After these
learnings, go to "Unearthing
the Family of Jesus."
Texts:
Mark
3:13-19; Gen 17:1-5, 15-17; 1 Peter 2:4-9
Mark
3:13. [Yahshua] goes up in the mountain and calls those whom he wanted to him,
and to him they went. 14. And he
appointed
(epoinhsen) twelve so that they might be with him, even that he
might send them to preach 15. and have
authority to cast out the demons. 16. And he appointed the twelve and he added
a name to Shimon (Simon) ie “Kefa” (Peter); 17. as for Yahqov (James) of Zavdai
(Zabad, Zebedee) and Yah’annan (John) the brother of Yahqov, he also added a
name to them – “Benim Regesh” (Boanerges) – that is, “Sons of Thunder
[Commotion],” 18. and
Andreas and Philippos and Bar Talmai (Bartholomew) and Mattityah (Matthew) and
Toma (Thomas) and Yahqov of the Halfai (Alphaeus) and Taddai (Thaddeus) and Shimon the Canaanite 19. and Yahuda
“Sicarius” (Judas Iscariot) who even
betrayed him.
In the study of the Bible, names mean a
lot. The Almighty said that his name
was to be remembered in all generations
(Exodus 3:15) and those who take his name in
vain will be held accountable
(Exodus 20:7).
That’s why I use the Almighty’s name in all my teaching.
In many cases, we only get a small glimpse
of Bible people, but we find a great wealth of information in their names. As we read in our Old Testament lesson,
Yahweh changed the names of both Abram (high father) and Sarai (my lady) to Abraham and Sarah, which
means, “Father of a Multitude” and “High Lady / Princess,” names that are in accordance
with Yahweh’s great promises.
In the Gospel text, Yahshua is picking out
his twelve men who would continue the apostolic ministry and tradition that he
started. Some of these men we know about
from their letters or acts as recorded in the Bible. But of others we know little or nothing. Yet if we make a study of their names, we can
learn a lot about them because, in several cases, these disciples’ names were added
to their common names as descriptions of their mission or character. In fact, some of these men are not known by
their names at all, but by nicknames only.
What can we learn about them by these aliases?
(In the translation above great care was taken
to render the names in both the original tongues and in English. In translating these New Testament Bible
names, five languages may be involved, including Aramaic, which was the common
tongue of the disciples; Hebrew which was the language of their faith; Greek,
the language of the world at the time; and Latin, the language of the
Romans. The fifth language is English,
which is our tongue; for without an excellent translation, how would we
understand?)
Jesus Christ
Let’s start with Jesus’ name. His name is a Hebrew combination of words
meaning, “Yah is salvation” and is pronounced “Yahshua.” “Yah” is the sacred name of the Almighty in
its poetic form. In Yahshua’s day,
pronouncing the name of G-d meant a death sentence. So Jesus’ name, Yahshua, was
commonly pronounced Yeshua so as to avoid saying Yah. This is still the case today. Jewish believers call him Yeshua instead of
Yahshua. But we can consider the "e" in
Yeshua as having the shwa sound (ə), which is "uh" or "ah." (www.antimoon.com/forum/t6733.htm)
“Christ” is not a name but a title. It comes from a Hindi
(Indian) root meaning, “Anointed.” The Hindu god-name Krishna
also derives from this root. So Yahshua
Christ (or Anointed) in its fullest
form might mean, “Yah is salvation and Yahshua is his Anointed One.”
Christos correctly pronounced KREE-stose and probably should not be used,
for it is a pagan title. Yahshua the
Messiah (which also means Anointed, but not from the pagan background [John 1
:41]) is a better alternative.
Simon Peter
Peter’s given name was Shĭmōn. This was the most popular name in Israel
in his lifetime. Shimon is familiar now because that’s the name of Israel’s
foreign minister
(Shimon Perez).
Shimon means “hearer”: one who hears or is heard and
also does. Yahshua added the name
(epeqhken
onoma)
Kefa (kih-FAH) to Shimon making Shimon Kefa. Kefa is also Aramaic and means, “a
stone.” Kefa comes to us in
English as “Peter” from the Greek word petra. So Shimon Kefa, or Simon Peter, might be
translated as “a stone hearing and obeying.” We
might note the Petra was an important sanctuary city for those persecuted by
Paul and his ilk,
according to Clement (of Rome)
in his Epitomes 1:70.
James and John of Zebedee
James’ given name was Yahqov; Aramaic
meaning, “Yah is protection.” How “Yahqov” got to be translated to English as
“James” is a long story.
(It
came to be through the Latin “Iacomus,” though King James I might have had
something to do with the use of the substitute name “James.”)
Yahqov’s (James’) brother is Yah'anan
(John), which means, “Yah is merciful.”
The Bible doesn’t say that James and John
are sons of Zebedee, only “of”
him. “Zebedee” is from the Hebrew name
Zavdai
(Zebedee, Zabad, Zabdi, Zabud), which means “endowment.” In the Old Testament, there were two men with
this name. The first was David’s
fighting man ranked right alongside of Uriah the Hittite
(1
Chronicles 11:41: “Zabad”). The other was a Temple priest and a close friend of King
Solomon
(1 Kings 4:5 “Zabud”).
So James and John were son Zebedee in the sense that they were made
from the same mold as the Zavdaim
of Israel’s golden age of monarchy.
James, meaning “Yah is protection,” embodies the Zavdai who was a great
warrior, and John, meaning “Yah is merciful,” embodies the Zavdai who was the
compassionate priest and friend of royalty.
Furthermore, Yahshua
gives a collective title to these men, calling them “Benim Regesh”
(or Boanerges, interpreted as
uioi bronthV
in Greek), which means
“Sons of Thunder” or "Contention" or "Competition." These
fellows were outspoken, perhaps powerful, but always aggressive
men.
(Refer to Job
37:5 and other places where Elohim “thunders wondrously with his voice; he does
great things which we cannot comprehend.”) This James may have spoken too loudly,
for he was beheaded by King Herod
(Acts 12:2).
John, on the other hand, may have been the longest-lived of all the
disciples.
However, it is hard to imagine a contentious trouble-maker as an author of the
spiritual history of the movement (The Good News According to John, the title
was probably added much later to the text) or to the letters attributed to John.
The Revelation bears little literary resemblance to the others, and may well
have been recorded by a "Son of Thunder," since thunders speak throughout the
Apocalypse (and especially in 10:1-4, where the content of the voices of seven
thunders must be kept a secret).
From
earliest times, three Johns known in Nazorean history. My own
"contention" is that the John called "Apostle" dictated the Revelation
but not the other books and letters published under that name.
For my reasons, see my Commentary Revelation Uncloaked.
Additionally, some important modern scholarly work finds this James
to be a semi-fictional
substitute for James the brother of Yahshua in order to diminish the
work of Yahshua's brother for one reason or another.
See my commentary, "Redating James" for more on this subject.
Modern scholars
are making novel yet convincing,
Scriptural, and logical arguments about the identities of the disciples
and brethren of Yahshua. Their conclusions should not be dismissed lightly,
especially for religious or traditional reasons.
(I am referring to the later writings of James Robinson, Richard Painter, Robert Eisenman, and James Tabor.)
Andrew
Unlike the
others, Andrew (or Andreas) is a Greek name meaning simply “a man” or “a
mighty man” or even “a husband.” “Man” is a
funny name for a person. The Hebrew form
might be Adam
or
Enosh, both of which mean
"man." Matthew says “A Man” is Peter’s brother. It seems unusual that Shimon Kefa’s brother
would have a foreign / Greek name - I doubt that Andrew was his name at all.
With a little letter play, we
can get Ananyahu / Oniyah / Daniyahu - or maybe the editors wanted to
hide his real name.
We
don’t hear much about Andrew in the Bible.
However,
The Acts of Andrew has surfaced, and we can read about
Andrew leaving town to become a missionary to the Greeks, performing incredible
miracles and influencing high-ranking officials. Andrew might simply be a nickname. The Greeks who knew him might have simply
called him, “da Man!”
Philip
Philippos is also a Greek name, meaning,
“horse lover.” Philip was in charge of
the provisions (John 6:5), so the “horse lover” must have been a good
administrator. We find him again in the Acts
appointed as a “deacon” and seeing to the provisions and welfare of the
community of faith
(Acts 6:5).
(Some see this as another Philip, but
why?) We remember that Philip stepped out to become
a mighty preacher, bringing light to the Ethiopian eunuch and the
Samaritans. Maybe Philip rode a horse
through Palestine,
as his name implies. That would make him
the first circuit rider and maybe even the first cowboy.
Bartholomew
Bartholomew is Bar Talmai in Aramaic, which
means “son of Talmai.” Talmai is a
Hebrew word that means, “a heap of water.”
We’d say he was “a tall drink of water.”
Talmai is also a Bible name. He
was a descendent of the giants of Canaan
(Numbers 13:22, sons of Anak). So, if
Bartholomew is an added (sur-)name, we imagine him to be a giant or son of a
giant, a big “heap of water.”
Church history tells us that Bartholomew was
also called Nathaniel
(also Nathanael), the man Yahshua met under the fig
tree. Nathaniel is a real name and means
“gift of the Almighty.” Yahshua saw
Nathaniel under the fig tree, which is a symbol for the kingdom of Israel.
This may be a reference to the words of Yahweh through the prophet Nathan
in 2 Samuel 7:10 “I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and
will plant them.” In was under the fig
that Yahshua told Nathaniel, “You are an Israelite indeed without a
gimmick
(doloV)”
(John
1:47). If Nathaniel and Bartholomew are the same
person, then he may have been a giant of a man, a “gift of Elohim” to the
disciples, like the actor Buddy Baer in the movie classic Quo Vadis or Michael
Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile: an
overarching friend of the innocent; a strong bear, “what you see is what you
get,” a prophetic and humorless voice.
The Aramaic
books of Volume VIII of the so-called Church Fathers include stories about
Bartholomew's mission travels in the East through Asia, and his martyrdom of
being crucified by townspeople upon the side of a barn. There may be some
history in these stories. On the other hand, some of the Apocryphal books
from the west tell us of the gross visions of Bartholomew and his battles with a
monstrous huge antichrist.
Matthew
Matthew is Mattityahu in Hebrew, which
means, “reward of Yahweh.” He’s also
called Levi
(Mark 2:14), which is not only a name but a tribe of Israel. The tribe of the Levites collected the
tithes. Matthew is called “the
telwnhV”
or tax collector. His names, both as
Matthew and Levi, are found frequently in the Old Testament referring to worship. The Matthews are singers and worship
leaders.
Can you understand how Matthew’s names work
to reveal his person? His name means
“reward” and he’s a tax collector and Levite.
Levites, as servants of the Temple,
were educated men. Most “scribes” in
Scripture were Levites, engaged in professional writing, dictation, copying and
recording history. Papias, an early
believer
(b. 70 AD) writes that Matthew “put together the oracles of the
Master in the Hebrew language.” This
earliest Hebrew Gospel of Matthew no longer exists except maybe as the common
foundation our Gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke.
(One scholar believes that the historian Flavius Josephus was Matthew’s son!)
(skip the ad - although this is
the buy of the century on these. I love 'em.) Thomas
In John 11:16, Thomas is called Didymos. Neither of these is a name; both Thomas
(Toma) and Didymos
(DidumoV)
mean “Twin.” This man was the second born of twins.
(He was someone’s twin.) In The
Gospel of Thomas, which may have been written even before the Resurrection,
“the Twin” identifies himself as Judas Didymos Thomas, and he is
identified with as “Judas” several other places. Judas or Judah is the English translation of
a Hebrew name Yahda
(Yahuda, Yehuda) which means “Praise Yahweh.”
There are many stories about where Thomas
went and what he did. As I mentioned,
Thomas also recorded many sayings of Yahshua, quite a few aren’t found
in the Bible.
(Like,
“Blessed is the lion which the man shall eat, and the lion become man; and
cursed is the man whom the lion shall eat, and the lion become man.” Such a proverb hails back to stories like
that of Samson and the lion.))
We’ve worked on eight disciples now. The next three are “shadow disciples” because
so little is generally known about them.
They are James Alphaeus
(Yahkov Halfai), Thaddeus
(Taddai) and Simon the Cananaean. I intend to bring these fellows out of the
shadows and into the light. You’ll be
surprised to learn who they are. But let
me give you a clue: they are three brothers.
Three
Brothers?
The first
“shadow disciple” is the second James on our list. We already mentioned that the name James is
the same as Jacob or, in Aramaic, Yahqov – “Yahweh is Protection.” Some English translations say that James’ is
the son of Alphaeus, but the text simply reads that James is “of the Alphaeus,”
which, according to one source, may have been a class of holy men.*
Another source tells us that Alphaeus means “the First” or “Senior”
(from the first letter, alpha).
(King
James was the Fourth of Scotland but the First of England.)
Baruch Lev
writes, "The same word [elef] with different vowels, is "ahloof" which
means chief, or in modern Hebrew, general. James
was the mebakker (chief) of the Jerusalem Assembly. John
Byl writes that elef
אלף also means of the troop, thousand,
or family.
The church historian Tatian, who lived about a hundred years after James
(and was a student of Justin Martyr, 100-165), gives this James yet another
title – “Lebbaeus,” which means, “The Levite”
(Matthew
was also a Levite of the Alphaeus, Mark 2:14). So his full
appellation in English is James Alphaeus Lebbaeus. We’ll later find him to be a prominent
figure in the Acts of the Apostles, in the histories of Josephus and the writings of the third bishop of Rome, Clement. (He was the third or first overseer,
depending how you reckon.) We’ll get back to this James in a minute.
The next shadow disciple is Thaddeus. In Luke’s list, Thaddeus is called “Judas
of James”
(not “son of James”), or James Alphaeus’ brother. Because his name is both Thaddeus and Judas,
he’s also called “Theudas”
(a combo of the two), which means, “living water.” Some versions of Matthew give him another
title, saying he is “surnamed Lebbaeus.”
So this second shadow disciple’s full appellation is Judas Thaddeus
(or
Theudas)
Lebbaeus. This Theudas gets a
short but not sweet mention in the Acts.
(5:35-36
Gamaliel: “Men of Israel, take care what you do with these men. For before these days Theudas arose, giving
himself out to be somebody...” Indeed
this Theudas was somebody.).
Theudas was known in history to
have led the Israelites back out of Israel
across the Jordan to protest
the rule of Rome
and the Herods.
The third shadow disciple is Simon the
Canaanite. He has the same first name as
Peter, i.e. Shimon. His
title, the Canaanite
(or Cananaean), comes from a Hebrew word cana,
which means “zeal.” Luke calls him Simon
“Zelotes”
(zhlwthn) or “the Zealot” (Luke 6:15). We know that the zealots were a political
movement of the first century that fought for the overthrow of authority by
force. Zealots wanted to put very
strict religious government in place.
They were called Zealots because they were zealots for the Law.
You may remember that when Yahshua whipped
the moneychangers out of the Temple courtyard, the disciples remembered what
was written of him in the Psalms
(69:9), "Zeal for thy house will
consume me"
(John 2:17). It was for
this kind of violent zeal that Zealots were best known. Today we call such groups as these Zealots terrorists
– but I suppose if the yoke of a foreign power were about our necks, a few of
us might also become zealots.
Whose
Brothers?
Having now described the three “shadow
disciples,” James, Judas/Theudas and Simon, let’s find these names together in another
Gospel passage:
Mark
6:1. Yahshua came to his own country;
and his disciples followed him. 2. And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the
synagogue; and many who heard him were astonished, saying, "Where did this
man get all this? What is the wisdom given to him? What mighty works are
wrought by his hands! 3. Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary
and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters
here with us?"
Did you
catch who is mentioned as Yahshua’s brothers?
James, Judas and Simon, the three shadow disciples – that is, Yahqov,
Yahuda and Shimon. May we conclude that three
of Yahshua’s disciples are his brothers?
His brother James Alphaeus Lebbaeus succeeded him as the Apostle and
overseer of the Jerusalem
assembly.
When James lost his life, his
younger brother Simon Zelotes
(also known as Cleopas) succeeded him. In the meantime, the middle brother, Judas
Thaddeus Lebbaeus went out as a
missionary and was martyred somewhat early in his life (Acts 6:4). Jude left behind children that we know of who
were persecuted right into the second century as ancestors of King David.
There is still one more brother of Yahshua
that is unaccounted for, mentioned in Mark 6; that is, Joses. So there is still a little detective work to
be done there for you serious Bible students.
There is an answer to the identity of Joses! But you will have to figure that out! The identity of this man is too controversial
to bring up even here in this safe place.
Nicknames, Surnames, Code
Names, Assumed Names and Aliases
Why is it that Bible writers used such
confusing surnames and code names when referring to the disciples of Yahshua? Why did they want to hide the fact that three
of Yahshua’s own brothers were his chief apostles? Why these weird names like Alphaeus,
Cananaean, Lebbaeus, Thaddeus, Zelotes?
Why does James come out of nowhere in Acts to become the
chief apostle of the local assembly
(Acts 15)? Why underplay the importance of
the chief apostles and brothers of our Master in the Acts of the Apostles?
Why not just be forthright and more
truthful about these men who are our heroes of the faith? I’ll tell you why.
The Roman Emperors from Vespasian
(69
– 79) through Trajan
(98
- 117) tried to round
up and execute any descendants of King David.
One example is Emperor Domitian’s
(81-96) inquisition of the remaining
family members of Yahuda (Jude), Yahshua’s brother.
(In our text,
Jude’s called Thaddeus; and this event is recorded in Eusebius.)
When these family members were questioned about “Messiah and his
kingdom” they replied that the kingdom was not of the earth, but of the
sky. And at the end of the world, Yahshua
would appear to judge everyone according to his works. Domitian considered them to be ‘simpletons’
but his successor, Trajan
(98-117), had them all killed
(Eisenman,
James, 119).
The persecution of believers by authorities
certainly led to the veiling of these heroes of our faith by eliminating
them from the Gospels, replacing their stories with the idea that Yahshua was
alienated from his family
(like John 7).
But now that we know their identity, perhaps we can seek new truths
about their exploits, emulate them and go forth in our own apostolates as they
did.
P. S. The Disciple I Left Off
The missing disciple would be Judas
Iscariot, the “son of perdition” (John 17:12), who “was one of us and had been
assigned a part in our work”
(Acts 1:17 JNT).
This name has been parsed many ways to derive more meaning. There was a village in the Sinai called
“Kerioth,” so some thought this Yahuda was from there, which would make him the
only Judean disciple
(Joshua 15:25).
Years ago I parsed Iscariot as “Ish Cherith,” a “man who cuts.” My name means the same thing in
German: to schneide means to “cut.”
Most now understand that the name is derived from the Latin word “sicarius”
– an “assassin” or “murderer.” Sicarius
further breaks down to “user of the dagger.” A straight Roman dagger was called
a sica and a curved dagger was a
sicila.
(From which we get “sickle.”)
Indeed, that which was cut with the sica were the throats of
Roman officials and Jewish collaborators.
(Think of “the daggers of Megiddo”
from The Omen series of motion
pictures.
So following the Zealots and Canaanites
comes Yahuda Sicarius (Judas Iscariot), a zealot and member of the elite sicarii
units, the assassin squads. The Zealots,
according to Josephus and other contemporaneous historians, were the scourges
of the Roman world. Josephus writes
about them extensively and disapprovingly, yet with a reserved admiration. Here is a quote regarding their tenacity:
Some
of the faction of the Sicarion ... not content with having saved
themselves [from Masada], again embark on new revolutionary scheming,
persuading those that received them there to assert their freedom, to esteem
the Romans as no better than themselves and to look upon God as their only Lord
and Master.
And another
that reminds of contemporaneous Christian martyrdom stories:
They could not get any one of them
to confess or to come to the verge of confession that Caesar was their Lord ...
meeting the tortures and the fire with
... a soul that well nigh rejoiced in them ... But what was most
astonishing was the courage of the children, not one of whom could be brought
to these torments as to name Caesar for their Lord. (Both quoted from Eisenman, James the
Brother of Yahshua, 180-181.)
P.
S. S. The Fourth Brother
Finally, there is the brother of Yahshua named
Joses
(Mark 6:3, 15:40, 15:47 – mentioned twice
as the younger to James and once as the son of Mary). Only one
scholar really knows who he is. Looking
at their names in Latin – Ioses and Iesus – this scholar tells us
that Joses is his own brother, Yahshua.
They’re the same person in a different context.
Mark
6:3. Is not this the carpenter, the son
of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not
his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him.
And
with all the nicknames, surnames, code names and aliases, why not? Joses, after all, means Yahweh’s Raised
One!
* The Golden Bough (1922) by Sir James George
Frazer, “Chapter 8. Departmental Kings of Nature” (excerpt) Among
tribes on the outskirts of Abyssinia a similar office exists and has been thus
described by an observer: “The priesthood of the Alfai, as he is called by the
Barea and Kunama (Western India), is a
remarkable one; he is believed to be able to make rain. This office formerly
existed among the Algeds and appears to be still common to the Nuba negroes.
The Alfai of the Barea, who is also consulted by the northern Kunama, lives
near Tembadere on a mountain alone with his family. The people bring him
tribute in the form of clothes and fruits, and cultivate for him a large field
of his own. He is a kind of king, and his office passes by inheritance to his
brother or sister’s son. He is supposed to conjure down rain and to drive away
the locusts. But if he disappoints the people’s expectation and a great drought
arises in the land, the Alfai is stoned to death, and his nearest relations are
obliged to cast the first stone at him. When we passed through the country, the
office of Alfai was still held by an old man; but I heard that rain-making had proved
too dangerous for him and that he had renounced his office.”
