Who is the…
“nobleman” mentioned in the New Testament?

Greek: basilikos, i.e., “king's man”

This is an officer of state—a royal official (John 4:49 NKJV; John 4:49 NASB) in the service of Herod Antipas who ruled Galilee.

He is believed to be Chuza (Greek: Ἰωάννα / Latin: Iōanna), Herod’s steward/manager, and the husband of Joanna who was healed by Jesus and later supported Him and His disciples in their travels (Luke 8:2-3 NASB).

This officer came to Jesus at Cana and besought him to go down to Capernaum and heal his son, who lay there at the point of death.

Our Lord sent him away with the joyful assurance that his son was alive.

Chuza’s wife, Joanna, knew Jesus Christ, all His disciples, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Clopas.

Joanna is mentioned alongside Mary Magdalene and other women as those who first visited the Christ’s tomb and found it empty, and it is to this group of women, that Jesus first appeared and instructed them to tell the disciples that He is arisen and to meet Him in Galilee (Matthew 28:8-10). This this nobleman’s wife was a key witness to Christ’s miraculous resurrection from the dead after having been severely beaten, tortured, crucified and speared in the side by a competent Roman soldier of execution attesting to the fact that he was most assuredly dead.

This inscription was found on the ossuary of Johanna the daughter of Theophilus the High Priest. It is from the 1st century AD. Image by Dan Barag and David Flusser, CC BY 2.5

A first-century ossuary discovered in Jerusalem holds the remains of a woman named ‘Joanna’ who was the granddaughter of ‘Theophilus the high priest.’1 If this is the same woman mentioned by Luke, her role as a key witness to the empty tomb could be explained by the fact that, Luke wrote to a “most excellent Theophilus” (Luke 1:3 NKJV), and as his granddaughter, Joanna would have been someone he loved and trusted.

Theophilus (Hebrew: תפלוס בר חנן) was the High Priest from 37 to 41 AD in the Temple built by Herod in Jerusalem according to Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews.2 He was a member of one of the wealthiest and most influential Jewish families in Judean Province during the 1st century.

1. Dan Barag and David Flusser, “The Ossuary of Yehoḥanah Granddaughter of the High Priest Theophilus,” Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 36, No. 1/2 (1986), pp. 39–44. JSTOR 27926007.
2. The ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (born Yosef ben Matityahu) is the author of Antiquities of the Jews and The Jewish War (chronicling the Great Jewish Revolt of 66–70 AD).