Ep 16: Apostlepalooza!

00:00I've seen this claim, I don't know where it's coming from, I don't know if this has ever

00:06been argued by any scholars, but I've seen some folks try to argue that Thomas' Jesus'

00:12twin.

00:13Okay, well, that would change the Nativity stories a lot.

00:18Yeah.

00:19I mean, now we have to hire Danny DeVito to play the dentist.

00:23I love him saying your back looks like a relief map of the Andes.

00:32Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan and I'm Dan Beacher and you are listening to the Data

00:38Over Dogma podcast where we try to increase the public's access to the academic study

00:43of the Bible and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about the same, which unfortunately

00:49seems always to be increasing.

00:51How are we doing today, Dan?

00:54Doing okay.

00:55I am doing my best not to increase the misinformation, though I'm not, you know, I'm a bear a very

01:02little brain.

01:03It's not like I'm going to, I'm going to do it sometimes just by accident.

01:07It's just bound to happen.

01:08Well, yeah.

01:09Yeah.

01:10And who of us is innocent of every now and then spreading a little misinformation?

01:15Yes, indeed.

01:17There is a lot of it online these days, though, and in today's episode, I understand we're

01:21going to be just full of questions.

01:24We got a whole lot of questions.

01:25It is an apostolic episode.

01:29We are going to be talking about apostles left and right, even epistles about apostles.

01:35So it's a, it's a, it's a good time.

01:40But to start us off, look, here's what happened.

01:45I was doing some research for one of our segments and I went down a rabbit hole and almost didn't

01:54make it back out.

01:56So I messaged you and I was like, you need to help me out with this.

02:00I don't know what's going on.

02:02So let's jump into our segment, McClellan 911, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't.

02:09- Or I guess, I guess, our audio of choice, mine anyways.

02:14(imitates music)

02:17(laughing)

02:18- Let's do the segment.

02:19(upbeat music)

02:22- Alrighty, what are we talking about Dan?

02:23What is your emergency?

02:25- Okay, here's the thing.

02:27I was looking up what the word apostle meant.

02:31And then I decided to think about,

02:34and then I was thinking about apostles.

02:36And the original 12 came up.

02:40The 12 apostles, they're very famous.

02:42I don't know if you've heard of them,

02:44but a lot of people have.

02:46And the thing about them was,

02:48I started to ask myself,

02:50wait, can I name the 12 apostles?

02:52It seems like something I should know.

02:55And you know, I got Peter, James, and John,

02:59or Matthew, and Mark, and Luke,

03:00and I don't know who was an apostle.

03:03I literally suddenly realized like,

03:05who's at that last supper?

03:08I don't know, I knew Judas was one.

03:12And then when I really racked my brains,

03:14I came up with Mr. Dowding Thomas.

03:17And then I got so confused.

03:20So I wouldn't have looked it up.

03:21Thinking this is a thing

03:24that will just have an easy list of names.

03:28- Yeah, one would imagine,

03:29the way people talk about the 12 apostles,

03:31it seems like it's just a simple datum.

03:34Here they are.

03:35Yeah, there's 12 dudes.

03:37How hard could that possibly be?

03:39And then I go to Wikipedia,

03:42and there's a grid,

03:44there's like graphics,

03:46and like, I was blown away.

03:50Now I know that I've been confused before

03:52by things like name changes,

03:57which happen way too frequently

04:00in the Bible for my comfort,

04:01for my personal comfort.

04:03- Yeah.

04:03We've talked about, we talked about Abraham becoming Abraham.

04:08We talk, you know, there's, there's a...

04:12- Jacob becomes Israel.

04:14- Become Israel.

04:15- Even God's name changes.

04:16You have God introducing themselves to Moses

04:18and saying, look, they all knew me by this name.

04:22They didn't know me by this other name,

04:24but I'm letting you know my actual name is this.

04:27And then you go look at those other texts

04:28and it's like, that name's in there too.

04:30So yeah, even God's name is not safe.

04:34They're getting changed up.

04:36- Yeah, and the other thing that I want to talk,

04:38so okay, so we've got some names that are changing.

04:40We've got some names that are confusing.

04:42And the other thing is that I'm pretty sure

04:46that none of the names that I know

04:48are the original like Aramaic names of these guys.

04:52- Yeah, and this is something I get asked all the time.

04:54Did people running around this area 2,000 years ago

04:58really have names like John and Matt.

05:02- And Andrew.

05:03- Yeah, and there's some confusion going on regarding

05:08how we get the pronunciations of the names

05:10as we have them today.

05:11- Okay, so lots of fun.

05:14- I'm wondering, let's start with just

05:16a few confusing things from the grid of apostles.

05:22- All right.

05:23- One of the first things is that I have never known,

05:26I have heard the name Simon.

05:27I have heard the name Peter.

05:29I have heard the name Simon Peter.

05:31And I don't know, are these three different guys?

05:34Are they the same guy?

05:35I don't know who we're talking about.

05:37- Yeah, so we've got the name Simon,

05:40which is a Greek transliteration of Ximon,

05:44which is an older Hebrew name.

05:47And so there's nothing too--

05:48- Also a frequent thing that Michael Jackson would

05:52enjoy in the game.

05:53(laughs)

05:54- Yeah, which is a great interpretive key

05:56to interpreting his lyrics.

05:59- Yes, exactly.

06:00- But we have Simon also referred to as Peter in the text.

06:06And this is a name that Jesus was supposed to have given

06:10to Simon.

06:12And in the Gospel of John, it's Kefos,

06:15which would be a transliteration of the Aramaic word

06:18for rock, which is what Petros would be related to,

06:23rock of some kind.

06:25And some people try to read a lot more significance

06:28into the name than probably was there.

06:30Oh, it means a little litty bitty rock.

06:32Oh, it means a bed rock.

06:33Oh, it means a boulder it.

06:35I don't think it's quite so granular

06:38what's going on there.

06:40But yeah, Simon Peter is an individual

06:43who seems to have two names.

06:44Now there was a tradition evidently.

06:47I have not plumbed the depths of the data

06:51regarding this notion that,

06:53anciently they would have their traditional Aramaic/Hebrew name

06:58and would also adopt a Greco-Roman name.

07:02Kind of like how when folks come here from parts of Asia,

07:05they'll adopt, they'll be like, "My name's Sarah."

07:08It's like, "Right."

07:09And they've got another name that most people

07:13would just have a rough time pronouncing.

07:15And so they will adopt an anglicized name of some kind.

07:19So there's conventional wisdom says

07:22that was going on back then.

07:24So Simon is already a Greek transliteration

07:28of an Aramaic/Hebrew name

07:32and Kphos/Peter would be the same.

07:35So it doesn't seem like that's fitting in

07:37with that tradition.

07:39And there's actually an argument to make

07:41that these may have been two different people.

07:44At Simon and Kphos were separate people.

07:48I think Bartermen published an article a long time ago

07:51talking about how many early Christians understood them

07:54to be two different people.

07:57And so it's a little confusing when you look

07:59across the four different gospels

08:01and then into the book of Acts

08:03because they're referred to in different ways.

08:04So in Matthew, it's Simon, also known as Peter

08:08in the other synoptic gospels.

08:12So Mark and Luke, it's Simon whom he named Peter.

08:16And then in John, you've got Simon Kphos,

08:20which is translated Peter in Acts.

08:22He's referred to as Peter.

08:23It's almost like there's kind of a

08:25chronological trajectory, starts off as Simon.

08:29And then by the end of the first century,

08:32he's completely Peter, which suggests that they're wrestling

08:36with what to do here.

08:37And you just have different texts approaching it

08:40in different ways, which could indicate

08:41they were two different people

08:42and their identities were just merged.

08:44It could indicate that they, you know,

08:46he used his own name inconsistently

08:49and they were just trying to figure out a way

08:50to make sense of it.

08:51But we don't really know for sure.

08:53- I'm gonna go back to something

08:55because I think I understood what you were saying,

08:57but so Peter, that's a transliteration of a...

09:02- Yeah, it comes from...

09:05- Well, that's the Greek word, Petros, right.

09:10And if John is correct, Jesus gave him the name Kphos.

09:14And so Petros is just a transliter, or excuse me,

09:18Kphos is a translation of Petros.

09:21- Translation from Greek to Greek?

09:23- No, Kphos would be Aramaic.

09:26- Okay, so in John, we have the story

09:30that Jesus gave him the name Kphos.

09:33And then if you translate Kphos from Aramaic into Greek,

09:36you get Petros, and then in English,

09:39that is transliterated as Peter.

09:41- So Simon is a transliteration.

09:44Peter is a potential translation of Kphos.

09:49- If John is to be believed.

09:52- Okay, all right, fine.

09:53You know what?

09:54I'm done with Simon, but he was also called Simon Peter, right?

09:58- Yeah, we have in John the double name.

10:01- Okay, then there's also...

10:05I don't want to confusing too much,

10:07but one of the other apostles is also Simon.

10:10Am I right about that?

10:12That's...

10:14- They really, this was poor planning

10:16on the part of the Savior, I think.

10:19(laughing)

10:21- So here's...

10:22- 'Cause there's doubles of a couple of names.

10:24- Yeah, so Simon is not this other Simon,

10:28who is one of the original 12, ostensibly,

10:30is not mentioned in the Gospel of John,

10:32'cause John Nowhere says, "Here are the 12 apostles."

10:36He just kind of, he mentions them randomly,

10:38but he does not give a list of them

10:39like the other gospels do.

10:42And when the other gospels mention this other Simon,

10:44they tag on some kind of identifier.

10:47They call him the zealot, they call him the Canaanite.

10:51Mark calls him the Canaanian or something like that.

10:54- Yeah.

10:55- And I think Luke and Acts call him the zealot

11:00to distinguish him from Simon Peter

11:04and John just doesn't, isn't worried about it.

11:07- I like the zealot, it's like a version of...

11:11This is Jeremy A. and Jeremy M.

11:14- When you're in school or whatever,

11:15but they're just adding,

11:17I think the zealot is a much,

11:19if you are an elementary school teacher

11:21and you have two John's or whatever in your class,

11:24name one of them the zealot.

11:26It's much better than just giving their last initial.

11:30- Well, that's what we could do,

11:31we could be Mac in the zealot or something like that.

11:33- There you go, I don't think I'm the zealot.

11:37Between the two of us,

11:39I think the atheist is probably not the zealot amongst.

11:42- Beat your in the zealot.

11:43- I don't know that you're a zealot either,

11:45so I think zealotry is actually...

11:48Well you're right,

11:49how did I not think of the fact that we're two Daniels?

11:51Okay, fine.

11:51Speaking of two names,

11:55we got two James Zizzes.

11:57- We got, yes, two James Zizzes.

12:01- So there's James, son of Zebedee,

12:05who is the brother of somebody, right?

12:09- No way.

12:11- There's various Zebedians, so there's James,

12:15and then there's another James, son of Alfeas.

12:18So first of all, let's talk about the name James.

12:24What's the original name in its original language?

12:29- So James actually comes from a Hebrew name, Yaakov, Jacob.

12:34And so if you go look in the Greek,

12:39you're actually going to see Yaakovos,

12:44is what the Greek says there.

12:45Now we use James today because that has become conventionalized

12:50that particular transliteration.

12:54And we can trace the development of this name

12:59through different languages to get us from Jacob to James.

13:03And this was just a side note,

13:07this was always a complication in translating the book

13:10of Mormon 'cause you have the book of Jacob.

13:13And you also have, when you're saying,

13:17well, there's also the epistle of James in the Bible.

13:21And so when you're referring to these,

13:23you gotta distinguish somehow,

13:24but in many languages, they don't distinguish Jacob from James.

13:27- Right.

13:28- Anyway, that's not important here.

13:30But yeah, Jacob, when you go into Latin,

13:34you get Yaakovos, which is very close to the Greek,

13:38but there are some dialects

13:41where you have kind of a nasalization of the bee

13:44and it's Yaakovos, which is how it sounds.

13:48And then there are, as that name is used,

13:52there are some places where the bee drops out

13:55and you get Yaakovos.

13:57And then you go into, and then you get Yaakovo,

14:00which is a name that we find in some languages.

14:04And then the hard C sound that we have in the,

14:09or the M drops off entirely and the hard C sound

14:15will turn into like a G or something like that.

14:18Iago derives from this name.

14:23And then so San Diego, contrary to the conventional wisdom,

14:30has nothing to do with a whale, right.

14:33But is Saint James or Saint Jacob, San Diego.

14:38So Diego is also a variation on this name.

14:43Santiago is a variation on this name.

14:45Tiago is a variation on this name.

14:48And when it gets into English,

14:52we have James as one of the variations on this.

14:56And so I forget exactly the path that we have to trace,

14:59but countries we have to go through

15:01to get from the Latin to the English.

15:04But these are just different ways that people pronounce

15:07these things based on the conventions

15:10that their language is held in their particular region

15:13in their particular time.

15:14And this is gonna have relevance when we talk about

15:17how we get from Yaishu to Jesus.

15:22Which we'll talk about a little bit later, but.

15:26- I'm just gonna say that of all of the names

15:28that you went through that are versions

15:30of this original Yaakov or whatever,

15:34what was the original in the Hebrew?

15:36- Yaakov.

15:37- Yaakov.

15:38I feel like James is the worst of all of,

15:42like you've gone way too far down the road.

15:46Let's back it up a few steps, but okay.

15:49- Yeah.

15:50- We've also got Jaime and Jamie,

15:53and we got a bunch of different variations

15:56that are derived from that as well.

15:59So yeah, it's a bit of a mess,

16:02but I think it's fascinating.

16:04Linguistic.

16:05- Yeah, it is fascinating.

16:06- And I think we can do the same kind of crazy name tree

16:11with James's brother, John.

16:15Which John, so do we know what the original Hebrew

16:20slash Aramaic name for that was?

16:23- Yochanan.

16:24- Yochanan.

16:25- Which sounds like, so like I know the German Yochanis

16:30would be a variant of John.

16:35That sounds more like Yochanan than John.

16:38- Yeah.

16:39- But at least I can see a thread

16:43through all of those better than I can with James.

16:45But yeah, there's a thousand different John variants.

16:49- Yeah, yeah, so when people are like,

16:51was there really a dude named John living

16:54in Syria, Palestine 2000 years ago?

16:56And no, they were Yochanan

16:59or if they were using Greek, Yoannis or something like that.

17:04And then that goes into a bunch of different languages.

17:07We have Ian is developed from this.

17:10We have Giannis develops from this.

17:14John, hundreds of different variations.

17:17And in fact, this was something I discovered

17:20when I was living in England

17:21and did a little research on my own last name, McClellan.

17:23There are over a hundred different names

17:26that derive from the name McClellan.

17:28Mine isn't the, my spelling isn't the original spelling

17:31by any stretch of the imagination.

17:33But we have neighbors, the Gila lands,

17:36who their last name is a derivation of McClellan as well.

17:41- Oh, wow.

17:42- So there are so many names are related

17:47and derived from other names.

17:49It's so fascinating when you look into it.

17:53But I think some people get confused

17:55and think because some of these things

17:58have relationships like that,

17:59that they can just arbitrarily imagine relationships

18:02that exist between other words,

18:04which is a problem that I am constantly trying to respond to

18:08on my social media channels when people are like,

18:11well, this, like, what did I just hear?

18:13Oh, demos from Democratic.

18:16So I just saw a video 30 minutes ago

18:19where somebody was like, that looks like demon.

18:21So Democrats are demons.

18:23And it's like, okay, so they both come from Greek,

18:26but they don't look at all alike in Greek.

18:29And so, yeah, there are a lot of amateur edemologists

18:34out there that should not quit their day job,

18:39but should quit being amateur edemologists.

18:42- Well, or at very least, we should all quit listening to them.

18:47If they're not going to have, if they're going to approach this

18:52without credentials, at very least,

18:55we can all reject whatever it is that they have to say.

18:57- Yeah.

18:58- I'm going to dive into, I'm just now going to,

19:02as a refresher, as a little palate cleanser,

19:04I'm going to say that in the massive grid of,

19:08who's named what and where they are

19:11in the lineup and everything,

19:13Philip is delightfully easy of all of them.

19:17- Yeah, non-controversial.

19:19- Yeah, everyone calls him Philip.

19:21No one calls him anything else.

19:22No one tacks anything onto his name or anything.

19:26Just Philip.

19:27- You know, he didn't cause any problems.

19:28He showed up on time.

19:30He did what he was asked to do.

19:32And yeah, it didn't cause any issues.

19:35- Do we know what that name was in the original?

19:38- In the original, it probably has to do with Philippos,

19:43which would be lover of horses or something like that

19:48if I'm remembering correctly.

19:51But I haven't looked that one up in a long time.

19:55- I didn't expect you to look up all of them.

19:58I will say, so let's see, we've had all of those.

20:02Bartholomew looks almost as clean as Philip

20:06until you get to the Gospel of John.

20:09- Yep, doesn't mention him.

20:11- Well, in this thing, you know, in my grid here,

20:16it says Nathaniel is associated somehow

20:18with Bartholomew.

20:20- So Nathaniel is mentioned in the Gospel of John.

20:24And so the algebra here is,

20:28okay, John mentions a bunch of other people

20:30who are mentioned in the synoptics.

20:32John doesn't ever mention Bartholomew,

20:34but he does mention this guy in Nathaniel

20:36who's not mentioned in the synoptics.

20:39- Nathaniel must therefore be Bartholomew

20:42by the process of elimination.

20:43If we assume that they're telling the same story

20:46with the same characters,

20:48Nathaniel would have to be Bartholomew.

20:50There's an argument to make for that.

20:53There's an argument to make against that.

20:55I don't know for sure.

20:56I don't have strong feelings about that identification.

21:00- Okay.

21:01- But Nathaniel would be a good Hebrew name.

21:07God has given or gift of God.

21:10So Nathaniel and Hebrew would be the same as Theodore

21:13and Greek, gift of God.

21:15- Okay.

21:16- So that would be like the Peter K. Fuss thing.

21:20That would be a translation into Greek.

21:22- So in those two, the God part would be the L in Nathaniel

21:27and the Theos in Theo in Theodore.

21:31Is that what we're talking about?

21:33Am I sounding smart at all?

21:35- Yes.

21:36- All right, after Bartholomew slash Nathaniel,

21:40we have Thomas, Thomas, Thomas,

21:43and then Thomas also called Diddymus.

21:45- Diddymus, yes, which means twin.

21:48- Okay.

21:49- And there are some, I've seen this claim.

21:51I don't know where it's coming from.

21:53I don't know if this has ever been argued by any scholars,

21:56but I've seen some folks try to argue

21:57that Thomas is Jesus' twin.

22:01And I think this may come from a Gnostic text.

22:04- Oh, interesting. - From later on,

22:08but I have not looked deeply enough into that

22:10to have any more information than to say.

22:12Somebody once suggested that they think Thomas was Jesus' twin.

22:17- Okay, well, that would change the Nativity stories a lot.

22:22- Yeah.

22:23- I mean, now we have to hire Danny DeVito

22:29to play Diddymus.

22:32- And let them say your back looks like a relief map

22:35of the Andes.

22:36- Well, no, I was thinking of life of Brian

22:41when they realized that Jesus is actually next door

22:45and they come back and take the gifts away from the...

22:48- Right.

22:49- From Brian.

22:50- From Diddymus.

22:53- From Thomas. - Yeah, so yeah, Thomas.

22:55Thomas is just sitting there like,

22:56why is he getting all the attention?

22:58- Yeah.

22:59- So now I want to get to Matthew.

23:02- Yeah.

23:03- Who is referred to in the Gospel of Matthew as the publican.

23:07- The publican, yeah.

23:08- Is this the same Matthew?

23:09I mean, are these meant to be the same Matthew,

23:12the Gospel of Matthew and Matthew the publican?

23:15- So that identification seems to be made by papius,

23:20between 121.30 CE says,

23:24hey, tax collector Matthew, he wrote down sayings of Jesus

23:29in Hebrew and a lot of people think,

23:34oh, he's talking about the Gospel of Matthew,

23:37but it's not for another 50 to 60 years before anybody

23:40identifies this Gospel as the Gospel according to Matthew.

23:44So, and I would also argue that the text

23:48as papius describes it is not our Gospel of Matthew.

23:51It was definitely not written in Hebrew

23:53and it's not a sayings Gospel.

23:55And so when it was, when we do finally have this identification

23:59of the Gospel of Matthew as written by Matthew,

24:03I would argue that this is based

24:06on papius's identification.

24:10They're looking for an author and they're like,

24:12papius says, Matthew wrote one, this one mentions Matthew.

24:16This is the only one that actually mentions

24:19the calling of Matthew by Jesus as the tax collector.

24:24And so they're like, natch, that one was written by Matthew

24:28'cause the other ones talk about the calling of Levi.

24:31- Yeah.

24:31- Not the calling of Matthew.

24:33- And so in our grid, it says Matthew slash Levi

24:36on the Mark and Luke Gospels.

24:40- Yeah.

24:41- So they've just made an association between,

24:43these are potentially, these are not the same person

24:46or are they, how are we?

24:48- Again, a lot of people would say they're the same person

24:52and other people would be like, maybe they're not.

24:55So, and again, not mentioned by John.

24:59- Not mentioned, which feels a little caddy.

25:02John not mentioning the name of another author

25:05or at least of a Gospel.

25:09- Yeah.

25:10- And then why couldn't he be more like Philip?

25:14John would have been happy, the name of his more like Philip.

25:16- If he could have been more like Philip

25:18or be like Simon Peter and then just,

25:21and get multiple names, get all the names.

25:24All right, then we got another James.

25:28This is son of Alpheus.

25:30And then Thaddeus, who is also Judas.

25:35What the heck?

25:37Thaddeus or Libius?

25:41- Well, we have, yeah, we have,

25:45and this is a textual thing.

25:46Some manuscripts say Thaddeus, some manuscripts say Judas.

25:51And those, the differences there are probably a product

25:56of the fact that some of the other Gospels

26:01seem to put the name Judas in the place

26:03where they're expecting Thaddeus.

26:05And so maybe some people made some corrections here or there.

26:08So, yeah, it's confusing.

26:12- And this Judas, so if it's not Thaddeus

26:16and so in Matthew and Mark, we've got Thaddeus.

26:19In Matthew it says it's Thaddeus or Libius,

26:23Libius, called Judas the Zealot.

26:27We've got another Zealot, all the Zealotry.

26:29Then in Matthew and Mark, Luke, we've got Judas,

26:35it's listed as Judas, quote, son of James.

26:38And then Judas, and then John, Judas, not Escariot.

26:46Not that one.

26:47- Just the other one.

26:49And then, yeah, so that's--

26:52- I can see the author being like, and then Judas,

26:55oh, not the Judas I just talked about.

26:57This is another guy.

26:59- Not that one.

27:00- Another Judas.

27:00- Yeah.

27:01And then we've got Simon that we already talked about

27:06who's the Canaanite or the Canaanian or the Zealot

27:09or just not mentioned by John

27:11because he's kind of prone to that.

27:14And then Judas Escariot, son of confusingly,

27:19Simon Escariot, which we don't need anymore.

27:22- According to John.

27:24- According to John.

27:25- Yeah.

27:27- I'm just gonna read, I do wanna get

27:29to the most important name in the New Testament

27:33in just a moment.

27:35But I did wanna read this, there's a sentence

27:40that I wanted to read from the Wikipedia article

27:43that made my head explode, and I just thought I'd share it.

27:47- You feel that nicely?

27:49- Yeah, thank you.

27:50- Thank you.

27:51Is it this one?

27:53Since the father of both James, son of Alphaeus,

27:56and Matthew is named Alphaeus,

27:58according to the tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church,

28:01the two were brothers as well.

28:03Oh, that's not even, that's crazy right there.

28:07And then there's another one that says,

28:08according to the tradition of the Catholic Church,

28:11based on the writings of the apostolic father, Papius,

28:15the apostles of James, son of Alphaeus,

28:19and Thaddeus were brothers and sons of Alphaeus,

28:23or Alphaeus, also named Clopas.

28:27And his wife, Mary of Clopas, was the sister

28:30of the mother of Jesus.

28:32Mary had a sister named Mary?

28:37What's happening?

28:40Do we have a George Foreman situation here?

28:42I had to read that sentence 22 times

28:46to figure out what was happening.

28:47- Make sure you understood it, right?

28:49- Yeah, well, there have been,

28:52when these traditions kind of accrete around

28:55specific locations and specific leaders,

28:58and specific manuscripts and texts and things like that,

29:01they develop their own little ways to deal with

29:04a lot of these incongruities.

29:06And they don't compare notes with the other guys,

29:08they just, you know, we're gonna do it our way.

29:10And sometimes those ways sound more rational

29:13than others, and so, yeah, it's an issue.

29:18But certainly not the biggest issue

29:23in all of biblical interpretation.

29:26But certainly one that I think a lot of people overlook,

29:29assuming that, yeah, there were 12 apostles,

29:32and that's that, but you can memorize a little song

29:37to help you remember the books of the New Testament

29:41in order or something like that.

29:43Largely uncontroversially,

29:46but the song you gotta memorize for this kind of goes.

29:51- According to John, then according to Matthew,

29:53but then if you don't.

29:54And then he's coming.

29:55- How many did this song?

29:56It's gonna be 24 versus long,

29:58but I wanted, I want this song to exist,

30:01or it's Simon, who was Peter, who was Kefos.

30:04- Also known as Kefos,

30:06who is not the Simon that's mentioned by John

30:09in the other part of this book,

30:10in the manuscript witness from the third century.

30:14Yeah.

30:15- I like it.

30:16Somebody's gotta write this song,

30:18and I'll bet they will.

30:19Anyway, let's get quickly,

30:22we could probably do a whole segment

30:25on the name of Jesus.

30:27- That's because of his name.

30:29- I just want you to-

30:31- That's a good point.

30:32- I feel like you had a lot of-

30:35- You had a lot of-

30:35- Sing.

30:36- Okay, sorry.

30:37- You've had a lot of people on your TikTok

30:40come after you about that one name,

30:43and you've also exposed a lot of people

30:45who claim that they know the original name,

30:48and there's meaning behind it and all of this stuff.

30:51- There's a weird genre of entrepreneurial bro,

30:55who just randomly starts sharing videos about Jesus' name

31:02and where it comes from,

31:03and obviously not even remotely informed about these things,

31:08but for some reason, this adds value

31:11to their entrepreneurial endeavors on social media.

31:16- Well, and they do this.

31:17They have this, I mean, you call them a bro,

31:20they have this braggadocio about them where it's like,

31:23if you really knew the real name of Jesus,

31:26you wouldn't be coming at me with your nonsense.

31:28I know the real name of Jesus,

31:31and therefore I'm somehow better.

31:34- Yeah, yeah.

31:35- So, okay, obviously-

31:36- Doesn't believe any of it either,

31:38but wants to let you know that I know better than you.

31:41- So there wasn't a guy walking around in Judea named Jesus.

31:45- Right, they didn't say,

31:47hey, Jesus, back in the first century CE.

31:52- So what did they say?

31:54- That's tricky.

31:58We have to reconstruct what was going on anciently,

32:02but to begin, we go back to the Hebrew Bible

32:04and we got this name that is usually translated as Joshua.

32:09Yahoshua is how it is used in the Hebrew.

32:17And this is, and it means Adonai saves

32:23or Adonai delivers or something like that.

32:26And this is Joshua, son of noon, who takes over after Moses.

32:31And when we get into the post-exilic period

32:36into the Greco-Roman period,

32:38so we're talking about after 500 BCE,

32:42between 500 and the period of the New Testament,

32:45the name seems to change into this Aramaic variant

32:50that seems to be spelled, at least in the text,

32:53it's spelled, Yeshua, and the Greek transliteration,

32:57as we have it, seems to be Yesus.

33:02Now, the transliteration into Yesus,

33:05or I-e-sus is how some folks do it.

33:09There are different ways to reconstruct the pronunciation,

33:12but that transliteration predates the New Testament,

33:15predates the birth of Jesus.

33:17It comes from couple centuries BCE.

33:20- Oh, interesting.

33:21The transliteration of this Aramaic variant

33:24on the name Yeshua Joshua.

33:27And so we already see what we find

33:30in the Greek New Testament in the Septuagint translation,

33:33the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

33:36And so this is just like we've been talking about Petros.

33:42An English transliteration is Peter.

33:44Yesus is a transliteration of however this Aramaic name

33:51were pronounced.

33:52Now, Jesus walking around in Galilee

33:56was not being referred to in Greek transliteration,

33:59was being referred to in Aramaic.

34:02And scholars have pointed out that

34:04the pronunciation conventions in the Galilee

34:09were probably slightly different

34:10from what we get in other regions.

34:13And one of the things that they've noted is

34:15there's a letter called an Ein, which is in this name,

34:18and it's kind of a glottal stop.

34:21And so there are indications from

34:25not many contemporary texts,

34:27but particularly from later rabbinic texts

34:31that the Galileans were known for not really pronouncing

34:34their Eins very well, or just dropping them off entirely.

34:37And so if the Ein was pronounced

34:41anciently in Aramaic, the name Yeshua would have been Yeshua.

34:45And then we have this glottal stop.

34:48And if the Galileans didn't pronounce that glottal stop

34:52or pronounced it poorly, it would have just been Yeshua

34:55or Yeshua.

34:56So with a short E or a long E at the beginning,

34:59but that A was probably something that was added later

35:03in the manuscripts.

35:05There's a complex linguistic argument for why that is,

35:08but in short, I think the scholarship is moving

35:12in the direction of suggesting,

35:14if you were talking to Jesus in Galilee

35:17in the early 1st century CE,

35:19He would have referred to Himself as Yeshua or Yeshua.

35:23So that's probably how His name was pronounced.

35:28When it goes into Greek, we have Yesus.

35:30Now, so we still don't have that A on the end.

35:33It's not Yeshua or anything like that,

35:36or Yisuhah in the Greek transliteration.

35:40It's just Yesus or Iisus or however you want

35:43to reconstruct that pronunciation.

35:46And then that goes into Latin as Yesus

35:50or something, or words to that effect.

35:52So the earliest English translations of the Bible

35:56actually transliterate straight from the Latin,

35:59which is pretty cut and dry, I-E-S-U-S.

36:04Yesus or Yesus or Iisus.

36:08It was probably pronounced a bunch of different ways.

36:10So the first edition of the King James version,

36:12which by the way wasn't remotely

36:14the first English translation of the Bible,

36:15but for many years the King James version used I-E-S-U-S.

36:20And it was not until decades later

36:26that we get the introduction of the J

36:30in the English alphabet.

36:33And some folks argue that the I was being pronounced

36:37close to what the J represented in the 17th century.

36:43Other folks say no, the J kind of altered

36:46the way the I was pronounced,

36:48but once we get the J, that stands in

36:51as the consonanto use of I.

36:55So it starts the word and we're gonna use it more

36:58as a consonant than as a vowel.

37:00So we get Jesus.

37:02So it is a natural development within the language.

37:05It's not like it's a different name.

37:08There are some people who are like,

37:09oh, Jesus means hail Zeus, which is absolutely laughable.

37:14(laughing)

37:17- I've never heard that.

37:18- Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I love that.

37:20- So they're like, that's not his name.

37:22And that means hail Zeus.

37:23It doesn't mean anything remotely like hail Zeus.

37:26It's just a transliteration that has been following

37:31the phonetic development of the English language.

37:37And so Jesus is a perfectly legitimate transliteration

37:41of this, just like James is a perfectly legitimate

37:45transliteration of Yaakov or Jacob.

37:49And so there's no reason to be upset about this.

37:53There are folks who think there is some kind

37:55of metaphysical power in how we pronounce the name

37:58who are like, you have to say Joshua.

37:59Well, that's wrong too.

38:02Oh, you have to say Yeshua.

38:04Well, that's also kind of wrong too.

38:06So if there's metaphysical power in that,

38:09there are very few people who are getting it right.

38:12And so I think people need to just chill about the name.

38:17Jesus is perfectly fine.

38:19I think a lot of people are just trying to make themselves

38:23sound better informed than other people

38:25to try to prop themselves up.

38:27And it has a lot more to do with pride

38:29than being more informed about these things.

38:33- I am fascinated, I don't wanna get too deep into this.

38:35We're, you know, the segment's going long,

38:38but I do love that it does seem weird

38:42that we don't call him Joshua.

38:44It just seems like that as a transliteration

38:47is so much closer and it has also just as much

38:51of a sort of traditional train.

38:55- Well, there are two reasons for that I would point out.

38:57First, Joshua is directly from Yahoshua,

39:01which preserves the H.O. sound,

39:03which is absent from the Aramaic variant, Yeshu.

39:08So the H.O. isn't there in the way Jesus' name

39:12was pronounced in the first century.

39:13So Joshua would also be inaccurate in that regard,

39:16but also, and this is the, this is a part

39:18that a lot of people get uncomfortable with.

39:20Jesus is only attested in Greek texts.

39:24And so we are going with what the texts use

39:29rather than saying, I'm gonna artificially impose

39:33what the texts should have been using

39:36or something like that.

39:36- Okay, that makes sense.

39:37- And so Joshua would be saying,

39:40eh, we're not gonna do what the gospel authors said.

39:43We're not gonna do what the original texts

39:45that referred to Jesus said.

39:46We're gonna go back and say,

39:48we're taken from this earlier tradition

39:51that is not connected to Jesus.

39:53So, and you know, there, you can disagree with that.

39:58There are folks who will try to use an Aramaic

40:00transliteration in their renderings of the texts.

40:03And I mean, you know, you're not gonna get struck

40:05by lightning, but not by me at least.

40:08So there's nothing wrong with that.

40:10But at the same time, yeah, there's,

40:12there are perfectly good and valid reasons

40:15for doing it the way folks are doing it.

40:19- Okay, well, then I will agree to not call Jesus Joshua,

40:23but I won't, but I am gonna start calling James Jacob,

40:27because that just seems obvious to me.

40:29- Yeah, all right, well, yeah, that would be fine.

40:33- Okay, good.

40:35You know, there is another fascinating apostle

40:39that we need to get to.

40:40So I say we move on to that.

40:43- Okay, let's do it.

40:45(upbeat music)

40:47- Okay, we're introducing this new segment,

40:51Women in the Bible, because I, you know,

40:53it's something we've already talked about a few times

40:56without calling it its own segment,

40:57but it is an important thing.

40:59- Yeah.

41:00- And we, we're taking, as our reading for the day,

41:05Romans 16, this is the final chapter

41:09of Saint Paul's epistle to the Romans.

41:12And, and it's, it's nice.

41:16It's just a, he's just calling out to a whole bunch of friends.

41:19Hey, say hi to our friends here and our friends there.

41:22- Shout out, Ampleous.

41:24- Yeah, yeah, who's a great guy, everybody loves him.

41:28The family of Narcissus and whatever.

41:30But right in the middle, there is something

41:34that has befuddled and bedeviled many a reader of it,

41:39which is starts on, which is verse seven,

41:44where he says, "Greet."

41:47And now I am taking, this is from the, the NRSV.

41:52- Okay.

41:53- And that will become important in a minute

41:57because different translations definitely have

42:01a different take on this, on this particular verse.

42:05- Yeah, strong feelings about this.

42:06- Yeah.

42:07So from the NRSV, "Greet, andronicus, and unia,

42:12my fellow Israelites who were imprisoned with me,

42:17they are prominent among the apostles,

42:20and they were in Christ before I was."

42:24Now, there's a lot packed into that one thing,

42:29but I think that the thing that we're gonna focus on

42:32is that name unia, and the idea that this person

42:37could have been prominent among the apostles.

42:41Is it me, or is that a lady apostle?

42:49- So, yes, the academic consensus right now,

42:54I would argue, and I think I'm supported by most scholars,

42:58is that this name is a feminine name.

43:02Now, there has been controversy for some time,

43:06but a lot of people might be surprised to hear

43:08that this controversy is actually quite new,

43:12regarding how we accentuate this name,

43:15'cause this name could be masculine or feminine

43:23with the spelling that we find in the Greek of Romans 16.7,

43:28the difference would be what accent you put

43:31on what syllable of the word.

43:33And unfortunately, the earliest manuscripts

43:38of the New Testament, in fact,

43:39the manuscripts for centuries after the New Testament

43:42was written did not put in accents.

43:45Accents were added centuries later.

43:47And so, we are basically going with traditional accentuation,

43:52or if we wanna try to revise that accentuation,

43:55that's just based on our own judgment calls.

43:58And there is no early Christian author

44:02who identifies this name as a masculine name

44:05until the 1200s.

44:07- Oh, wow.

44:08- And we have several early Christian authors

44:12and authorities who make reference to union,

44:15either just acknowledging that it is a feminine name

44:20or actually praising union for being a woman apostle.

44:25In fact, there's a prominent, I think,

44:29Bishop of Constantinople, if I'm not wrong,

44:32John Chrysostom writing just before or around the year 400 CE,

44:37basically says, wow, can you imagine this person being

44:43how cool this person was to be a woman apostle?

44:48Just being an apostle is one thing,

44:50but to be a woman apostle how great she must have been.

44:55And we have no disagreements with this identification

44:57of union as a woman until the 13th century.

45:02And so, the record is not strong for those who are arguing

45:06that this is a masculine name.

45:08Additionally, if we go look into other occurrences

45:12of this name, this name doesn't really appear much in Greek.

45:15Primarily, it appears in Latin,

45:17but there are over 200 occurrences of this name in Latin

45:21in the first century CE,

45:24and every single one of them is a feminine name.

45:27There's one occurrence in all of known history

45:31of this name as a masculine name,

45:33and that comes from a century later.

45:36- Oh, wow.

45:37- And so, the data do not support the identification

45:41of union as a man, the data overwhelmingly support

45:45identifying union as a woman.

45:49And so it would seem to suggest that andronicists in union,

45:52now frequently when Paul mentions a man and a woman together,

45:56they're either relatives of each other,

45:58more often they are husband and wife.

46:00So some folks suggest that andronicists

46:03and union are husband and wife.

46:06That may or may not be the case.

46:07I'm not arguing for that right now,

46:09but I would argue that union is definitely a feminine name.

46:14- I did read an article that linked them

46:17as husband and wife, was absolutely certain of it,

46:20and not only was certain that they were husband and wife,

46:22but literally kept pounding it home,

46:26which I didn't understand.

46:27I didn't understand why it was important to that author

46:31to make sure that we all understood that this was a couple

46:35who was a husband and wife, but yeah.

46:37- I mean, there are certainly situations

46:39where that would be more meaningful than others,

46:43but for the context of our discussion right now,

46:47I think it suffices to mention

46:48that it's certainly possible, it's certainly plausible,

46:51but that's the case.

46:53But it's interesting what Paul says about them,

46:55uses this word, singanese in Greek,

46:59which means my kin together,

47:04and then genus is what the other word is in Greek.

47:09So, kinsmen, family, I think you read fellow Israelites,

47:14is that what the tradition you read?

47:15- That's what the NSRV has.

47:17- Is that the NRSV-UE?

47:18- NRSV, yeah, the NRSV-UE, yeah.

47:22- UE, okay, that's interesting 'cause the previous NRSV

47:26reads my relatives, relatives or compatriots,

47:31but yeah, the idea is kin,

47:34and that's probably figurative, but who knows.

47:38And then fellow prisoners, and then it goes on to say,

47:41they were of note among the apostles

47:44or prominent among the apostles,

47:46and here's where the folks who don't like the idea

47:49of a woman apostle have another opportunity

47:52to try to make their case against that.

47:54There is another way to read the Greek here,

47:57where instead of saying they are prominent among the apostles,

48:00is to say they are well known to the apostles.

48:03That is a possible reading of the Greek,

48:07and there are some people who have argued

48:09very strenuously for that reading.

48:11- And that's what the English Standard version has.

48:15They are well known to the apostles.

48:17- Well, the ESV was written or was,

48:20is a translation that was executed by complimentarians

48:24who were basically upset that the NIV and the RSV

48:29and the NRSV were not as misogynistic

48:36as they felt they should have been.

48:37So the ESV is like in a lot of ways,

48:42it's a perfectly adequate translation.

48:46In other ways, it is an awful translation,

48:49particularly when it comes--

48:50- The he-man-woman-hater translation.

48:52- Yes, in a lot of ways.

48:53So it's one of the newer translations

48:57that have come out of the Bible and it's quite popular,

49:02but a lot of people don't realize that the purpose

49:05of the ESV was to push back against what they saw

49:09as too much progressivism with the NIV of all things.

49:14So yeah, and there's a great sociologist

49:19who works with a sociology of religion named Samuel Perry,

49:22who has published a wonderful article discussing

49:26how the ESV intentionally tries to structure power

49:29directly over and against the interests of women.

49:32But anyway, getting back to that.

49:33So the ESV says they're well known to the apostles.

49:37Possible reading of the Greek here.

49:39There are a handful of reasons

49:40I don't think this makes sense.

49:43One is that this is Paul writing.

49:46Paul was not a huge fan of the other apostles

49:49and didn't really care what the other apostles thought.

49:52So for Paul to say, hey, Andronicus and Yuna,

49:55these are cool folks.

49:57Even the other apostles thought they were really cool

50:00is out of character for Paul.

50:03The estimation of the other apostles is no big deal.

50:06He does not care what the other apostles think.

50:09And then the last clause of the verse

50:13is they were in Christ before me,

50:16which would fit with Paul's rhetorical bent elsewhere

50:21of always wanting to remind everybody

50:24that he is the last one who gets to be called an apostle.

50:28That everyone else who was called an apostle

50:31was in Christ before him and he's the last apostle.

50:35So I think the way that this verse is set up

50:39and the way Paul's rhetoric is

50:42in the genuine Pauline epistles pretty firmly point

50:47in the direction of interpreting that passage

50:49to say who are prominent among the apostles.

50:52In other words, these are prominent apostles,

50:56which would identify Yuna as a woman apostle,

51:00which is, you know, despite Paul, Paul's misogyny elsewhere,

51:05I think he was willing to call balls and strikes

51:11when it came to who was occupying what office,

51:15what position elsewhere in the church.

51:17'Cause he refers to other women as leaders in the church

51:20and is not shy about that.

51:22- So since we're using this word apostle,

51:27how are we defining it?

51:30What does that mean here?

51:32- So you know, I don't like defining stuff.

51:36(laughing)

51:37That's a great point, that's a great point.

51:39But we're using the word, so we need to--

51:41- Yeah, I will describe it, yeah.

51:42- In some way what we're talking about.

51:45- So it comes from a Greek word that means one who is sent

51:48and the idea is messenger, emissary, delegate,

51:52like it's not just somebody sent some person.

51:55It's this person is traveling on my behalf

51:59to execute some function for me,

52:02whether it's deliver a message or whether it is actually

52:05do something or something like that.

52:08So it comes from the idea of one who is sent out.

52:13And by the time of the New Testament though,

52:17it's, well, because of its use in the New Testament,

52:21it takes on status as kind of an office,

52:25that this person may have been sent out,

52:27but they're not an apostle,

52:30because that is a specific assignment,

52:33a specific designation that kind of is cordoned off

52:38and only certain special people get to be called

52:42that kind of messenger.

52:44And so it becomes an office, a duty,

52:47an honorific title later on.

52:51And by the time of Paul, then that's what we're,

52:54that's where Paul is coming in and be like,

52:58I'm an apostle.

52:59And he gets upset with, well,

53:02he kind of sarcastically refers to other folks as super apostles.

53:07He's like, oh, these people,

53:11these super apostles going around doing all this stuff.

53:14But the idea is that this is a special designation,

53:19a special calling, a special assignment that somebody has.

53:23But yeah, it fundamentally comes from the idea

53:25of a emissary delegate, maybe messenger to be--

53:30- And envoy, if you would.

53:31- Envoy, yeah.

53:33- I saw at least one article looking through this,

53:36you know, when I was sort of reading up on unia.

53:40And, you know, I wanted to see arguments for and against,

53:45this person, this woman being considered an apostle.

53:48And one of the things that came up a few times

53:51when people wanted to argue that there's no way

53:54she could have been an apostle,

53:56was that the original 12 were,

54:01there were specifically 12, they were all men,

54:05therefore there should always be 12

54:07and they should always be men.

54:09- Yeah.

54:10- I mean, so when you start to talk about this word,

54:15this appellation becoming an office,

54:20in Jesus's time, because Paul's after Jesus,

54:27or after his life, is there any indication

54:32that in Jesus's time, this was an office

54:37that he was designating that there should be 12 of

54:40and that those should be men, is there anything

54:43that you can think of that would fill in that argument

54:48or bolster that argument?

54:50- As far as any data that would support that argument,

54:53no, that's an is-ought fallacy.

54:55They're saying, oh, this is the way it was,

54:57therefore this is the way it ought to be.

54:59The, there is the indication in the book of Acts

55:03in the beginning where they say, well, Judas is gone,

55:06we need to fill in that office.

55:09So the idea that they were supposed to be 12

55:12is found in the book of Acts,

55:14which is not from Jesus's day,

55:16this is decades after Jesus's death.

55:18And so that does not necessarily indicate

55:20that Jesus was like, it's gotta be 12,

55:23but at least within the decades after Jesus's life,

55:28yes, they understood that there should be 12.

55:31And 12 is a significant number.

55:33It has symbolic weight,

55:35recently it is completion, it is fullness, and so that

55:40is supported by the, or that supports this notion

55:43that they felt there needed to be 12.

55:46The notion that it had to be men,

55:48there is nothing that supports that apart

55:50from this is-ought fallacy.

55:52Well, they were all men therefore,

55:55they were supposed to all be men,

55:56which is not mentioned in Acts in any way,

55:58and is undermined by this passage in Romans 16, 7.

56:04So I don't think that's a good argument.

56:09- And also, I don't know how this,

56:12how the significance of the number 12 works,

56:17but it also seems like the need to have 12

56:21could also be the need to have at least 12.

56:24You know what I mean?

56:26I don't know, you tell me.

56:28Because Andronicus and Union are not,

56:32they're not listed in,

56:34neither of those are one of the many names

56:37that are listed in our original 12.

56:39- Yeah, yeah, and certainly the text of Acts says,

56:44that office has got to be filled.

56:47It doesn't necessarily say it's got to always be 12.

56:51I would lean a little more in that direction

56:55just because of the significance of 12.

56:57There are,

57:03sorry, I'm just gonna go.

57:05- Is it a reference to the 12 Tribes of Israel sort of thing?

57:07- Well, to some degree, the 12 Tribes of Israel,

57:11there was significance to the number 12,

57:13but when you get into the book of Revelation as well,

57:16you've got 12 coming up, particularly in reference

57:19to the 144,000 or 12,000 from the 12 Tribes of Israel.

57:24And 12 is used a handful of places,

57:27and seven is another significant number.

57:30And so seven is perfection, 12 is fullness,

57:34completeness, stuff like that.

57:35And also in the years between the death of Jesus

57:40and the writing of Romans, people are dying

57:43and other people are stepping in.

57:46I don't know that I know enough about the circumstances

57:50to know whether or not we have enough data

57:52to say there were never more than 12.

57:55I don't know what the consensus is in that regard.

57:58I'm sure there are people who know a lot better than me,

58:00but yeah, that's a good question.

58:02I have feelings about it.

58:04I don't know that I could definitively say

58:07one way or another.

58:08- Okay.

58:09Well, then we'll leave it at that.

58:11Union, for my money, I love the idea of a woman apostle

58:17that makes me happy.

58:19And since that is at least arguable, if not probable,

58:26I'm going with it, there was a woman apostle.

58:29- And there's a wonderful book by a scholar named J. Elden Epp,

58:34E-P-P, or Elden J-Epp, E-P-P-P is the last name

58:39called "Union of the First Woman Apostle", published in 2005.

58:44And I think that book kind of set the tone

58:47for the scholarly consensus.

58:49So if you'd like more information on this,

58:50that's a wonderful book to go check out.

58:53- Nice, I love it.

58:54Well, thanks so much, Dan.

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59:49(upbeat music)