'Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him about

whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of

Joseph from Nazareth." Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good

come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." When

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, "Here is truly

an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!" Nathanael asked him, "Where

did you get to know me?" Jesus answered, "I saw you under the fig tree

before Philip called you." Nathanael replied. "Rabbi. you are the Son of

God! You are the King of Israel!" Jesus answered, "Do you believe

because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see

greater things than these." And he said to him, "Very truly, I tell you,

you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and

descending upon the Son of Man."' (John 1:45-51)

Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in

Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. (John 21:2)

From these passages we learn that Nathanael was a disciple of Jesus who was called

near the start of Jesus ministry, and was still with Jesus at the end. In the second

passage he is included in a list with four other disciples, all of whom were members of the

twelve. It seems likely, therefore, that Nathanael was also one of the twelve. The name

"Nathanael" does not appear in the lists of the twelve in the synoptic gospels. It is

therefore rightly speculated that Nathanael had another name, and the most popular

choice is "Bartholomew". This is possible. "Bartholomew" is a patronymic so he almost

certainly had another name.

However, C.E. Hill has put forward good reasons to equate him with James, son of

Alphaeus.(1)

Firstly, he points out the the Epistula Apostolorum, written probably in the middle of the

second century, gives a list of the eleven and places the name "Nathanael" where we

would expect to read "James son of Alphaeus". Thus the author of this text seems to have

equated the two men.

Secondly, in the story of Jesus' encounter with Nathanael, he finds three direct allusions to

the Jacob narrative in Genesis. (a) Compare John 1:51 with Gen. 28:12. (b) Contrast

Nathanael's lack of deceit (John1:47) with Jacob's deceit (Gen. 27:35). (c) Consider

Jesus' use of Jacob's new name in the appellation "Israelite" (John 1:47). Hill argues that

these allusions to the Jacob narrative would make good sense if Nathanael's other name

was Jacob (James in English translations), and especially if John's readers already knew.

Hill makes a case for supposing that John's readers may indeed have already known that

Nathanael's other name. This seems plausible in the light of the case of

Crispus-Sosthenes, whose identity seems to be taken for granted by the author of Acts.

How might this Jacob (James) have acquired the name "Nathanael"? The motive cannot

have been linguistic because both names are Hebrew biblical names. Nor can the primary

motive have been to give him a unique name, since Nathanael was not a rare name. We

know of six others, out of a total of 2625 occurrences of male names.(2) It is however,

possible that a secondary motive may have been to distinguish this James from James the

son of Zebedee. If Nathanael was the same person as James son of Alphaeus, we are

probably looking at a case of religious renaming. This is plausible since the high level of

commitment towards Jesus that he expressed in John 1:49 is consistent with this type of

name giving. Notice also that Nathanael is mentioned in John 21:2 alongside Peter,

Thomas, and the sons of Zebedee, all of whom had new names/nicknames.

We should also consider the relationship between James son of Alphaeus and Levi son of

Alphaeus (who is almost certainly Matthew). The name "Alphaeus" was held by just four

others, out of a total of 2625 name occurrences. Among the twelve disciples we have at

least two pairs of brothers, so it is almost certain that Levi-Matthew and this James were

brothers. I calculate a probability of at least 94% based on this data. But there is more. In

Mark's list of the twelve Andrew is separated from his brother Simon, but Matthew and

Luke both alter the order of names to place Andrew immediately after Peter. Similarly in

Mark the names "Matthew" and "James the son of Alphaeus" are separated by "Thomas".

It is therefore interesting that both Matthew's gospel and Acts change the order of the

names to place "Matthew" next to "James the son of Alphaeus". This could indicate that

the authors of Matthew and Acts knew that they were brothers. The fact that the gospel

writers do not explicitly state that they were brothers, is not a compelling arguments. We

are not told that Judas Barsabbas was a brother of Joseph Barsabbas, but this was

probably the case, and nor are we told whose twin Thomas was. Now, we have argued that

Levi was given the name "Matthew" and have speculated that he was so named because

Jesus considered him to be a gift from God. So, if, as seems likely, Jesus renamed Levi in

this way, there is every chance that he also gave his brother, James, a similar new name.

The name "Nathanael" also means "Gift of God" so it is just the sort of name that we

might plausibly expect Jesus to give to James, the brother of Levi-Matthew. While names

meaning "Gift of God" were common (~10%?) it is intriguing to find two brothers who both

show evidence of having received such a name. The Boanerges brothers and the

Barsabbas brothers probably all received new names from Jesus.

In conclusion, Hill is probably right to equate Nathanael with James son of Alphaeus. If so,

Jesus probably considered this James and his brother Levi to be gifts from God and gave

them names with that meaning.

(1) C.E. Hill, "The identity of John's Nathanael", JSNT 67 (1997) 45-61.

2. (2)Bauckham's statistics.
   

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