Bible Dictionaries
James and John, the Sons of Zebedee

　　1. In Synoptic Gospels.-The sons of Zebedee are mentioned in the following passages in the Synoptic Gospels. The call of the two brothers is related in Mark 1:16-20 (= Matthew 4:18-22, Luke 5:1 ff.). After the call of Andrew and Simon and their immediate response, Jesus goes on further and sees the two brothers James and John in their boat, mending their nets. Their response to His call is equally prompt; they leave their father and the hired servants in the boat and go away after Him. The Matthaean account is practically identical with the Marcan, save for the omission of any reference to the hired servants, a characteristic cutting out of unnecessary detail. In these two accounts the call of the four disciples is the first event recorded after the beginning of the ministry; it is followed by the account of the entry into Capernaum and the teaching in the Synagogue. St. Luke in his Gospel places the incident later, after his record of events at Nazareth and Capernaum. It is not easy to determine whether his reason for the change is historical, to account for the promptness with which the call of an unknown stranger is obeyed, or whether he is following a different tradition. The relation of the Lucan account to the Johannine Appendix (ch. 21) is also difficult to determine. Competent scholars are found to maintain both the view that the Johannine narrative is based on an account (similar to the Lucan) of the call of Peter, and the view that St. Luke, in his record of the call to discipleship, has borrowed details from an account of a post-Resurrection appearance to Peter in Galilee. But the question as no direct bearing on the call of the sons of Zebedee, the Lucan additional matter having to do with Peter alone. The only detail which he adds with reference to John and James is that they were partners with Peter, which might have been deduced from the Marcan account. And the more obvious explanation of their prompt obedience is that suggested by the 1st chapter of St. John-previous acquaintance at an earlier stage, probably in connexion with the Baptist’s preaching (cf. below, § 5).

　　In St. Mark’s Gospel the four are represented as going with Jesus to Capernaum, and the same Evangelist also notices the presence of the sons of Zebedee in the house of Simon, on the occasion of the healing of his wife’s mother. This detail finds no place in the other Gospels. Their names appear next in the calling of the Twelve where they are found in all three lists among the first four, the only difference being that St. Mark places them before, the other Synoptists after, Andrew; and St. Mark also adds the giving of the name Boanerges.

　　No thoroughly satisfactory explanation of either part of this word has been found. ο or the רָגַשׁ, tumultuatus eat; cf. Psalms 2:1, Acts 4:25, and for בָּרֹנֶז קֹלוֹ, of thunder, and Job 39:24 הָמוֹן ‘crowd’) of which he took ὅ ἐστιν υἱοὶ βροντῆς, is older than the corrupt transliteration; but it would be difficult to account for the corruption of a correct transliteration of , βροντηπροσκυνοῦσα; οἱ μαθηταί, St. Luke παρρησία of Peter and John (Acts 4:13), and he shares Peter’s refusal to keep silence (Acts 4:19 f.). In Acts 8:14 Peter and John are sent to Samaria in consequence of the spread of the faith there. After the imposition of hands, and the episode of Simon, their return to Jerusalem is recorded. There is no further mention of John in the Acts, except that in the account of his martyrdom James is described as the brother of John (Acts 12:2). But the position assigned to John is fully borne out by the single reference to him in Galatians 2:9, as one of the ‘pillars’ who gave the right hand of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas, a passage which alone is adequate refutation* of the strange theory of E. Schwartz (Ueber den Tod der Söhne Zebedaei), who finds in the prediction assigned to Jesus in Acts 10:39 proof that both sons of Zebedee must have been killed by Herod on the same day! The account in Acts (Acts 12:1 ff.) of the martyrdom of James at the Passover of the year 44 has been supposed to show traces of modification by cutting out any mention of the death of his brother (E. Preuschen, Apostelgeschichte, in Leitzmann’s Handbuch zum NT, 1912, p. 75). The construction of v. 1, if harsh, is however not impossible, and the ‘Western’ addition in v. 3, a.d. 850), or perhaps of some corrector of his text, whose additions are found in the Paris manuscriptμαρτυρίου κατηξίωται. ἐντῷ δευτέρῳ λόγῳ τῶν κυριακῶν λογίων φάσκει, μὲν ὑπὸ τοῦ Ῥωμαίων βασιλέως κατεδικάσθη μαρτυρῶν εἰς Πάτμον, Παπίας ἐν τῷ δευτέρῳ λόγῳ λέγει, μυθικώτερον a statement so completely in contradiction to the received tradition on the subject. The real difficulty is to account for the growth of a different tradition at Ephesus, if the tradition of John’s martyrdom was known at Hierapolis in Papias’ time.

　　(2) The evidence of Heracleon (see Clem. Alex. Strom. IV. ix. 71) should never have been brought forward. Heracleon is distinguishing between those who confessed ‘in life’ and ‘by voice’ before the magistrates. No one could have included John among those who had not made the confession xxxiii. [1912]) cannot be discussed fully here. It cannot be said to have risen above the class of ingenious conjectures, out of which it is unsafe to attempt to reconstruct history. The Synoptic saying about the cup and baptism (Mark 10:38) is certainly insufficient proof of actual martyrdom. St. Mark, and even the other Synoptists, have much matter which later reflexion found it necessary to modify or did not care to emphasize. But everything was not cut out which caused difficulty. And we may perhaps venture to say that there are traces of modification and omission in regard to this very saying which suggest that it did cause difficulty. St. Matthew drops the mention of the baptism, retaining only the drinking of the cup, and St. Luke omits the incident altogether. The position assigned to John, as compared with James, in the Acts would be difficult to explain if he met with an early death.

　　4. John’s residence in Ephesus.-Even if the story of John’s death at the hand of the Jews is historical, it does not exclude the possibility of his residence at Ephesus, though it certainly overthrows the traditional account of his long residence there till the reign of Trajan and his wonderful activity in extreme old age as the last surviving apostle and ‘over-bishop’ of Asia.

　　In the question of the Apostle’s residence in Ephesus we are confronted with another problem of which our present knowledge offers no certain solution. The absence of any reference to such a residence in the later books of the NT affords no conclusive evidence against the possibility that John visited Asia and resided there. The silence of the Ignatian letters is more significant. Why are the Romans reminded (Ep. ad Romans 4:3) of what Peter and Paul did for them, and the Ephesians addressed as συνῆσαν and not τί εἶπεν; as contrasted with the ἐπιστήθιος is clearly legendary, and sufficient time had elapsed since the death of the John of Ephesus (? 110), to whom he refers, for the growth of confusion, whether ‘deliberate’ or unconscious.

　　The evidence against the Asiatic residence of the Apostle which Corssen (Zeitschrift für die neutest. Wissenschaftἄλλος μαθητής of John 18:15 f. (known to the high priest who gained admission for Peter into the ἴδιος is hardly more than synonymous with the possessive pronoun. And the natural interpretation of the passage is that Andrew first finds his (own) brother Simon, and next day, when wishing to return home to Galilee, Philip, to whom Jesus says, ‘Follow me.’ At the same time the whole story of Jesus’ first meeting with the disciples who came over to Him from John contains much which is difficult to explain (see, however, M. Dibelius, Die urchristl. Überlieferung von Johannes d. Taüfer in Forschungen zur Religion und Litteratur des alten und neuen Testaments, Göttingen, 1911, p. 106ff.) as apologetic invention. It suggests the recollection of early and treasured experiences, and gives a wholly probable account of the relations between Jesus and John, and the undoubted connexion between the two, to which the Synoptists bear witness, though other and later elements in the story are abundantly clear.

　　On the whole, though the pre-eminence of John in the Synoptic account is hardly such that he must have appeared in the Fourth Gospel, if he were not the author, yet the facts of the Gospel and the traditions of later times about it are most easily explained by the view that ‘behind the Gospel stands the Son of Zebedee’ (see Harnack, Chronologie).

　　Literature.-In addition to the ordinary Commentaries on the Synoptic and Fourth Gospels, the following books and articles may be mentioned: T. Zahn, Introduction to the NT, Eng. translation (where the usual references will be found for the legendary history of St. James in Spain); P. W. Schmiedel, article ‘Johannes und Kerinthos,’ in Zeitschrift für die neutest. Wissenschaft