Was Thaddeus the brother of James son of Alpheus?

A:

Mark's Gospel refers to Levi, son of Alpheus (Alphaeus) as a tax collector whom Jesus called to follow him (Mark 2:14). Mark never again refers to Levi, who is not mentioned in the full list of the twelve disciples (verses 3:14-19), but introduces other disciples including Matthew, Thaddeus (Thaddaeus), and James, son of Alpheus. This should mean that Levi and James are brothers, but not Thaddeus. .

Disciples are not meant to change their minds when called by Jesus, yet this seems to happen when Mark omits Levi in the list of all the twelve apostles. Matthew's Gospel is known to have been based substantially on Mark and, when copying the original gospel, its anonymous author resolves Levi's unexplained absence simply by not mentioning Levi and by having Matthew as the disciple who was a tax collector, so that two thousand years of tradition have held that Levi and Matthew must be the same person. Older translations of Matthew also list a "Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus" (which means that his father was called Thaddaeus), but but most recent translations leave out "Lebbaeus, whose surname was," thus referring to Thaddeus as the disciple. .

Our primary source should be Mark's Gospel, since the author of Matthew could not possibly have known anything about these disciples that was not to be found in Mark. In any case, Mark lists only Levi and James as sons of Alpheus and therefore brothers, while Matthew has only James as the son of Alpheus. Neither of them can be read as saying that Thaddeus and James were brothers.