How the Names in the Gospels Point to their Reliability

Imagine for a moment that 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. Bear in mind, 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 accomplishments.

So you write a biography on his life. The first person acquires a copy, turns to the opening chapter, and reads about his wonderful parents John and Sally. After reading those names, the reader will immediately toss your book in the trash because those names simply don’t fit. Even though your English friend has never visited America, he knows that John and Sally are English names — not Native American. In other words, the phony names in your biography undermine your entire work. Those names indicate to everyone that you haven’t been to the Americas, you haven’t interviewed Samoset or any of his friends, and you lack any understanding of the American culture.

PETER, JAMES, JOHN, AND FRED?

When you turn your attention to the gospels, you can’t help but notice they list a lot of names, e.g. 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 Palestinian culture?

It’s popular among skeptics to suggest that non-Jewish writers, with no connections to Palestine, penned the gospels. The implications of these claims are quite obvious — no eye-witness testimony stands behind the biographies. Rather, Greek authors all across the Roman Empire in places like Antioch, Asia Minor, and Rome itself 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 situation is as the skeptic describes, 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 — Fred, of course isn’t a Palestinian name. Or more realistically, if someone wrote from Rome without any first-hand experience of Palestine, he might have included Roman names like Maximus or Cassius.

NAMES IN THE GOSPELS

Richard Bauckham, theologian and senior scholar at Cambridge, conducted 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.¹ These Palestinian names are found in dozens of literary sources, burial inscriptions, and legal documents. In total, we know of about three thousand Palestinian names around Jesus’ time. Bauckham’s discovery makes a compelling argument for eye-witness testimony.

Bauckham lists and compares the top nine male names found in both non-biblical Palestine as well as in the Gospels and Acts. I have listed them here:

NON-BIBLICAL PALESTINIAN NAMES

1. Simon (243)
2. Joseph (218)
3. Lazarus (166)
4. Judas (164)
5. John (122)
6. Jesus (99)
7. Ananias (82)
8. Jonathan (71)
9. Matthew (62)

GOSPELS AND ACTS NAMES

1. Simon (8)
2. Joseph (6)
3. Judas (5)
4. John (5)
5. James (5)
6. Herod (3)
7. Jesus (2)
8. Alexander (2)
9. Matthew (2)

ANALYSIS OF THE LISTS

The similarities between these lists are uncanny. In both lists, Simon and Joseph rank first and second. Within the broader Palestinian list, these two names represent 15.6% of all the names while they constitute 18.2% of all the names in the Gospels and Acts.

In the Palestinian list, the top nine names amount to 41.5% of total names while the top nine Gospels and Acts names make up 40.3% of all listed biblical names. Among the broader Palestinian group, singular attested names encompass 7.9% of all names, while the same category constitutes 3.9% in the biblical names.

SIMON, SIMON, AND SIMON

Hands down, Simon is the most popular name both in the broader Palestinian context as well as in the Gospels and Acts. Unfortunately, last names didn’t exist in that culture; therefore, differentiating different Simons required creativity. This explains why all the Simons in the Bible almost never appear in isolation — distinguishing traits usually accompany their names.

For example, that culture often differentiated individuals with the same name based on their paternal relationships. In the case of the disciple Simon, Jesus refers to him as Simon son of Jonah (Mt 16:17). Or they identified them based on their hometown in the case of Simon of Cyrene (Lk 23:26). Sometimes their nickname was based on a character trait such as Simon the leper (Mt 26:6) or a group association like Simon the Zealot (Lk 6:15). Occupations also distinguished individuals as in the case of Simon the tanner (Acts 10:6).

WHAT ABOUT THE WOMEN?

We don’t have nearly as many female names on record as we do men. With that being said, however, 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 differentiation tactics are used to describe the various women named Mary as well, e.g. Mary Madeline (location), Mary mother of James (maternal), Mary of Clopas (husband), Mary mother of Jesus (maternal).

EYE-WITNESS TESTIMONY

Unlike the Samoset example I listed above, the Gospels portray realistic names found in Palestine during Jesus’ time. In an age before encyclopedias and the internet, one would expect less congruity between the Palestinian and biblical names had the authors no connections to Palestine. Realistic names suggest the Gospel writers maintained 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 demonstrates a realistic practice among ancient Palestinians. For these reasons, I believe we can be confident that eye-witness testimony stands behind the Gospels.