J. Rendel Harris on Zebedee and Sabazios.

[Ben C. Smith]

What do we think of this suggestion (and it is no more than that) from J. Rendel Harris (Boanerges, page 12)?

J. Rendel Harris on Zebedee & Sabazios.png (712.95 KiB) Viewed 9474 times

On the one hand, Harris affirms that Zebedee/Zebediah/Zabdi is a good Hebrew name, and it is. On the other, there is that awkward expression twice employed by Matthew:

Matthew 20.20: 20 Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, bowing down and making a request of Him.

Matthew 27.56: 56 Among them was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

This weird way of expressing the matter would be in harmony with the phrase "the sons of Zebedee" being its own separate concept, more than just the sum of its parts, in the same basic way as the phrase "the sons of thunder" is, and probably with the same essential meaning, since Sabazios can be thought of as a Phrygian Zeus, and is often even referred to as Zeus Sabazios.

Or is this all just a flight of fantasy?

Ben.

[Giuseppe]

That proves only that Stuart is 100% right:

Back to the father who is thunder, well that is Zeus, the King of the Gods (Lord of Hosts) who is equivalent in the Gnostic view with Jehovah the Jewish God. So this could be seen as representing James and John leaving their old father, the Jewish God, to follow a new God, Jesus.

I love that interpretation.

Really, that is something that makes me happy, just as the anti-marcionite function of Barabbas and the outer space idea.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH, BEN.

[davidmartin]

I don't make too much of a Zeus connection, its all earliest church politics here
Sons of Thunder - original
Zebedee - a round-about corruption into Greek then back to Hebrew for the same thing
Problems with these 2's followers in the early church makes the gospels respond
And the same problem with their mother Salome (only mentioned in Mark, airbrushed out the others)
So there was some issue with Salome, her sons and their appellation 'thunder' that at some point disagreed with the proto-orthadox and we see the vestiges of this
Typical that the ones that were actually there get over-ruled by the ones that weren't

[Ben C. Smith]

I don't make too much of a Zeus connection, its all earliest church politics here
Sons of Thunder - original
Zebedee - a round-about corruption into Greek then back to Hebrew for the same thing

Can you expand on the highlighted part? I am not following.

[Stuart]

I notice again an association with Asia Minor and another NT reference. We should start giving serious consideration to the possibility that the NT may for the most part have come from Asia, and perhaps not from Egypt, Syria or Palestine. The letters at least seems firmly located there, as is Revelation.

[Ben C. Smith]

I notice again an association with Asia Minor and another NT reference. We should start giving serious consideration to the possibility that the NT may for the most part have come from Asia, and perhaps not from Egypt, Syria or Palestine. The letters at least seems firmly located there, as is Revelation.

I am pretty sure that most, but not all, of the NT was written and/or edited in Asia.

[Ken Olson]

The Roman province of Asia? Or the modern continent?

[Ben C. Smith]

The Roman province of Asia? Or the modern continent?

Asia Minor, for my part. Not trying to include South Korea here.

[Ken Olson]

No, but Antioch, Galilee and Judea have their defenders.

[mbuckley3]

If ' "the sons of Zebedee" [is] its own separate concept ', might not that simply be a standard cult association of Jews from Asia Minor ? Valerius Maximus records the expulsion of Judeans from Rome in 139 B.C. who presented their God as Juppiter Sabazius, and had erected private altars ( for gentile use ) in public places. Bickerman's 'Altars of the Gentiles' essay remains the sanest analysis of this episode, and makes the essential point that, at this time, only people living under Pergamene control could have regarded Zeus Sabazios as a proper title for the supreme god. So you could infer continued use of the term by adherents in the form 'sons of Sabazios/Sabadios/Zebedee'; if, that is, the awkward locution in Matt 20.20 merits such speculation...