Bartholomew and Nathanael

In the New Testament the Apostle Bartholomew is never more than a name in a list, standing always next to Philip in the four catalogues of the Twelve (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13). Orthodox tradition identifies him with Nathanael of Cana, who appears only in the Gospel of John (1:45–51; 21:2). This file sets out the New Testament data and the inferential basis of the identification, with the scholarly caution and the positions named.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

A Name in Four Lists

The whole secure New Testament knowledge of Bartholomew is contained in four verses. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke each give a list of the Twelve, and the Book of Acts gives a fourth at the gathering after the Ascension; in every one of them Bartholomew appears, and in three of the four he stands directly beside Philip. Matthew lists “Philip, and Bartholomew” (Matt. 10:3); Mark, “Philip, and Bartholomew” (Mark 3:18); Luke, “Philip and Bartholomew” (Luke 6:14); and Acts, in a slightly reordered roll, “Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew” (Acts 1:13). The apostle never speaks, never acts, and is never described; he is simply numbered among the Twelve whom the Lord chose and named apostles (Luke 6:13).

The name itself is the first clue to the man. Bartholomaios is not a personal name but a patronymic: it transliterates the Aramaic bar-Talmai, “son of Talmai” (or Tolmai), the name Talmai itself being known from the Old Testament (Talmai king of Geshur, 2 Sam. 3:3; the Talmai among the sons of Anak, Num. 13:22). A man called only “son of Tolmai” would ordinarily have borne a personal name as well, just as “Bar-Jonah” (Matt. 16:17) was also Simon Peter and “Bartimaeus” (Mark 10:46) is glossed as “the son of Timaeus.” This grammatical observation — that “Bartholomew” is a surname awaiting a given name — is the seed from which the identification with Nathanael grew (Brown 1966, on John 1:45; Oxford Companion to the Bible, “Bartholomew”).

Nathanael, Only in John

Nathanael presents the mirror image. The name Nathanael (“God has given”) appears nowhere in the Synoptics or Acts; it is found only in the Fourth Gospel, twice. In the first scene Philip finds Nathanael and tells him, “We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph”; Nathanael answers, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” — and Philip replies, “Come and see” (John 1:45–46). Jesus, seeing him approach, says, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!”; Nathanael, astonished that the Lord knows him, asks, “Whence knowest thou me?”; and Jesus answers, “Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee” — at which Nathanael confesses, “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel” (John 1:47–49). The second mention places “Nathanael of Cana in Galilee” among the seven disciples who meet the risen Lord by the Sea of Tiberias (John 21:2).

So the two names divide the New Testament between them: Bartholomew belongs to the Synoptics and Acts and never to John; Nathanael belongs to John and never to the Synoptics or Acts. Neither evangelist who names one names the other.

The Argument for the Identification

The traditional Orthodox (and broadly Western) identification of Bartholomew with Nathanael rests on a convergence of inferences, none decisive alone but mutually reinforcing:

  1. The complementary distribution. John, who alone gives the calling of the first disciples in detail, never mentions Bartholomew; the Synoptics, who list the Twelve, never mention Nathanael. If Nathanael is one of the Twelve under another name, the gap in each set is filled (Brown 1966; Oxford Companion to the Bible, “Nathanael”).

  2. The patronymic. “Bartholomew” is a surname; a man so designated would have a given name, and “Nathanael” is exactly such a name. The two could be the same man called by his given name in John and by his patronymic in the Synoptic tradition.

  3. The pairing with Philip. In John it is Philip who brings Nathanael to Christ (John 1:45); in three of the four apostle-lists it is Philip beside whom Bartholomew stands (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14). The constancy of the Philip-Nathanael and Philip-Bartholomew association is the strongest single argument that Nathanael and Bartholomew are one (this pairing is treated fully in The Companion of Philip).

  4. The resurrection appearance. Nathanael is numbered in John 21:2 among the disciples to whom the risen Lord appears at the Sea of Tiberias, a setting otherwise populated by members of the Twelve — which suggests Nathanael belonged to that inner circle.

On these grounds the equation has been received in the Orthodox liturgical tradition, which commemorates Bartholomew and reads the Nathanael passages of his life as one and the same apostle, and in much of Western tradition since at least the Middle Ages.

The Caution

The identification must nonetheless be stated for what it is — an inference, not a datum of Scripture. [Disputed: the equation Bartholomew = Nathanael is traditional and inferential, never asserted in the New Testament. In favor: the complementary silence of John and the Synoptics, the patronymic nature of "Bartholomew," and above all the Philip pairing (so the medieval Western tradition, and Eastern Orthodox liturgical usage; argued by Brown 1966 as "possible" and "widely held"). Against or agnostic: some scholars hold Nathanael an unnumbered disciple of the wider following rather than one of the Twelve, noting that John never calls him an apostle and lists the Twelve nowhere (so, e.g., the cautious treatments in the *Oxford Companion to the Bible* and the *Anchor Bible Dictionary*); others have proposed identifying Nathanael with other figures (e.g., John, or — anciently — with the unnamed disciple, or with Matthew/Levi by the "God-given" sense of the name), proposals now generally set aside. The honest summary: the identification is probable on the Philip argument but not demonstrable, and is held in Orthodox tradition as received rather than proved.]

The fuller weighing of these positions, including the alternative identifications proposed in antiquity and in modern scholarship, is reserved for The Identification Debate. For the purposes of this guide the apostle is treated, as the tradition treats him, as Bartholomew-Nathanael — with the recognition that nearly all of his narrative content is borrowed from the Johannine Nathanael, and that the equation is a traditional bridge, not a Scriptural statement.

See Also

References

  • The Holy Bible, King James Version and Revised Standard Version. (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13; John 1:45–51; 21:2; cf. Matt. 16:17; Mark 10:46; 2 Sam. 3:3; Num. 13:22.)
  • Brown, Raymond E. The Gospel According to John I–XII. Anchor Bible 29. Garden City: Doubleday, 1966. (On John 1:45–51 and the Bartholomew/Nathanael question.)
  • Metzger, Bruce M., and Michael D. Coogan, eds. The Oxford Companion to the Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. (Entries “Bartholomew” and “Nathanael.”)
  • Freedman, David Noel, ed. The Anchor Bible Dictionary. New York: Doubleday, 1992. (Entries “Bartholomew” and “Nathanael.”)