Matthew 12:15-21, Mark 3:7-19, and Luke 6:12-19
Alphaeus. As Jesus chose His apostles, …He appointed the twelve…, and James the son of Alphaeus… (Mark 3:16, 18a; Luke 6:13,15a). I thought I recognized that name. Sure enough, in Mark’s previous chapter: And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” (Mark 2:14) So we have both Levi and James (the Lesser) as sons of Alphaeus. Could they be brothers? Mark seems to be following his story chronologically, so mentions of “the son of Alphaeus” in consecutive chapters is surely strange! Yet another oddity on Alphaeus is that a number of Biblical scholars claim that Alphaeus and Clopas (whose wife was at the foot of the cross; compare Matthew 27:55-56 and Mark 15:40 with John 19:16) and Cleopus (whom Jesus met on the road to Emmaeus) are all one and the same Alphaeus. This discussion may be somewhat trivial, but the more we read and study Scripture, the more we make these interconnections!
See also: March 1 / Matthew 12:15-22; March 2 / Mark 3:7-19; March 3 / Luke 6:12-19
Wow, I hadn’t thought at all about Alpheus, such connections! What a wonderful family.
I wondered about Jesus telling those healed not to make him known. In Mark, it is the demons, unclean spirits that he tells this to, not the crowds in general. And the Isaiah passage noted by Matthew says that he is quiet until he brings justice to victory, particularly to the gentiles.
Of course, there may be more than one Alphaeus…