Zebedee Zebedee Zebedee (, "Zebedaios", ; , "Zvad'yah", ), according to all four Canonical gospels, was the father of James and John, two disciples of Jesus. The gospels also suggest that he was the husband of Salome: whereas Mark 15:40 names the women present at the crucifixion as "Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, and Salome", the parallel passage in has "Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children." The "Catholic Encyclopedia" concludes that the Salome of Mark 15:40 is probably identical with the mother of
Salome I divorced her husband in contravention of what Josephus ("Jewish Antiquities" 15.7.10) says were Jewish laws at the time:"But some time afterward, when Salome happened to quarrel with Costobarus, she sent him a bill of divorce and dissolved her marriage with him, though this was not according to the Jewish laws; for with us it is lawful for a husband to do so; but a wife; if she departs from her husband, cannot of herself be married to another, unless her former husband put her away. However, Salome chose to follow not the law of her country, but the law of