Different Themes in the Bible

Jesus and the Sons of Zebedee

What differences did you notice in the changes in text by Matthew and Luke? Do the changes tell us anything about the particular Gospel's receiving community? Do they tell us anything about the message of the evangelist to that community? What did you learn from comparing the three passages? Apart from the redactional changes was there a foundational common theology in the message of the three passages?

The four Canonical gospels are all consistent in the fact that they mention Zebedee, who was the father of James and John who were among the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ according to the New Testament. Zebedee was the husband of Salome, who was named in Mark and Matthew as being one of the women present at the crucifixion, and this family was likely to be of key importance to the early followers of Christ. Both James and John are exceedingly common names in this period, and as a result there is sometimes an ambiguity as to exactly which James or John mentioned in the New Testament that the authors are referring to at various points in the texts. However, there are a few passages that explicitly connect James and John to Zebedee such as in Matthew 4:21 in the King James Version which states that:

"And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them."

And also in Luke 5:10 it states:

"And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men. And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him."

However, the authors of these passages are presenting these passages in different ways through the process of making editorial changes of the source materials that they were using as a reference. For example, in Matthew, the author was making editorial changes to present a certain image of the disciple that they believed was personally significant (Donahue & Harrington, 1991). Along with Peter, these brothers form the inner-circle of the disciples; however, it is argued that the sons of Zebedee are basically clueless to many of the aspects of Christ's true nature. In fact, the request that these brothers make to Jesus, "we wish that you do for us whatever we ask," may have bother the authors of Matthew to the extent that they excluded Peter's presence to illustrate the fact that it was the sons of Zebedee that were to blame for the request (Donahue & Harrington, 1991). They are basically asking Jesus to do anything they ask of him, and Jesus uses this opportunity to teach them about the passion again.