Nicknames, Surnames, Code Names and Aliases: Exactly Who Were Jesus’ Disciples? Part 3 Andrew Unlike the others, Andrew (or Andreas) is a Greek name meaning simply “a man” or “a mighty man” or even “a husband.” “Man” is a funny name for a person. The Hebrew form might be Adam or Enosh, both of which mean man. Matthew says “A Man” is Peter’s brother. It seems unusual that Shimon Kefa’s brother would have a foreign / Greek name - I doubt that Andrew was his name at all. With a little letter play, we can get Ananyahu / Oniyah / Daniyahu - or maybe the editors wanted to hide his real name. We don’t hear much about Andrew in the Bible. However, The Acts of Andrew has surfaced, and we can read about Andrew leaving town to become a missionary to the Greeks, performing incredible miracles and influencing high-ranking officials. Andrew might simply be a nickname. The Greeks who knew him might have simply called him, “da Man!” Philip Philippos is also a Greek name, meaning, “horse lover.” Philip was in charge of the provisions (John 6:5), so the “horse lover” must have been a good administrator. We find him again in the Acts appointed as a “deacon” and seeing to the provisions and welfare of the community of faith (Acts 6:5). (Some see this as another Philip, but why?) We remember that Philip stepped out to become a mighty preacher, bringing light to the Ethiopian eunuch and the Samaritans. Maybe Philip rode a horse through Palestine, as his name implies. That would make him the first circuit rider and maybe even the first cowboy. Bartholomew Bartholomew is Bar Talmai in Aramaic, which means “son of Talmai.” Talmai is a Hebrew word that means, “a heap of water.” We’d say he was “a tall drink of water.” Talmai is also a Bible name. He was a descendent of the giants of Canaan (Numbers 13:22, sons of Anak). So, if Bartholomew is an added (sur-)name, we imagine him to be a giant or son of a giant, a big “heap of water.” Church history tells us that Bartholomew was also called Nathaniel (also Nathanael), the man Yahshua met under the fig tree. Nathaniel is a real name and means “gift of the Almighty.” Yahshua saw Nathaniel under the fig tree, which is a symbol for the kingdom of Israel. This may be a reference to the words of Yahweh through the prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel 7:10 “I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them.” In was under the fig that Yahshua told Nathaniel, “You are an Israelite indeed without a gimmick (doloV)” (John 1:47). If Nathaniel and Bartholomew are the same person, then he may have been a giant of a man, a “gift of Elohim” to the disciples, like the actor Buddy Baer in the movie classic Quo Vadis or Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile: an overarching friend of the innocent; a strong bear, “what you see is what you get,” a prophetic and humorless voice. The Aramaic books of Volume VIII of the so-called Church Fathers include stories about Bartholomews mission travels in the East through Asia, and his martyrdom of being crucified by townspeople upon the side of a barn. There may be some history in these stories. On the other hand, some of the Apocryphal books from the west tell us of the gross visions of Bartholomew and his battles with a monstrous huge antichrist.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 19:00:31 +0000
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