquity defined authorship (Brown 1990: 1051-1052). The author is the person whose ideas the book expresses, not necessarily the person who set pen to papyrus (Brown 1966: lxxxvii). According to Brown, the Fourth Gospel was authored by an anonymous follower of Jesus referred to in the Gospel text as the Beloved Disciple. This Beloved Disciple knew Jesus personally and was in the originating group of the Johannine Community (Brown 1979: 31). The Fourth Gospel was based on this disciple's own eyewitness account (John 21:24). Brown identifies several phases in the development of the Fourth Gospel: 1) the initial pre-Gospel version authored by the Beloved Disciple; 2) the pre-Gospel work produced by "the evangelist" or main writer; and, 3) the final version written by a redactor after the death of the Beloved Disciple (1979:22-23).