Was Jesus talking to John the Baptist when he said 'behold thy mother'?

Answer 1

The story of the disciple, at the foot of the cross occurs only in John's Gospel. The other gospels say that Mary and those of Jesus' acquaintance stood afar off, leaving no room for Mary or any disciple to be near the cross.

During the second century, the Church Fathers also wondered who this disciple was, whom Jesus loved. They noticed that the apostle John was never mentioned in this gospel, although John was one of the most important disciples in the other gospels. They then came to the conclusion that the 'disciple whom Jesus loved' must have been John. They took this a step further. The gospel had been written anonymously and they needed to establish, to their own satisfaction, who probably wrote it. They surmised that the author, out of modesty, had chosen not to write about himself in the book and that this gospel was written by the same disciple, John.

In fact, we do not know who wrote this gospel, in spite of it now being called John's Gospel, and we do not know who the author had in mind when he wrote of the 'disciple whom Jesus loved'. The unnamed disciple was not John the Baptist, the apostle John or any real person. He was really a literary creation of the Gospel's author, as evidenced by the quite contradictory stories in the other gospels.

Answer 2

No, Jesus was speaking to John His disciple (Later Apostle). John the Baptist had been beheaded some time before Jesus was crucified.