Counting the Twelve (or so) Disciples

Michael Goulder once said that New Testament scholars often substitute counting for thinking, and I confess to enjoying some counting myself. I'm writing about the disciples in John's Gospel at the moment, and found myself writing that John (son of Zebedee) is the disciple mentioned most often in the Synoptics after Peter. So then I had to check to see if that is true, and it is.

It's likely that someone else has done a similar count, but if so, I couldn't find it, and Googling was useless. Anyway, here are the figures. These are numbers of appearances of each disciple (of the "twelve"; more to come on others), and not the number of times their names appear (thus passages in which disciples' names appear multiple times are counted once; "sons of Zebedee" = James and John; the Peter list includes "Simon" and "Simon Peter").

Simon Peter: 40 (Matt: 12; Mark: 14; Luke: 14):

Matt. 4.18, 10.2, 14.28-33, 16.13-20, 16.21-23, 17.1-8, 17.24-27, 18.21-22, 19.27-30, 26.31-35, 26.36-46, 26.58 and 69-75.

Mark 1.16-20, 1.29-31, 1.36, 3.16, 5.37, 8.31-3, 9.2-8, 10.28-31, 11.20-24, 13.3, 14.26-31, 14.32-42, 14.54 and 14.66-72, 16.7.

Luke 4.38-39, 5.1-11, 6.14, 8.45R, 8.51, 9.18-20, 9.28-36, 12.41, 18.28-30, 22.7-13, 22.31-34, 22.54-62, 24.12, 24.34.

James: 18 (Matt: 5; Mark: 8; Luke: 5):

Matt. 4.21, 10.2, 17.1-8, 20.20-28, 26.36-46 (plus one bonus appearance from mum in 27.56).

Mark 1.16-20, 1.29-31, 3.17, 5.37, 9.2-8, 10.35-45, 13.3, 14.32-42.

Luke 5.10, 6.14, 8.51, 9.28-36, 9.51-56.

John: 21 (Matt: 5; Mark: 9; Luke: 7):

Matt. 4.21, 10.2, 17.1-8, 20.20-28, 26.36-46 (plus one bonus appearance from mum in 27.56).

Mark 1.16-20, 1.29-31, 3.17, 5.37, 9.2-8, 9.38-41, 10.35-45, 13.3, 14.32-42.

Luke 5.10, 6.14, 8.51, 9.28-36, 9.49-50, 9.51-56, 22.7-13. 

Andrew: 7 (Matt: 2; Mark: 4; Luke: 1):

Matt. 4.18, 10.2. 

Mark 1.16-20, 1.29-31, 3.18, 13.3.

Luke 6.14. 

Judas: 13 (Matt: 5; Mark: 4; Luke: 4)

Matt. 10.4, 26.14-16, 26.20-25, 26.47-56, 27.3-10.

Mark 3.19, 14.10-11, 14.17-21, 14.43-52.

Luke 6.16, 22.3-6, 22.21-23, 22.47-53.

Matthew: 4 (Matt: 9.9-10; Matt. 10.3 // Mark 3.18 // Luke 6.15)

Everyone else appears only in the disciple lists (Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus / Lebbaeus / Judas son of James, Simon the Cananaean / Zealot, Matt. 10.2-4 // Mark 3.13-19 // Luke 6.12-16). 

It should be easy to arrange the data above synoptically too, and then to add figures for John and Acts. I'll do that soon. 

Sea of Galilee out of fish

This morning's Times reports on the worrying situation in the Sea of Galilee about fishing stocks:

Sea of Galilee is out of fish, and miracles
James Hider and Yonit Farago

Were Jesus to return and fish the Sea of Galilee today he might tell a parable, not of prolific catches and the sated crowds of biblical times but of empty nets and a hefty fine.

Israel’s parliament is poised to impose a two-year ban on fishing for the famed St Peter’s fish — a type of tilapia indigenous to the Sea of Galilee in the north of the country.

For thousands of years fishermen here have been pulling in the tasty white fish, grilled as a speciality in the restaurants of Tiberias and the villages dotted around the shores of the lake.

Stocks have dropped drastically in the past decade because of environmental and human factors. Annual catches of the St Peter’s fish, which takes its name from the New Testament story in which Jesus’s disciple, Peter, netted a fish with a gold coin in its mouth — and paid his taxes with it — have dropped from 300 tonnes to only 8 . . . .

There is, of course, a minor error about the New Testament here. The passage in mind is Matt. 17.24-27 in which Peter takes a stater (στατήρ) out of the fish's mouth, which is a silver and not a gold coin.

Simon Peter in Matthew's Gospel: Article and NT Pod 7

I made available the latest NT Pod earlier this week, NT Pod 7: Simon Peter in Matthew's Gospel. It's the first time I have done a kind of "sequel" episode, this one following on from NT Pod 5: Simon Peter in Mark's Gospel. In this latest piece, I explore the way that Matthew works with Mark's portrayal of Peter and suggest that we can see the same "Peter Pattern" here as we see in Mark. As in Mark, the "rocky ground" Peter is the one who enthusiastically receives the word with joy but stumbles when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word (Mark 4:16-17 // Matt. 13:20-21).

Matthew takes forward the characterisation of Peter as the disciple who is scandalized by the idea of "Christ crucified" (1 Cor. 1:23), and he underlines and enhances the same language of skandalon and skandalizomai ("stumbling block", "to fall away"). Far from whitewashing the disciples, Matthew in fact proves to be a strong reader of Mark, understanding and elaborating on his presentation. One of the reasons that we fail to see this is our over-reliance on redaction-criticism, and our tendency only to pay attention to the parts where Matthew differs from Mark; we do not take seriously the elements that Matthew takes forward and underscores in Mark.

For those who would like to follow up the discussion on this point, I have an article available on the issues. It was published in 2006, but I am happy now to make it available online in toto (PDF):

"The Rock on Rocky Ground: Matthew, Mark and Peter as Skandalon," in Philip McCosker (ed.), What Is It That the Scripture Says?: Essays in Biblical Interpretation, Translation, And Reception in Honour of Henry Wansbrough Osb (Library of New Testament Studies; London & New York: Continuum, 2006): 61-73

The essay has been available in the above Festschrift for Henry Wansbrough for the last three years, but I am happy now to make it available free for all on the internet.

NT Pod 5: Simon Peter in Mark: Programme Notes

The latest NT Pod deals with the topic of Simon Peter in Mark's Gospel. Against the background of the famous issue of Mark's negative portrayal of the disciples, I explore a little the interesting thesis of Mary Ann Tolbert that the interpretation to the Parable of the Sower (Mark 4.13-20) reflects programmatically the way that different people respond to Jesus in Mark, with a pun on Peter's name covered in the rocky ground (πετρῶδες). Peter, like those on the rocky ground, receive the word with joy when they hear it but they fall away (σκανδαλίζομαι) when trouble or persecution arise (Mark 4.16-17). This is what I call the "Peter pattern" in Mark, immediate enthusiasm followed by a falling away in the face of the cross, persecution, suffering. It is most clearly encapsulated in the Caesarea Philippi episode, where Peter initially gets things right, having understood and confessed that Jesus is the Christ (Mark 8.27-30), but then gets things horribly wrong, when he rebukes Jesus for talking about the cross and himself receives a rebuke from Jesus, "Get thee behind me, Satan" (Mark 8.31-33).

My own addition to this discussion is to link the portrayal of Peter in Mark with the perception in early Christianity of "Christ crucified" as a "stumbling block" to Jews (1 Cor. 1.23). It is the connection between the Christ and crucifixion that causes Peter to stumble, and Mark repeatedly stresses this using the same language of σκάνδαλον and σκανδαλίζομαι (Mark 4.17, 14.27, 14.29). Mark's narrative makes Peter the character through whom the reader comes to understand (and ideally to overcome) the anxiety in the concept of a crucified Messiah.