Seventy disciples

The seventy disciples (Greek: ἑβδομήκοντα μαθητές, hebdomikonta mathetes), known in the Eastern Christian traditions as the seventy apostles (Greek: ἑβδομήκοντα απόστολοι, hebdomikonta apostoloi), were early emissaries of Jesus mentioned in the Gospel of Luke. The number of those disciples varies between either 70 or 72 depending on the manuscript.

The passage from Luke 10 in the Gospel of Luke, the only gospel in which they are mentioned, includes specific instructions for the mission, beginning with (in Douay–Rheims Bible):

And after these things the Lord appointed also other seventy-two: and he sent them two and two before his face into every city and place whither he himself was to come.

In Western Christianity, they are usually referred to as disciples, whereas in Eastern Christianity they are usually referred to as apostles. Using the original Greek words, both titles are descriptive, as an apostle is one sent on a mission (the Greek uses the verb form ἀποστέλλειν – ’apostéllein), whereas a disciple is a student, but the two traditions differ on the scope of the words apostle and disciple.

Analysis

This is the only mention of the group in the Bible. The number is seventy in some manuscripts of the Alexandrian (such as Codex Sinaiticus) and Caesarean text traditions but seventy-two in most other Alexandrian and Western texts. Samuel Dickey Gordon notes that they were sent out as thirty-five deputations of two each.

The number may derive from the seventy nations of Genesis 10 or the many other occurrences of the number seventy in the Bible, or the seventy-two translators of the Septuagint from the Letter of Aristeas. In translating the Vulgate, Jerome selected the reading of seventy-two.