The Biblical Inspiration Behind The Chosen’s Best Friendships (Adapting Biblical Characters)
- Justin Dillehay
- 22 minutes ago
- 9 min read
As a fan of The Chosen, something has caught my eye the last two times I’ve read through Matthew’s Gospel. It’s found in the unique way that Matthew records the names in his list of the twelve apostles in Matthew 10:2–4. It’s something I find interesting in its own right, since it raises questions about Matthew’s reasons for recording them this way. But it also made me wonder whether Dallas Jenkins, Tyler Thompson, and Ryan Swanson (the writers of The Chosen) might’ve been influenced by this passage in developing their characters, especially the less-known apostles.
I want to begin by analyzing Matthew’s list on its own terms, looking at it within the context of his broader Gospel as well as comparing it with parallel lists in Mark and Luke. Then I’ll discuss why I suspect this passage may have influenced The Chosen’s screenwriters.
The Bible Artist Guest Contributors
This post was written by a Guest Contributor to The Bible Artist. Do you have a pet theory about The Chosen (or another Bible show) that you’ve always wanted to share with a wider audience? Want to push back on one of my reviews with your own alternative take? Submit your idea now by sending a 1-3 paragraph summary of your argument to thebibleartist@gmail.com. Not all submissions will be selected for publication, but I try to respond to all emails made in good faith. Like Justin’s argument, the best submissions will be clear, focused, and based on a close reading of Scripture and the relevant show. Please note that the views expressed by Guest Contributors are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of The Bible Artist itself.
What I Discovered in Matthew’s Unique List of the Apostles
Each of the three Synoptic Gospels (i.e. Matthew, Mark, and Luke) contains a list of the twelve apostles. John doesn’t give a list. Instead he mentions different apostles throughout his narrative (John 1:40, 44–45; 6:5, 8; 11:16; 12:4, 22; 13:24; 14:5, 8, 22; 21:2). Matthew places his list at the beginning of chapter 10, immediately after a lengthy section dedicated to Jesus’s teaching and healing (compare 4:23 and 9:35 and notice how they summarize what takes place in those five chapters). Here’s how Matthew records them:
The names of the twelve apostles are these:
first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother;
James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother;
Philip and Bartholomew;
Thomas and Matthew the tax collector;
James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
(Matt. 10:2–4, ESV)
When we read the list on its own terms, we notice that several of the men have brief descriptors. Matthew is called “the tax collector” (cf. 9:9), Simon is called “the Zealot,” Judas is identified as the one who betrayed Jesus, etc.
When we read this list within the context of Matthew’s entire Gospel, we see that five of these twelve men have already been introduced: Peter, Andrew, James the son Zebedee, John, and Matthew himself (Matt. 4:18–22; 9:9). Judas Iscariot will also play a pivotal role later (26:14–16; 47–50; 27:3–10).
As for the other six—Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus, and Simon the Zealot–this list marks the only time they appear by name in Matthew’s narrative. We often see them acting and speaking as a group (cf. 14:33; 17:16; 26:31) and we hear them referred to as “the twelve” (20:17; 26:14; 26:20). But most of them blend into the larger group and are not portrayed as individuals in Matthew’s record.
As far as the names themselves go, Mark and Luke give basically the same list (with minor variations in the ordering and the descriptors). But the distinct feature of Matthew’s list—and the one that caught my attention—is how Matthew groups the twelve apostles into six pairs, each connected by the word “and.” Mark and Luke don’t do this—they simply list the twelve as a series with each name linked by the word “and” (see Mark 3:16–19; Luke 6:14–16). Only Matthew divides them into couplets, which naturally leads you to link the two men in each couplet together in your mind.
Were the Writers of The Chosen Inspired by Matthew’s List?
If you’ve watched The Chosen as often as I have, I suspect these couplings will immediately strike you as familiar. In fact, the similarities between Matthew’s pairings and The Chosen’s unique storylines were the main reason why Matthew’s layout caught my eye.
Let me start with the less significant similarities and move toward the more convincing.
Simon and Andrew
James and John
It’s hardly surprising that The Chosen would link Simon to Andrew and James to John. All four Gospels present them as brothers, and Matthew’s couplings are clearly based on that relationship as well (though it’s worth noting that Mark’s order is Peter, James, and John, highlighting their inner circle status over their blood relationships).
So the similarities between The Chosen and Matthew’s groupings are admittedly less meaningful when it comes to these first two pairs, since in their case the screenwriters had more biblical info to work with. Matthew himself names all of them as fishermen and describes the circumstances of their calling to follow Jesus (Matt. 4:18–22). So nothing surprising here.
It’s when you get to the less-known apostles that the connections become more compelling.
Philip and Bartholomew
Matthew’s pairing of Philip and Bartholomew is reflected in The Chosen. At first this may sound confusing, since there’s not even a "Bartholomew" in the show. But tradition and scholarship have long identified “Bartholomew” with the disciple whom John calls “Nathaniel.” This is partly through the process of elimination: Nathaniel isn’t mentioned in the Synoptics and Barthlomew isn’t mentioned in John. It is also partly because of how Matthew’s pairing of Philip and Bartholomew matches John’s pairing of Philip and Nathaniel.
It makes sense that The Chosen’s writers would opt to use John’s name for Bartholomew. After all, Matthew never tells us any specific stories about Batholomew. Whereas John records the unforgettable story of how Philip told Nathaniel to “Come and see” (John 1:43–51; S2, E2, “I Saw You”).
It’s highly probable that the events in John’s Philip/Nathaniel narrative were what led Matthew to couple Philip and Batholomew. After all, as members of the twelve, Matthew and John would’ve likely have known how each of the twelve became Jesus’s followers. This grouping is then reflected in The Chosen’s decision to introduce Philip and Nathaniel/Bartholomew in the same episode as men who were already friends.
Thomas and Matthew
Matthew’s pairing of Thomas and Matthew is clearly reflected by the way in which The Chosen crafts their personalities, especially the fictional aspects. This is where the similarities start to get tighter and more interesting.
As Chosen fans will know, Thomas and Matthew are painted in very similar colors by the show’s writers. From the very beginning, in Jesus’s first encounter with Thomas, he draws a parallel between the two men, telling Thomas, “I know a man like you in Capernaum—always counting and measuring” (S1, E5, “The Wedding Gift”). These similarities continue in other episodes, sometimes with humorous results, like when the two of them get caught literally “calculating the odds” in response to a rhetorical question (“What are the odds?!”) (S2, E4, “The Perfect Opportunity”), or when Nathaniel dryly remarks that they’re “kind of the same person” (also S2, E4).
Now admittedly the screenwriters had some explicit biblical data to work with in constructing Thomas and Matthew’s characters. Matthew is described as “the tax collector” both here and in Matthew 9:9, while Thomas is famously depicted as doubting the resurrection of Jesus in John 20. These biblical details probably played a role in their decision to make Thomas and Matthew emotional twins. Still, it seems likely that Matthew’s own pairing of them in this passage also played a role, especially viewed in light of what follows.
James the son of Alphaeus and Thaddeus
If seeing “Thomas and Matthew” side by side in Matthew’s list was what first piqued my interest, seeing “Little James” and Thaddeus paired together was what really convinced me that something was going on. For five seasons I had learned to associate the fictionalized James and Thaddeus together as close friends. So imagine my surprise when I realized that Matthew was the first to pair them together as “James and Thaddeus.”
Of all the twelve, Little James and Thaddeus stand out as The Chosen’s most original creations (though Matthew is right up there with them). And for good reason: the screenwriters had almost no biblical data to work with, especially with Thaddeus.
In James’s case, we’re told the name of his father, Alphaeus, but this is mainly meant to distinguish him from James, the son of Zebedee, and the screenwriters make no use of it. Instead, they build on the common identification of this apostle with “James the less” in Mark 15:40 (KJV), interpreting “less” as “little” and using it as the basis for imagining James as physically disabled.
But with Thaddeus we get no biblical details. All we’re given is his alternate name “Lebbaeus.” That’s it. We know even less about him than we do about “Little James,” which is saying something. What stands out about them both is precisely their obscurity—and the fact that Matthew pairs them together in his list.
All this would explain why the screenwriters chose to link their characters together from almost the very beginning. After all, given that there’s no clear fodder for a backstory (like being a fisherman or a tax collector or a zealot), how do you introduce them into the story?
The Chosen’s solution is to make them Jesus’s first disciples. We meet them in the second episode of the series, when they arrive together at Mary’s house for Sabbath dinner, introducing themselves as Jesus’s students (S1, E2, “Shabbat”). As season 1 progresses, we hear each of them describe their first encounter with Jesus, and we’re eventually shown these encounters in flashback in season 5, episodes 7 and 8. There we learn that Thaddeus was already with Jesus when they met Little James (which means that Thaddeus, the apostle of whom we know the least, has been made the very first disciple). They also appear together in the flashforward scene in “Thunder” (S2, E1), where they’re being interviewed by the aged John for his Gospel. Finally, there’s a brief scene in “Calm Before” (S4, E4) in which Jesus reminisces with them about how it used to be just the three of them.
It’s possible that this creative pairing of Thaddeus and Little James was simply a case of necessity being the mother of invention. But, again, given all the other correspondences between the pairings in The Chosen and in Matthew, it seems likely that Matthew’s apostle-list also played a role (even if only subconsciously) in shaping their characterization.
Simon the Zealot and Judas
At first, this connection may not seem as compelling as the previous two. But Matthew’s pairing of Simon (Z) and Judas is also reflected in The Chosen’s crafting of their characters.
Just ask yourself, “Who are the last two apostles in Matthew’s paired list?” And then ask yourself, “Who are the last two apostles introduced in The Chosen?” That’s right. Same answer. The addition of Philip and Nathaniel in “I Saw You” brings the total number of apostles to ten. We then meet Simon (Z) midway through season 2 in “The Perfect Opportunity” (S2, E4), before finally meeting Judas at the end of season 2 in “Beyond Mountains” (S2, E8). With their addition, the twelve are now complete.
Since the Bible doesn’t specify when Simon and Judas were called, the writers obviously didn’t have to do it this way. That’s why their decision to mirror Matthew’s placing of them last in his list seems too interesting to be a coincidence.
But the show also pairs them in other ways–such as the fact that out of all the apostles, Judas is depicted as most sympathetic to Simon’s former Zealotry. Like the Zealots, he wants the Messiah to be a political and military leader who destroys the Romans and restores Israel’s earthly greatness. But, unlike Simon, he is unable and unwilling to bring his thinking into line with Jesus’s.
We see their differing heart-postures most clearly in a scene where Simon teaches Judas how to wash clothes (S4, E1, “Promises”). Simon has clearly learned to trust Jesus’s plan, no matter how counter-intuitive it may seem to his former way of thinking. But Judas is still impatient, wondering why they’re wasting time on such menial tasks. Scenes like this strengthen the show’s connection between “Z” and Judas, which has already been established by making them the last apostles to be added to the group.
What This Shows Us About The Chosen
Some of these connections are definitely stronger than others, but it’s the cumulative case of so many parallels that makes the theory plausible. This is especially true when it comes to the less-known apostles like James and Thaddeus, or Simon and Judas, with whom the screenwriters had more leeway in crafting their storylines. Taken together, it all seems too much to be coincidence.
If my theory is right, then it suggests that The Chosen’s creativity is often more tethered than people realize. Critics of the show often accuse the writers of creating stories and characters out of sheer imagination. While that may be true in some cases, more often than people realize the fictionalized elements in The Chosen are actually inspired by details in the biblical text, and serve to reinforce and undergird the biblical text. Reading through the list of the apostles in Matthew after watching The Chosen, it seems clear The Chosen has deliberately used these couplings to shape the stories of its less-known characters.
But even if my theory is wrong, I’m thankful that it led me to see something in the text of God’s Word that I’d never noticed before. At the end of the day, perhaps that’s one of the main contributions of shows like The Chosen–to sneak past the watchful dragons of familiarity and help us see what was there all along.
Justin Dillehay (MDiv, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is a pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Hartsville, Tennessee, where he and his wife, Tilly, reside with their four children.
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