Matthew 10:3 — Lebbaeus, Thaddaeus, or Both? The Name of the Twelfth Apostle

One apostle reaches us under several names. Mark calls him Thaddaeus. Luke calls him “Judas the brother of James.” The received text of Matthew gives both Lebbaeus and Thaddaeus; the usual critical text gives Thaddaeus alone. Other witnesses offer still other forms, including Judas and combinations drawn from the Gospel lists.

“Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus.” — Matthew 10:3

This is not evidence that the Church forgot an apostle. It is evidence that names are among the easiest parts of a list to alter.

The crowded manuscript record

The received wording is Λεββαῖος ὁ ἐπικληθεὶς Θαδδαῖος: “Lebbaeus, who was surnamed Thaddaeus.” Early witnesses support the shorter Thaddaeus, and that reading appears across more than one old stream. On that ground modern editors usually print it. Some Syriac witnesses identify the man by Luke’s “Judas of James”; Old Latin evidence can call him Judas the Zealot. The variety warns against a simple contest between one old codex and a late mass of copies.

The case against the received form is easy to state. A scribe who knew several apostolic lists might join two names in order to remove uncertainty. “Lebbaeus, surnamed Thaddaeus” would then be a learned harmonization.

But double names are at home in these lists. Matthew has already written “Simon, who is called Peter.” The New Testament also knows Joseph Barsabas Justus, John Mark, Simon the Zealot, and Thomas Didymus. A fuller form is not strange merely because it is full. Once either Lebbaeus or Thaddaeus fell from a copy, later readers would naturally try to identify the apostle from Mark or Luke. The many substitute forms fit that history well.

What the name does—and does not—decide

The received text names one man, not two. “Whose surname was” marks an alternate designation. It therefore agrees in substance with Mark’s Thaddaeus and does not compete with Luke’s Judas, for a Jewish man in a multilingual setting could bear more than one name or epithet.

The question has no hidden doctrinal crisis. Every form keeps twelve apostles, and every form names Judas Iscariot separately. Yet names are facts, and inspired history deserves exact care. We should neither mock the complex evidence nor use its complexity to pretend that no settled wording can be received.

The broad and continuous use of the fuller reading, its ordinary first-century naming pattern, and the ease with which one member of a double name could disappear support the Textus Receptus. Matthew wrote “Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus.” The later variety shows what happens after one part of a stable identification is disturbed: copyists reach for every familiar name at hand.

The list itself is full of identifiers. Simon is called Peter; another Simon is the Canaanite; James and John are located by their father Zebedee; Judas is marked as the betrayer. A double name for Lebbaeus is therefore not out of character with Matthew’s aim to distinguish twelve men in a compact roll.

Ancient multilingual settings also make multiple names ordinary. A person may bear a family name, a Semitic name, a Greek or Latin form, and an epithet used within a group. The presence of Judas in Luke and Thaddaeus in Mark does not require two forgotten apostles.

This is why theology should not be made to carry more than the evidence. Apostolic identity is stable across the lists even where labels vary. Textual care seeks Matthew’s full designation while canonical comparison shows the same man serving under the same call.

Further reading

• Matthew 10:2–4; Mark 3:16–19; Luke 6:13–16; Acts 1:13.
• Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, note on Matthew 10:3.
• Frederick H. A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.
• John William Burgon and Edward Miller, The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels.