Salome

Today I came across an idea which I had never heard before; that the apostles James and John, the sons of Zebedee are the cousins of Jesus, as their mother is Salome, who is Mary’s sister. I was beginning to wonder how I had managed to read the Bible and do several years of biblical studies (including papers in Luke and John) without encountering this idea before. It was distracting me so much that I had to go and find out where it came from. As it turns out, it is fairly simple, traditional view, albeit a tad presumptive.

It all comes down to the lists of women watching the crucifixion in all four Gospels. They are as follows:

Mark 15:40 – “There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome.”

Matthew 27:55-56 – “Many women were also there, looking on from a distance; they had followed Jesus from Galilee and had provided for him. Among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.”

John 19:25 – “Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.”

Luke 23:49 – “But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.”

Of all the Gospels Luke is the least detailed, naming the group as just “the women,” most likely those who were weeping for Jesus in Luke 23:27. But the other three are very interesting as they all identify some of the women, but they are all slightly different. All three list Mary Magdalene. Mark and Matthew list Mary the mother of James and Joseph (or Joses). Mark also has Salome; Mathew, the mother of the sons of Zebedee; and John, Jesus’ mother, her sister, and Mary the wife of Clopas. 

So what has happened is that Salome, mentioned only in Mark, has been identified with the mother of the sons of Zebedee, mentioned by Matthew but not given a name. Salome has further been identified with Jesus’ mother’s sister, mentioned but not named in John. It is by reading all the Gospels together like this that it is possible to get Salome as the mother of the sons of Zebedee and aunt of Jesus, thus making James and John the cousins of Jesus.

While this is one way of dealing with the differences between the women in the accounts of Jesus’ death in the gospels, there is also another way. The Synoptic Gospels all state that there was a group of women watching the proceedings from a distance. They don’t say how many women made up this group. Thus it is not impossible to imagine that the group of women was more than three, especially as Luke doesn’t name any of them. John is the only Gospel of the four which does not identify a group of women at the foot of the cross; he merely states that these four women were present. The fact that John identifies four women (although it is possible that there were three, only if Jesus’ aunt was also called Mary and was married to Clopas) compared to Matthew and Mark’s three, can also indicate that the group was larger than three or four. 

Thus it would seem to me more likely that the group of women present at the crucifixion was more than three or four and that each evangelist has named those of whom he was aware and for some reason Luke has chosen not to name any.