A Quick Note on the Name "Zacchaeus" in the Gospel

I'm at the park and just remembered I haven't brought this proof for a "secret narrative" in the gospel to people's attention.

Almost everyone (I think) knows that the name of the little guy who climbs a sycamore tree to see Jesus comes from the Aramaic zakkai which means "clear" or "blameless." Yet it should also be noted that the Aramaic zakkai is used as an equivalent for the Hebrew zaddiq or "righteous" whenever texts are translated from one language to the other.

As such an Aramaic speaker (or reader) of the gospel would immediately have connected this name with James' title "the just" thus explaining how those sectarians mentioned by Epiphanius would naturally have seen a neaniskos (secretly) named "James" referenced after Salome's request (Mk x.38) through to the narrative with the "little" Zakkai down through to Mark xiv 51-52 (where again Epiphanius mentions some who identify this neaniskos with James the Just) and then as we know the Gospel of the Hebrews concluding narrative with James again presiding over the temple service.

The point is that the idea that there was a "secret thread" running through variant Diatessaron-like single, long gospels in the hands of various followers of John or James is not at all difficult to reconstruct.

It just requires a little knowledge of the original language of the gospel and - heaven forbid - that most dangerous of things - imagination!