Sandals in the Dust: Lives of the 12 Apostles-Second Edition by Rosson M. E

Author:Rosson, M. E. [Rosson, M. E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Createspace
Published: 2008-08-21T16:00:00+00:00

Nathaniel Ben Tolomai is often better known as Bartholomew. This was his Syrian name, which means Son of God who holds the waters. Bar means son of and Tolomew means Son of God who holds back the waters. John Zebedee is the only Gospel writer who lists him by the name Nathaniel and since I am fond of John and this was his Aramaic name, I prefer it to the Syrian one.

Nathaniel and his brother Phillip or Philip were from Galilee, Cana to be more precise. They were herdsman and tanners by profession when called by the Master to follow them.

Philip was one of the disciples of John the Baptist who asked Jesus where he lived and Jesus replied: “Come and See.” We fail to see the significance of this greeting because of our ignorance of the culture in those days. When Philip and John asked Jesus where he lived, He was supposed to have told them so they could stop by at a socially accepted hour on another day. For Jesus to basically reply come with me now was way out of the ordinary and would have been considered radical to invite people to come with Him to his home without notice for them to purchase the proper gifts customary to be given to the hosts when visitors arrived. Jesus was not interested in gifts, only in teaching them what they needed to know and to invite them to follow Him. Philip was so taken with this that he found his brother Nathaniel and told him about Jesus.

Nathaniel, who was well educated and knew the prophecies well, doubted that anything good could come from his own town or region. Philip used the new custom started by Jesus, who showed he was a fast learner, and replied to Nathaniel, “Come and See!” Of course we know that Jesus said of Nathaniel, “Behold an Israelite in whom is no guile!” Jesus knew the heart of Nathaniel and knew that Nathaniel did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, but he soon changed his mind when Jesus told him that he had saw him under the tree earlier that day!

Nathaniel is not mentioned at all in the Gospels of Mathew, John Mark, Luke or John Zebedee again except to be listed as one of the twelve. The main reason for this is that many believe that a lost Gospel of Nathaniel or Bartholomew is still out there. There are many mentions of this throughout the old writings. Since the Gospels were written to compliment each other, if Nathaniel’s Gospel story of Jesus had experiences that included him in them, naturally the other Gospel writers would have not included them in their own Gospels. Unless they were significant to main story of the Life, Death, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus, they would be no different than the different accounts of people and parables that are only found in one existing Gospel or another. John himself states that there were many other things Jesus did that he did not write down, so this is not in the realm of the impossible at all.

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