Authorship of John, Part 7: What's the point of a disambiguator that doesn't work?

According to Richard Bauckham, the church father Irenaeus of Lyon believed that the author of the fourth Gospel was the Beloved Disciple but was not the son of Zebedee. Yet in his urgency to find some way to interpret Irenaeus's works as compatible with this view, Bauckham has robbed Irenaeus of terms that would otherwise make it clear whom he is speaking of. Bauckham says that you needed special "Ephesian" knowledge to recognize that these phrases and terms ("the disciple of our Lord" and "the apostle") don't refer to the son of Zebedee. This would mean that, when Irenaeus writes to Victor of Rome, who Bauckham admits didn't have this special Ephesian knowledge, Irenaeus is radically unclear when he refers to the "John" who was known to Polycarp. Yet Bauckham doesn't seem to realize this.Check out _The Eye of the Beholder_ for more on this topic. https://www.amazon.com/Eye-Beholder-Gospel-Historical-Reportage/dp/1947929151