Biblical Views: The Martyrdom of the Zebedee Brothers
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The sons of Zebedee—James and John—are two of the more enigmatic apostles. What ever happened to them? It is an especially pertinent question because of their request shortly before Jesus’ crucifixion. The story is told in Mark 10:35–45. They would like box seats in the Kingdom, on either side of Jesus when he comes into his glory. Jesus tells them that it is not for him to grant them such seats, but he makes a prediction: “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with.”
Jesus is predicting that James and John, the sons of Zebedee, will be martyred, as Jesus was soon to be, for their beliefs and witness. Was this prediction fulfilled? The answer is clearly “yes” in the case of James Zebedee. But what about John?
The pattern of increasing violence against Christian leaders after Jesus’ crucifixion is made clear in Acts4–5. Shortly thereafter, in Acts 6–7, we learn of Stephen’s martyrdom.
This led the young Saul, an over-zealous Pharisee later to be known as Paul, to begin a great persecution of the Jerusalem church, “And all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.”
If all were scattered except the apostles, then the sons of Zebedee—as members of the Twelve—presumably remained in Jerusalem.
In his effort to destroy the Jerusalem church, Saul went from house to house dragging Christians off to prison. No doubt some of them lost their lives in the venture. And Saul, not content with destroying the church in Jerusalem, headed off to Damascus, only to return much later as Paul, a changed man.
Naturally we are led to ask whether some of those Christians that Saul imprisoned were apostles.
James Zebedee’s fate is clear in Acts 12:1–3. Sometime in the early 40s he was put to death with a sword by order of King Herod (presumably Herod Agrippa; Herod the Great died in 4 B.C.). Jesus’ prediction as to James Zebedee had come true.
But what of his brother John Zebedee? Strangely, we are not told. And only twice is he mentioned thereafter, almost off-handedly. He and Peter go to Samaria (Acts 8:14) to check on the work of another apostle, Philip, in expanding the church (Acts 8:4–13). After preaching the gospel to the Samaritans, Peter and John Zebedee return to Jerusalem (Acts 8:25).
Indeed, the mystery deepens in texts where John is not mentioned. After all, John Zebedee had been one of the inner circle of three within the Twelve; Peter, James and John were often the only apostles with Jesus during certain events in the Gospels, such as the raising of Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5:37; Luke 8:51), the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1; Mark 9:2; Luke 9:28) and the episode in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:33; Matthew 26:37).
After John and Peter return to Jerusalem from Samaria, we are told in Acts 15 of the critical council of leaders of the movement to consider whether or not Gentiles must become Jews in order to be Christians. Oddly enough, no mention is made of John Zebedee at the council, which was held around 50 A.D.
In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul mentions several apostles by name—but not John.
What happened to John? I believe he was probably martyred before the Jerusalem council described in Acts 15, where a compromise was reached between those who wanted all followers of Jesus to keep the Mosaic Law and those who thought that Gentiles did not need to do this to be a follower of Jesus.
Paul admits that before his own conversion, he violently persecuted the incipient church and tried to destroy it (Galatians 1:13). Scholars argue about whether the letters to Timothy are actually by Paul (as I believe); in any event, in 1 Timothy 1:15 the text tells us that Jesus came into the world to save sinners, “of whom I [Paul] was the worst.” Why was Paul the worst? We cannot be sure what Paul is referring to. The one thing that Paul constantly says he most regrets, however, is his persecution of the Jerusalem and Judean Church. If Acts 8:1–3 is accurate and everyone from the Jerusalem church was “scattered” in Judea and Samaria “except the apostles,” the apostles must have been the target of Saul/Paul’s violence.
In Acts 22:4 Paul admits “I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them in prison.”
Acts 26:10 may be the smoking gun: Saul/Paul voted for the execution of the apostles when he was a member of the Sanhedrin.
If we put all these pieces together, it appears likely that Saul had been the instigator of the demise of several apostles in the 30s before his own conversion. One of them may well have been John, son of Zebedee.1
The sons of Zebedee—James and John—are two of the more enigmatic apostles. What ever happened to them? It is an especially pertinent question because of their request shortly before Jesus’ crucifixion. The story is told in Mark 10:35–45. They would like box seats in the Kingdom, on either side of Jesus when he comes into his glory. Jesus tells them that it is not for him to grant them such seats, but he makes a prediction: “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with.” Jesus is predicting that James and […]
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There is now textual evidence from Papias, the second-century Christian writer, to support the view that John Zebedee met an early demise. Papias fragment 10.17 seems clearly to affirm that John died early as a martyr, as did his brother. See Ben Witherington, What Have They Done With Jesus? (Harper Collins, 2006), p. 158 and notes.
