Matt 10:2-4 · Mark 3:16-19 · Luke 6:14-16 · Acts 1:13 · Featured Study · The Apostolic Company
The Twelve Disciples
Jesus chose twelve men out of a larger company of disciples and named them apostles — those sent (Luke 6:13). Four times the New Testament writes out their names in full: Matthew, Mark, and Luke each give a list at the moment of the calling, and Acts gives a fifth roll call, minus the one who was gone by then. Set the four lists side by side and a real pattern emerges — along with a few honest name puzzles the text never fully resolves for us.
The Four Lists, Side by Side
— the same twelve names, four different orders — read straight down each column| # | Matthew | Mark | Luke | Acts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Simon, called Peter | Simon, surnamed Peter | Simon, named Peter | Peter |
| 2 | Andrew | James son of Zebedee | Andrew | John |
| 3 | James son of Zebedee | John, brother of James | James | James |
| 4 | John | Andrew | John | Andrew |
| 5 | Philip | Philip | Philip | Philip |
| 6 | Bartholomew | Bartholomew | Bartholomew | Thomas |
| 7 | Thomas | Matthew | Matthew | Bartholomew |
| 8 | Matthew the publican | Thomas | Thomas | Matthew |
| 9 | James son of Alphæus | James son of Alphæus | James son of Alphæus | James son of Alphæus |
| 10 | Thaddæus | Thaddæus | Simon, called the Zealot | Simon the Zealot |
| 11 | Simon the Cananæan | Simon the Cananæan | Judas son of James | Judas son of James |
| 12 | Judas Iscariot | Judas Iscariot | Judas Iscariot | — absent — |
Highlighted rows mark the three positions every list agrees on exactly: Peter always first, Philip always fifth, James son of Alphæus always ninth. Between those anchors, the same four names simply shuffle order — Andrew, James, and John trade places in rows 1–4; Bartholomew, Thomas, and Matthew trade places in rows 5–8. The result reads as three companies of four, each fixed in membership and each headed by the same man every time, with Judas Iscariot fixed last in all three Gospel lists — and, come Acts 1:13, simply gone.
One Name, Two Labels
— the same men, called different things in different books — and how each identification is madeBartholomew / NathanaelJohn 1:45-51
“Bartholomew” (bar-Tolmai, “son of Tolmai”) is a patronymic surname, the way “Peter” is a nickname — it names whose son he is, not who he is. He never appears in John’s Gospel. Nathanael, by contrast, never appears in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or Acts. What does appear in both: Philip is the one who brings him to Jesus (John 1:45), and Bartholomew is paired with Philip in all three Synoptic lists (position six, right after Philip at five). On that pairing, the two names have long been read as one man — Nathanael his given name, Bartholomew his surname. It is the traditional identification, not a claim either text makes outright.
Thaddæus / Judas son of JamesJohn 14:22
Matthew and Mark name the tenth man Thaddæus (some manuscripts of Matt 10:3 instead read “Lebbæus” or “Lebbæus, who was surnamed Thaddæus” — a real textual variant, not settled by the ASV’s own reading). Luke and Acts, at the same slot in their lists, name him “Judas son of James” instead. John never gives a list at all, but does record a question at the Last Supper from “Judas (not Iscariot)” — a label that only makes sense if more than one Judas was in the room. Since the Twelve is a fixed number and no other candidate fills this slot, Thaddæus and Judas son of James are almost universally read as the same man, distinguished carefully from Iscariot in every text that names him.
Simon the Cananæan / Simon the ZealotLuke 6:15 · Acts 1:13
This one is not really a two-name puzzle at all — it is one word, handled two ways. Matthew and Mark transliterate the Aramaic qanean (“zealous one”) straight into Greek letters as Kananaios, which the ASV renders “the Cananæan.” Luke and Acts instead translate the same underlying word into its plain Greek sense, zēlōtēs — “the Zealot.” Both point to the same epithet for the same man, naming his background or fervor, not the town of Canaan (which spells and derives differently in Greek).
The Twelve, One at a Time
— a compact profile for each man in the order Matthew 10:2-4 first names themPeter
Simon bar-Jonah, the rock
Matt 16:16-19 →A fisherman from Bethsaida, first named among the Twelve in all four lists. Jesus renamed him Cephas / Peter (John 1:42) and named him first to confess Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Church tradition holds he was crucified in Rome under Nero, upside down at his own request.
wrote 1 & 2 Peter →Andrew
Peter's brother, the first-called
John 1:40-42 →Originally a disciple of John the Baptist; the first to recognize Jesus as Messiah and the one who brought his brother Simon to him.
Tradition holds he was crucified on an X-shaped cross at Patras in Greece.
James, son of Zebedee
One of the sons of thunder
Matt 4:21-22 →Brother of John; with Peter and John, part of the inner three Jesus drew closest at the Transfiguration and Gethsemane.
Killed by the sword under Herod Agrippa I — the first of the Twelve martyred (Acts 12:2).
John, son of Zebedee
the beloved disciple
John 13:23 →Brother of James; the disciple “whom Jesus loved,” present at the cross when the others fled.
Tradition holds he alone among the Twelve died of old age, in Ephesus, after exile on Patmos.
wrote John, 1-3 John & Revelation →Philip
John 1:43-46 →From Bethsaida, the same town as Peter and Andrew. Jesus's direct call to him (“Follow me”) leads him at once to bring Nathanael.
Tradition holds he preached in Phrygia and was martyred at Hierapolis.
Bartholomew
traditionally identified with Nathanael
John 1:45-51 →A man Jesus called “an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile” the moment he saw him. “Bartholomew” (bar-Tolmai, “son of Tolmai”) is a patronymic surname, not a given name — see the name-variants panel below.
Tradition holds he preached in Armenia and was flayed alive and crucified.
Matthew
Levi the tax collector
Matt 9:9 →Called by Jesus straight from his tax booth — the one calling narrative in all four Gospels' apostle lists whose “before” occupation is named outright.
Traditions place his later ministry in Judea and beyond; the manner of his death is not agreed.
wrote the Gospel of Matthew →Thomas
Didymus, the twin
John 20:24-29 →Absent at the first upper-room appearance, he would not believe without seeing the wounds himself — and became the one who confessed “My Lord and my God” at the second (John 20:28).
Tradition holds he carried the gospel to India and was martyred near modern-day Chennai.
James, son of Alphæus
traditionally “James the Less”
Matt 10:3 →Named ninth in every one of the four lists — see the anchor-position pattern below — but Scripture records nothing else about him individually.
Accounts of his later ministry and death vary widely and are not agreed.
Thaddæus
Judas son of James (Luke, Acts) · “Judas, not Iscariot” (John 14:22)
John 14:22 →The one name the four lists diverge on most: Matthew and Mark call him Thaddæus, Luke and Acts call him “Judas son of James.” See the name-variants panel below for how the identification is made.
Tradition holds he preached in Edessa and was martyred in Persia.
Simon the Cananæan
“Simon the Zealot” (Luke, Acts)
Luke 6:15 →Distinguished from Simon Peter by an epithet naming his background, not a family name — see the name-variants panel below.
Traditions of his later ministry and death vary and are not agreed; he is sometimes linked with Thaddæus in mission.
Judas Iscariot
the betrayer
Matt 26:14-16 →Son of Simon Iscariot; treasurer among the Twelve (John 12:6), who betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Named last in all three Gospel lists; absent, by then dead, from Acts 1:13's roll of the Eleven.
Matthew 27:5 records he hanged himself; Acts 1:18 records he fell headlong and burst open in the field his betrayal-money bought — two accounts long harmonized (the rope breaking, the fall following) rather than read as contradictory.
Scripture records almost nothing about several of these men beyond their names in the lists — James son of Alphæus, Thaddæus, and Simon the Zealot chief among them. Everything beyond that comes from church tradition, and is labelled as such above.
Judas Iscariot — Foreknown and Chosen, Free and Guilty
— the one tension in this list Scripture states plainly and never resolves for usForetold, so that Scripture would be fulfilled
“Even my close friend whom I trusted, the one who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.”
Psalm 41:9, quoted by Jesus himself at John 13:18— “that the scripture may be fulfilled.”
Held responsible, in the same breath
“The Son of Man will go just as it is written about Him, but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed. It would be better for him if he had not been born.””
Jesus names both in one sentence: what he is about to suffer was written beforehand, and the man through whom it comes still bears the woe for doing it. Foreknowledge and culpability stand side by side in that verse, exactly as Scripture sets them.
After Judas
— restoring the number, and the apostle added afterwardAfter Judas’s death, Peter stood up among roughly a hundred and twenty believers and called for his replacement (Acts 1:15-22). Two men were put forward; the eleven cast lots, and “the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles” — restoring the Twelve before Pentecost. Years later, a further apostle was added outside that process entirely: Saul of Tarsus, converted on the Damascus road and commissioned directly by the risen Christ, becomes the apostle to the Gentiles and author of at least thirteen New Testament letters. The number was fixed at twelve for the founding company; it was not the ceiling on the apostolic office itself.