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Simon, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Jonah, Son of John: Realistic Detail in the Gospels and Acts1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
Extract
An interesting literary feature within many of the narratives of the Gospels and Acts relates to the way in which certain names – ‘Simon’, ‘Jesus of Nazareth’, ‘son of Jonah’ and ‘son of John’ – are used distinctively in conversation or direct speech. These names differ in nature and narrative function, but as a group they share two characteristics. First, in the majority of cases where they appear nothing in the narrative context demands the choice of the particular name in question, nor is it easy to attribute a theological motive for its presence. Secondly, while these names sound natural on the lips of the characters in the narratives, they are seldom employed when the narrator speaks with his own voice, and seem not to have been in common use among those a step or two removed from the time or place portrayed in the narrative. Their use, then, appears to reflect a concern to portray details realistically. This article seeks to examine this feature more closely, and then to consider how an observable attention to realistic detail might contribute to our understanding of the origin of the material in which it occurs.
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References
2 Recognition of this feature is not new, though it receives little attention in recent discussion. See the surveys of the use of the name ‘Simon’ in Patrick, W., ‘Peter’, A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels (ed. Hastings, J.; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1908) 2.349Google Scholar; and Chase, F. H., ‘Peter (Simon)’, A Dictionary of the Bible (ed. Hastings, J.; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1908) 3.756Google Scholar; and the comments in Westcott, B. F., The Gospel according to St John (London: John Murray, 1882) 302.Google Scholar
3 Cf. Fitzmyer, J., The Gospel according to Luke (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1981) 1.564Google Scholar. Contrast Elliott, J. K., ‘Κηφᾶς: Σίμων Πέτρος: ό Πέτρος: An Examination of New Testament Usage’, NovT 14 (1972) 245–6Google Scholar, and Marshall, I. H., Commentary on Luke (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978) 820.Google Scholar
4 comments, H. B. Swete, ‘For the time being he is “Peter” no more; the new character which he owes to association with Jesus is in abeyance’ – The Gospel according to St Mark (London: Macmillan, 1898) 325Google Scholar. Cf. Taylor, V., The Gospel according to St Mark (London: Macmillan, 1959) 554.Google Scholar
5 The patronymic, particularly in its Aramaic form, Βαριωνᾶ, is not demanded by the content of 16.16–18, however. See the discussion below.
6 Marshall, Luke, 820; Brown, R., Donfried, K. and Reumann, J., Peter in the New Testament (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1973) 111Google Scholar (with reference to Luke 22.31; 24.34).
7 Two features of the saying go beyond what the content demands, however. One is the use of the patronymic ‘son of John’, another is the Aramaic form of the name ‘Peter’. It is certainly noteworthy that the one occurrence of Κηφᾶς in all the four Gospels comes in a direct speech context.
8 Lightfoot, R. H., St John's Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956) 340.Google Scholar
9 G. Lüdemann regards the use of ‘Simeon’ in Acts 15.14 as a redactional attempt to use archaic language: Early Christianity according to the Traditions in Acts (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1987) 168Google Scholar. But in light of the predominance of ‘Peter’ the form ‘Simon’ can equally be regarded as an archaic feature, and the pattern of usage of ‘Simon’ and ‘Peter’ in conversational material in Luke-Acts shows that consistent and conscious employment of a more archaic name is not characteristic of the author's redactional style. (See Luke 22.34; Acts 10.13; 11.7.)
10 Elliott, ‘Κηφᾶς’, (247–8) recognizes that there is a purposeful correlation between discourse and use of the name ‘Simon’ in the Gospels, but offers an unsatisfactorily complex explanation of its presence in many different strands of tradition. With regard to John, he suggests that the author is responsible for this feature in 1.42, and a different author for its occurrence in chapter 21. In the case of the Synoptics, he considers this feature to be a late addition, perhaps redactional, based on a tradition concerning Jesus’ use of the name ‘Simon’ which reached each of the evangelists independently from a common provenance – perhaps a community where Peter was always known as Simon. The occurrences of ‘Simon’ in Acts are attributed to use of a particular source rather than to the fact that direct speech is used.
11 Ίησοῦς ό Ναζαρηνός, Ίησοῦς ό Ναζωραîος, Ίησοῦς ό άπό Ναζαρέθ.
12 In the Gospels the name ‘Jesus’ rarely occurs alone in conversational material. Usually some kind of title is added (‘son of David’, ‘son of the Most High God’, etc.).
13 In Mark 1.24 there is a definite stress on the possessed man's recognition of Jesus' identity, but this is not focussed on his use of the designation ‘Jesus of Nazareth’, but on his later statement, ‘I know who you are, the holy one of God.’
14 For example, Guelich, R., Mark 1–8:36 (WBC; Dallas: Word, 1989) 57Google Scholar; Davies, W. D., Allison, Dale C., The Gospel according to Saint Matthew (ICC; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991) 1.276.Google Scholar
15 The interchange between ‘Nazirite’ and ‘holy one’ would allow the quotation in Matt 2.23, Ναζωραîος κληθήσεται to be connected with Isa 4.3 MT, ‘He shall be called holy’, with a play between ναζωραîος and ναζιραîος. Matt 2.23 and Mark 1.24, on this interpretation, contain a similar word play. See Davies and Allison, Matthew, I, 276–7.
16 A connection between ναζωραîος and the ‘branch’ of Isa 11.1 has frequently been perceived in Matt 2.23 and other passages where this form occurs.
17 See the discussion by Wise, M. O., ‘Nazarene’, Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (ed. Green, J. B., McKnight, S. and Marshall, I. H.; Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity, 1992) 571–4.Google Scholar
18 Fitzmyer, Luke, 2.1216.
19 To the extent that there was any word play between the term ‘Nazirite’ and the designation ‘of Nazareth’, it is as likely to have originated in the vicinity of Nazareth, a local saying passed on through the generations, as to have been the product of Christian reflection on the Old Testament. The same would not be true if the word play related to 
, a term with more specifically messianic significance.
20 Ναζαρηνοῦ is the reading of $$$75 N B L 079 0124, etc. Ναζωραίου is found in Α D K P W X Δ θ Π ψ 063 f1 f13.
21 Marshall, Luke, 894.
22 Though all four evangelists cite the words attached to the cross, only John includes the full name ‘Jesus of Nazareth’.
23 The form is Ίησοῦς ό Ναζωραîος except in 10.38 where it is Ίησοῦς ό άπό Ναζαρέθ.
24 The difference between Matthew's ‘son of Jonah’ and John's ‘son of John’ is difficult to explain. A similar variation between ‘John’ and ‘Jonah’ is found some LXX texts.
25 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2.622, suggest that perhaps Jesus called Peter ‘son of Jonah’ or ‘son of John’ in order to distinguish him from the other Simon among the Twelve. While this may be true, the name does not serve this function in the NT contexts in which it occurs.
26 Cf. the comment of Davies and Allison, ‘Did the tradition rightly remember that this is what Jesus himself called Peter?’, Matthew, 2.622. The patronymic is found once outside the NT, in the Gospel of the Hebrews fragment 9. Here, too, is a saying of Jesus (parallel to Matt 19.23) addressed to Simon.