What’s in a Name?  Onomastics as Evidence for New Testament Reliability

Do you have a hard time remembering names? Names tend to be one of the hardest things to remember about people we meet. We can remember their job, where they are from, a physical characteristic, or other characteristics associated with the individual. Names tend to be more arbitrary, and therefore harder to remember. It would be even harder to remember or guess names from another country or time.

There is actually a science that studies names and their origins, Onomastics. According to Merriam-Webster, onomastics is the “science and study of the origin and forms of proper names of persons or places.” Onomastic congruence is the creation of naming patterns by an author that matches the naming patterns of relevant literary or historical contexts. In other words, how well does the author’s frequency of name use match the frequency of the name use at a time period, location, or for an ethnic group.

I’d like to offer a hypothesis: If we can show a close correlation between known 1^st Century Jewish names in Israel and those in the Gospels and Acts, we can infer a higher probability that they are reliable. If there is no correlation it would most likely indicate they are not eyewitness accounts and the authors didn’t know the eyewitnesses. Correlation doesn’t necessarily indicate causation, but when coupled with other evidences and arguments it can become one more piece in a cumulative case for Biblical reliability.

Background:

In 2002 Tal Ilhan published Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity (Part 1). She and her team compiled 831 names of over 3,000 Jewish people in Israel from 330 BC – 200 AD from texts, inscriptions, ossuaries, and other primary sources. Ilhan found that the 10 most popular names during this timeframe were Simon, Joseph, Eleazar, Judas, John, Jesus, Ananias, Johathan, Matthew, and Manaen.

Gospel/Acts Names

Richard Bauckham refined Ilhan’s data to exclude fictious names to arrive at 521 different names of 2953 people. With the exception of Manaen being replace by James in the top ten names and Eleazar and Judas changing positions, the top 10 names remained virtually the unchanged (figure 1). 

Bauckham then applied Ilhan’s work to the Gospels and Acts in his book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (2007). When comparing the top 10 names to the total number of names a close correlation in percentage of occurrences (within 2 percentage points) between the Gospels/Acts and Ilhan’s data can be seen (figure 2).

Onomastic Congruence in the Gospels/Acts

Bauckham also found additional surprising correlations between Ilhan’s data and that from the Gospels/Acts. Ilhan’s two most popular names (Simon and Joseph) accounts for 15.6% of names while in the Gospels/Acts they appear 18.2% of the time (figure 3). The nine most popular men’s names appear 41.5% of the time in Ilhan’s sources. These same men’s names appear 40.3% of the time in the Gospels/Acts. Names found only once in Ilhan’s sources account for 7.9% of the 3,000 names. The Gospels/Acts refer to these names 3.9% of all names listed. The rate of Greek names among Jewish men is 12.3% in Ilhan and 18.1% in Gospels/Acts.

Among women, 28.6% of women had one of the two most popular names in the ancient records (Mary and Salome). The Gospels/Acts show a similar rate of appearance at 38.9%. The nine most popular female names in Ilhan account for 49.7% of all females listed compared to 61.1% for the Gospels/Acts.

Luuk Van de Weghe examined 23 sources contemporary to the Gospels/Acts. He found onomastic congruence only occurred in some early biographic narratives (Josephus, Tacitus, Plutarch, Suetonius, etc.). This is another indication that the Gospels/Acts fit the same genre.

Disambiguation:

Another area of comparison is how people with the same common names are identified. This is called disambiguation. Disambiguation is “to clarify (something ambiguous) especially by providing or considering additional information” (Merriam-Webster). In other words, how do we qualify names to differentiate people with the same name.

Because of the frequent use of certain names in ancient Israel, a way of distinguishing people was needed. This was accomplished by the addition of a distinguishing feature such as “son of”, occupation, place of origin, secondary name, or another qualifier.

Disambiguation of names in the Gospels/Acts closely corresponds to popular names from Ilhan’s sources. For example, the 12 Apostles in Matthew 10:2-4 (popularity is noted in brackets and rare names are underlined). “The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon [1], who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James [11] the son of Zebedee, and John [5] his brother; Philip [61] and Bartholomew [50]; Thomas and Matthew [9] the tax collector; James [11] the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus [39]; Simon [1] the Zealot, and Judas [4] Iscariot, who betrayed him.” All the most popular names are disambiguated and none of the rare names are qualified. One exception is Andrew, but that is more to identify him as Simon’s brother.

If we look at the Gospels/Acts as a whole there are eight Simons listed and they are disambiguated every time. On the other hand, Thomas appears for only one person and is only qualified by John.

Onomastic Congruence and Disambiguation in Apocrypha Gospels/Acts

So how do the Apocrypha Gospels and Acts match up? Some Gospels/Acts names in the Apocrypha Gospels/Acts are obvious for inclusion: Jesus, Mary, Salome, James, Judas, Thomas, etc. Other names tend to be predominantly 4^th Century North African, Greek, or Gnostic:  Adamas, Adonaius, Babelo, Gabriel, Dalila, Harmathoth, Michael, Nebro, Saklas, Seth, Sophia, Yaldabaoth, Yobel. 

These names are mostly 4th Century Greek, North African, or Gnostic. Not only do the names not match 1^st Century Israel, they are not disambiguated like in the 1^st Century Israel writings, including the expected names.  

Conclusion:

Even though this is only a brief introduction to this topic, all this data seems to indicate that the most probable explanation for the accuracy of the Gospels/Acts in naming individuals and disambiguating them is that they were written by eyewitnesses. It also appears highly likely that the authors of the Apocrypha had little, if any, knowledge of the culture of Israel in the 1^st Century.

For a deeper investigation of this topic see Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses or Peter J. Williams’ YouTube video “New Evidences the Gospels were Based on Eyewitness Accounts”.