Who’s Who

The people this book names, in one place. If you have forgotten anyone, look here.

Jesus’s family and first followers

James — the brother of Jesus, who led the movement in Jerusalem after Jesus’s death and was killed about AD 62. Scholars debate whether he wrote the letter of James.

James, son of Zebedee — an apostle and the brother of John. In Acts, King Herod has him killed.

John — an apostle, the son of Zebedee, whom Jesus nicknamed one of the Sons of Thunder. Tradition credits him with the fourth gospel, the letters of John and Revelation, but most scholars think others wrote them.

John the Baptist — the preacher who baptized Jesus. Luke dates the start of his preaching to about AD 28–29, and Matthew and Mark say a Herod had him beheaded.

Joseph — the husband of Mary. In Matthew an angel tells him in a dream that her child is from the Holy Spirit, and in Luke he takes her to Bethlehem for the census.

Joseph of Arimathea — the man who buried Jesus in his own tomb after the crucifixion.

Judas Iscariot — the disciple who agreed to hand Jesus over for thirty pieces of silver. In Matthew he throws the silver back and hangs himself.

Jude — called Judah in the chapter on his letter, and one of Jesus’s brothers. The letter claims him as its writer, but many scholars think a later writer used his name.

Lazarus — a name for two people. In John he is the brother of Mary and Martha of Bethany, whom Jesus calls out of his tomb, and in Luke’s parable he is the poor beggar at the rich man’s gate.

Mary — the mother of Jesus. Luke gives her a song of praise, called the Magnificat.

Mary Magdalene — a woman Jesus healed, who followed him. In John she is the first person to see him after his death, and no gospel says she was a prostitute.

Mary of Bethany — the sister of Martha and Lazarus. In John she anoints Jesus’s feet.

Matthew — the tax collector Jesus called to follow him, whom Mark and Luke call Levi. From the 100s on, tradition credited him with the first gospel, but most scholars doubt it because the writer copied most of Mark.

Nicodemus — a Pharisee who came to Jesus by night, according to John. John also says he helped bury Jesus.

Peter — Simon, a Galilean fisherman and the leader of the twelve, whom Jesus called the rock. Early tradition says he was crucified in Rome under Nero, and many scholars doubt he wrote the letters that carry his name.

Philip — an evangelist in Acts who baptized an Ethiopian official. Acts says his four daughters prophesied.

Simon of Cyrene — a man forced to carry Jesus’s cross. Mark calls him the father of Alexander and Rufus, probably because Mark’s readers knew them.

Stephen — one of seven men appointed to run the daily food for widows. He was the first of Jesus’s followers to be killed, stoned after a speech against the Temple while Saul looked on.

Thomas — the disciple who doubted until he saw Jesus’s wounds, according to John. In John, Jesus calls blessed those who believe without seeing.

Zacchaeus — a chief tax collector in Luke who climbed a tree to see Jesus and promised half his goods to the poor.

Paul and the people around him

Apollos — a preacher from Alexandria whom Priscilla and Aquila taught further in Ephesus. Martin Luther guessed he wrote Hebrews.

Aquila — a tentmaker who worked with Paul and the husband of Priscilla. Acts says the two had left Rome when Claudius expelled the Jews.

Barnabas — Paul’s partner on his first journey. In Acts he introduces Paul to the apostles in Jerusalem, and the two later split in a quarrel over his cousin Mark.

Epaphras — a local man who started the church in Colossae, a town Paul had never visited.

Epaphroditus — the man the church in Philippi sent to Paul with a gift. He nearly died, and Paul sent him home.

Erastus — a man Paul greets from Corinth as the city’s treasurer in Romans. A paving stone in Corinth names an Erastus who paid for the pavement, but scholars cannot say whether he is the same man.

Euodia and Syntyche — two women in Philippi whom Paul urges to agree with each other.

Junia — a woman Paul greets in Romans 16 as notable among the apostles, though some scholars read the phrase as known to the apostles. Later readers and printers turned her name into a man’s, Junias.

Luke — the doctor who traveled with Paul, according to Irenaeus, who around AD 180 named him as the writer of the third gospel and Acts. Some scholars accept that, but many think a later admirer of Paul wrote them.

Lydia — a seller of purple cloth from Thyatira and the first convert Luke names in Europe. The church in Philippi met in her house.

Mark — called John Mark in Acts, who set out with Paul and Barnabas on their first journey and then went home. Papias reported that a Mark, Peter’s interpreter, wrote the second gospel, which names no author, and many scholars doubt it.

Onesimus — the slave Paul sent back to his owner Philemon, asking Philemon to take him back as a brother. About fifty years later Ignatius praised a bishop of Ephesus with the same name, and some scholars wonder whether he was the same man.

Paul — a Jewish Pharisee, called Saul in Acts, who persecuted Jesus’s followers and then became their great missionary to non-Jews. Seven of the thirteen letters in his name are generally accepted as his, and early tradition says he was beheaded in Rome under Nero.

Philemon — a believer in Colossae who owned Onesimus. A church met in his house, and Paul’s short letter was written to him and that church.

Phoebe — a deacon of the church at Cenchreae and a helper of many, whom Paul commends in Romans 16. She probably carried the letter to Rome.

Priscilla — also called Prisca, the wife of Aquila, who worked beside Paul and helped teach Apollos. In 1900 Adolf von Harnack proposed that she wrote Hebrews, a letter whose writer nobody knows.

Silas — Paul’s companion who crossed into Macedonia with him in Acts. The book takes him to be the Silvanus named beside Paul and Timothy in 1 Thessalonians and in 1 Peter, which says it was written through him.

Sosthenes — a co-worker whom Paul lists beside himself at the start of 1 Corinthians.

Tertius — Paul’s secretary for Romans, who adds his own greeting near the end of the letter.

Timothy — Paul’s young helper, named beside him at the start of several letters. 1 and 2 Timothy are addressed to him, though most critical scholars think a later follower of Paul wrote them.

Titus — a Greek co-worker whom Paul took to Jerusalem as a living example that non-Jewish believers need not be circumcised. Acts never names him, and most critical scholars think a later follower of Paul wrote the letter to Titus.

Tychicus — the messenger Paul names at the end of both Colossians and Ephesians. The note about him is almost word for word the same in both letters.

Rulers and officials

Agrippa — the king who, with the governor Festus, heard Paul in Acts and agreed that he had done nothing worthy of death. He added that Paul might have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.

Ananus — the high priest who, according to Josephus, had James stoned in AD 62, after the governor died and before the next one arrived. He was removed from office after only three months.

Antiochus IV — the Greek king who in 167 BC put a pagan altar in the Temple in Jerusalem and dedicated it to Zeus. Jews read the book of Daniel as describing this deed.

Augustus — the Roman emperor whose decree sends Joseph to Bethlehem in Luke’s story. Earlier, as Octavian, he and Mark Antony defeated Brutus and Cassius at Philippi in 42 BC.

Caiaphas — the high priest who tells the council in John that it is to their advantage for one man to die for the people.

Caligula — also called Gaius, the Roman emperor who in AD 40 ordered a statue of himself set up in the Temple. He was murdered before it could be done.

Claudius — the Roman emperor who expelled Jews from Rome about AD 49 and died in AD 54. A letter of his found at Delphi helps date Paul’s time in Corinth.

Domitian — the Roman emperor who reigned AD 81–96, under whom Revelation was most likely written. He liked to be addressed as lord and god, but historians no longer think he ran an empire-wide hunt for Christians.

Felix — a Roman governor before whom Paul defended himself in Acts. Paul told him he had come to Jerusalem to bring gifts for the needy of his nation.

Festus — a Roman governor who, with King Agrippa, found that Paul had done nothing worthy of death. Josephus says he died in office about AD 62.

Gallio — the Roman governor of Achaia who threw out the case against Paul in Corinth. An inscription at Delphi dates his time there to about AD 51–52, one of the few fixed dates in Paul’s life.

Gamaliel — a respected teacher who told the council in Acts to leave Jesus’s followers alone. His speech places Theudas too early, since Theudas led his crowd about ten years after that scene.

Herod Antipas — a son of Herod the Great who ruled Galilee from 4 BC until AD 39. In the gospels a Herod has John the Baptist beheaded, and in Luke Pilate sends Jesus to Herod.

Herod the Great — the king Rome named over Judea in 40 BC, who ruled until his death in 4 BC and rebuilt the Temple. Matthew says he had the children of Bethlehem killed, which no historian of the time mentions.

Josephus — a Jewish historian who wrote around AD 93. He describes Herod, the census of AD 6, the death of James and the siege of Jerusalem.

Nero — the Roman emperor who blamed the Christians for the great fire of Rome in AD 64. Early tradition says Paul was beheaded and Peter crucified under him, and many scholars think the number 666 in Revelation spells his name.

Pharisees — a Jewish group known for careful keeping of the Law of Moses. They argue with Jesus in the gospels, and Paul says he was one.

Pilate — the Roman governor of Judea from AD 26 to 36, who had Jesus crucified about AD 30.

Pliny the Younger — the Roman governor of Bithynia whose letter to Trajan, about AD 112, says he ordered executed those who still said they were Christians after three questions. He also reported that they met before dawn and sang a hymn to Christ as to a god.

Pompey — the Roman general who took Jerusalem in 63 BC and walked into the Holy of Holies. From then on Rome ruled the Jewish homeland.

Quirinius — the governor of Syria named in Luke’s story of the census. Josephus dates his census of Judea to AD 6, about ten years after Herod died, which is a problem for Luke.

Seneca — a Roman philosopher, the brother of Gallio and tutor to the young Nero. Nero forced him to take his own life in AD 65.

Tacitus — a Roman historian who says Laodicea rebuilt itself without help from Rome after its earthquake in AD 60. He also describes Nero’s punishment of Christians after the fire of AD 64.

Tiberius — the Roman emperor during Jesus’s adult life. Luke dates John the Baptist’s preaching to the fifteenth year of his reign, about AD 28–29.

Titus (the Roman general) — the general whose army took Jerusalem in AD 70, and later one of the Flavian emperors. Josephus has him remind the defenders of the warning on the Temple barrier.

Trajan — the Roman emperor who answered Pliny about AD 112. He said Christians must not be hunted out, but that anyone openly accused and proved guilty must be punished.

The early church

Arius — a priest in Alexandria who used a line in Colossians to argue that Jesus was the first thing God made. The dispute split the church and led to the Council of Nicaea in AD 325.

Athanasius — the bishop of Alexandria whose Easter letter of AD 367 gives the first list that matches exactly the twenty-seven books of the New Testament.

Augustine — of Hippo, the most influential teacher of the Western church, whose life changed in Milan in AD 386 when he opened Paul’s letters and read a verse of Romans. Around AD 420 he said he did not know what the restrainer in 2 Thessalonians meant.

Cerinthus — a teacher in Asia about the time of 1 John. Irenaeus says he taught that the Christ came down on the man Jesus at his baptism and left before he died, and nobody can prove he was the man 1 John fights.

Clement of Alexandria — a teacher who said around AD 200 that the other gospels set down the outward facts and John wrote a spiritual gospel.

Cornelius — a Roman centurion who worshiped the God of Israel, whose house Peter visited in Acts, where the Spirit came on Gentiles. A bishop of Rome with the same name, about AD 251, counted more than fifteen hundred widows and people in distress whom his church supported.

Dionysius of Alexandria — the bishop who around AD 250 studied the Greek of Revelation and concluded that its writer was not the writer of John’s gospel.

Diotrephes — a church leader whom 3 John says loves to be first and refuses to receive the traveling believers the elder sends. The letter gives only the elder’s side of the quarrel.

Eusebius — the church historian who around AD 325 sorted the books into the accepted, the disputed and the rejected. He also preserved the words of Papias and Hegesippus.

Gaius — the friend to whom 3 John is written, praised for welcoming traveling believers. Several men named Gaius appear in the New Testament, and nobody knows which one, if any, this is.

Hegesippus — a Christian writer of the late 100s whose accounts of the death of James and of Jude’s grandsons survive because Eusebius copied them out.

Ignatius of Antioch — a bishop who wrote letters on his way to Rome to be executed, about AD 110. He argued that each church should have a single bishop.

Irenaeus — a bishop in Gaul around AD 180, the earliest writer to name all four gospel writers. He dated Revelation to the end of Domitian’s reign.

Jerome — the scholar who made the Latin Bible called the Vulgate, about AD 382–405. He knew that many manuscripts of Mark ended at verse 8.

John Chrysostom — a great preacher of Antioch and Constantinople around AD 400 who left sermons on Matthew and John but none on Mark. He praised Junia as worthy of the name of apostle.

John the Elder — a teacher whom Papias names separately from the apostle John. Eusebius took them for two different men, and many scholars think this John wrote 2 and 3 John.

John the prophet — the Christian prophet who wrote Revelation to seven churches in Asia. Later tradition said he was the apostle John, but the book never says so, and most scholars think he was someone else.

Justin Martyr — a Christian teacher who around AD 150–155 described a Sunday gathering in Rome. Around AD 160 he wrote that Jewish teachers said the disciples had stolen Jesus’s body.

Marcion — a wealthy shipowner who around AD 140 made the first known list of New Testament books: one gospel, a shortened Luke, and ten letters of Paul. The churches rejected him, but he forced them to start deciding what they accepted.

Montanus — a prophet of the AD 170s who renamed the Phrygian village of Pepuza “Jerusalem,” expecting the new Jerusalem to come down there. It did not.

Origen — a theologian of the 200s who said that only God knows who wrote Hebrews. He also wrote that Marcion cut Romans off after chapter 14.

Papias — a bishop in Asia Minor in the early 100s who reported that Mark was Peter’s interpreter and wrote down what Peter remembered. He also said that Matthew arranged the sayings in Hebrew.

Polycarp — the bishop of Smyrna who wrote to the church at Philippi in the first half of the 100s. He repeated 1 John’s test that anyone who denies that Jesus came in the flesh is an antichrist.

Tertullian — a North African Christian writer around AD 200. He told of a church elder in Asia who was removed from his post for writing the Acts of Paul, and he named Barnabas as the writer of Hebrews.

Theophilus — the man to whom Luke and Acts are addressed. His name means friend of God, and he may have been a patron who paid for the copying, or the name may stand for any reader.

Later readers, translators and scholars

Adolf von Harnack — a leading German church historian. In 1900 he proposed that Priscilla wrote Hebrews, and in 1906 he took up the case that Luke’s language showed its writer was a doctor.

Christian Hermann Weisse — a German philosopher who proposed in 1838 that Matthew and Luke used two sources, Mark and a lost book of Jesus’s sayings. Scholars later called that book Q.

Erasmus — the scholar who printed his Greek New Testament in 1516. He left the Trinity sentence out of 1 John at first, then added it in 1522, and from there it passed into the King James Version.

Gregory the Great — the pope whose sermon in 591 merged Mary Magdalene with an unnamed sinful woman in Luke and with Mary of Bethany. That merged figure became the penitent prostitute of Western art.

Heinrich Julius Holtzmann — a German scholar who in 1863 made the view that Matthew and Luke used Mark and a lost sayings source the leading one.

John Calvin — a Reformation leader who wrote commentaries on nearly every book of the New Testament. He never wrote one on Revelation.

John Nelson Darby — an Anglo-Irish preacher of the Plymouth Brethren who taught in the 1830s that believers would be taken from the earth before a time of trouble, the idea called the rapture. The Scofield Reference Bible of 1909 carried it into American fundamentalism.

John Wesley — an English priest who in 1738 heard Luther’s preface to Romans read in London and felt his heart strangely warmed. That night became a turning point for the Methodist movement.

Karl Barth — a Swiss pastor whose 1919 commentary on Romans shook the theology of Europe. He drafted most of the Barmen Declaration of 1934, which rejected the claim that the state could become the single and total order of human life.

Krister Stendahl — a Swedish scholar and bishop who argued in 1963 that the West had read its own anxious conscience into Paul. He held that Romans 7 is an argument about the Law, not a confession.

Martin Luther — the German reformer whose German New Testament of 1522 added the word alone to Romans 3:28. He loved Galatians but judged James and Revelation harshly.

Tischendorf — the German scholar who in 1844 found the first pages of Codex Sinaiticus at a monastery on Mount Sinai. In 1859 he returned and was shown most of the rest, including the whole New Testament.

William Miller — an American preacher who worked mainly from the book of Daniel to predict Christ’s return about 1843–44. One of his followers fixed the date at October 22, 1844, and its failure is called the Great Disappointment.

William Tyndale — a translator whose English New Testament was printed in 1526, before the King James Version of 1611.

William Wrede — a German scholar who argued in 1901 that Mark invented Jesus’s orders to keep quiet about who he was. In 1903 he argued that a writer with 1 Thessalonians in front of him wrote 2 Thessalonians.