Peter, James, John — and Fred? How Biblical Names Support Biblical Truth
Imagine you live in seventeenth-century England. You are a writer by profession and are tasked with writing a biography on Samoset — the first Native American to make contact with the Pilgrims. Encyclopedias don’t exist yet — much less the internet. A few documents in England testify to his existence and his interactions with the Pilgrims. But you don’t know much else beyond that. No documents specify his birthdate, parents, hometown, friends or major deeds.
So you write a biography on his life. The first person gets a copy, turns to the opening chapter, and reads about his wonderful parents John and Sally. After reading those names, the reader tosses your book in the trash. Why? Because the names simply don’t fit. Even though your English friend has never visited America, he knows that John and Sally aren’t Native American names, they’re English names.
The phony names in your biography call your entire work into question. They show you haven’t been to the Americas, you haven’t interviewed Samoset or any of his friends, and you lack any real knowledge of the New World.
Peter, James, John and Fred?
There’s a lesson here for readers of the Gospels. You can’t help but notice they list a lot of names: James, John, Levi, Simon, Mary, Martha, Joseph, etc. Do these names represent a realistic sample of first-century Palestine? Or are they more like the John and Sally example — names that don’t fit the culture of the day?
It’s popular among skeptics to say the gospels were penned by non-Jewish writers with no connections to Palestine. The idea, then, is that the writers weren’t eyewitnesses or even connected to eyewitnesses. Rather, Greek authors all across the Roman Empire wrote the gospels after they heard these stories passed down to them from others, who heard the stories passed down to them — a lot like the children’s telephone game.
If the skeptic is right, you would expect non-Palestinian names to creep into the gospel narratives. For example, you might expect Jesus’ disciples to be named Peter, James, John, and Fred. Or (more realistically) if someone wrote from Rome without any first-hand experience of Palestine, he might have mentioned Roman names like Maximus or Cassius.
Names in the Gospels
Richard Bauckham, theologian and senior scholar at Cambridge, did a fascinating study comparing the names found in the Gospels and Acts with all the non-biblical Palestinian names on record during the time of Jesus. These names are found in dozens of literary sources, burial inscriptions and legal documents. In total, we know of about three thousand such names around Jesus’ time. Bauckham’s discovery makes a compelling argument for eye-witness testimony.
Bauckham lists the top nine male names found in both non-biblical Palestine as well as in the Gospels and Acts:
Non-Biblical Palestinian Names
- Simon (243)
- Joseph (218)
- Lazarus (166)
- Judas (164)
- John (122)
- Jesus (99)
- Ananias (82)
- Jonathan (71)
- Matthew (62)
Gospels and Acts Names
- Simon (8)
- Joseph (6)
- Judas (5)
- John (5)
- James (5)
- Herod (3)
- Jesus (2)
- Alexander (2)
- Matthew (2)
Comparing the Lists
The similarity between these lists is uncanny. In both lists, Simon and Joseph rank first and second. Within the broader list from Palestine, these two names represent 15.6 percent of all the names, compared to 18.2 percent of all the names in the Gospels and Acts.
In the Palestine list, the top nine names amount to 41.5 percent of total names, while the top nine Gospels and Acts names make up 40.3 percent of all listed biblical names. Among the broader Palestinian group, names that are only mentioned once amount to 7.9 percent of all names, while the same category accounts for 3.9 percent in the biblical names.
Simon, Simon and Simon — and the Women, Too
Hands down, Simon is the most popular name in all of Palestine in that day, and also in the Gospels and Acts. Last names didn’t exist in that culture, so sorting out all the different Simons required creativity. This explains why the “Simon” names in the Bible almost never appear in isolation. Distinguishing traits usually accompany their names.
The similarity between these lists is uncanny.
For example, that culture often identified persons with the same name based on their fathers’ names. In the case of the disciple Simon, Jesus refers to him as Simon son of Jonah (Matt. 16:17). Or they identified them based on their hometown, as in the case of Simon of Cyrene (Luke 23:26). Sometimes they had nicknames based on unique traits, such as Simon the leper (Matt. 26:6). Sometimes it was a group connection, like Simon the Zealot (Luke 6:15). Occupations also distinguished individuals, as in the case of Simon the tanner (Acts 10:6).
We don’t have nearly as many female names on record as we do men. Still, similarities also exist between the Palestinian and biblical lists. For example, Mary is the most popular female name in Palestine (70 occurrences) as well as in the Gospels and Acts (6 occurrences). The same methods are used to tell apart the various women named Mary as well. For example, Mary Magdelene (location), Mary, mother of James (maternal), Mary of Clopas (husband), Mary, mother of Jesus (maternal).
Eyewitness Testimony
The Gospels’ names fit Palestine during Jesus’ time — unlike “John and Sally” as Samoset’s parents. In an age before today’s easy research methods, one would not expect such a good fit. Not unless the authors had real connections to the world they were writing about. Realistic names suggest the Gospel writers had close connections with eye-witnesses or were eye-witnesses themselves. Furthermore, that popular names (Simon and Mary) come with differentiating titles in the biblical texts fits well with ancient Palestinian practice. For these reasons, I believe we can be confident that eye-witness testimony stands behind the Gospels.
Originally published at Jesus Is Not Fake News
