According to the Gospel of John, Andrew found his brother Simon “first” in Judea where Andrew and John after following John the Baptist followed Jesus.

It was Andrew, which took Simon to introduce him to Jesus. Isn’t it strange to find Andrew, Simon and John son of Zebedee in Judea? That is near river Jordan in Southeast of Palestine, while they were supposed to be fishing in the Sea of Galilee, which is in North Palestine.

There should be several estimations to be considered, but let us take at least two of them, either Simon went to be baptized by John the Baptist and therefore he should have left Galilee and came to Judea, or he was there in search of his brother Andrew. We considered the latter, because for Andrew and John being disciples of John the Baptist, then leaving him and following Jesus (according to what is written in John1), should have taken a lot of time. Estimated time for traveling from Galilee to Judea is four days because they used to go walking, which is the cheapest way to travel in their time. Of course such a distance let them stop somewhere to sleep, like any land travel occasions nowadays. So, four days to reach Judea where it is mentioned in the Bible that people came from all over places of Israel to be baptized. The multitude should have kept them in turn and that should have taken some hours if not a couple of days. Afterwards they became disciples of John the Baptist. Later, Jesus was passing by the river Jordan and John pointed at him saying: “This is the Lamb of God who bares the sins of the world”. Then he encouraged the two to follow Jesus, and Jesus invited them to see where he dwells. This, all in all took a long time, maybe more than a month or so. For Middle Eastern families, this is not an easy time to bare without knowing anything about them, because relatives worry a lot about each others, and they keep track of when their dear ones are leaving and traveling. At that time, they had no means of communications like today, no mobiles, no telephones, no emails, not even an easy or cheap way to send written mails over a long and far distances.

Now, let’s say John and Andrew, who are the younger brothers of Simon and James as well as partners in the fishing business, together with Zebedee the father of James and John, consider them leaving their brothers with Zebedee and going to be baptized alone first, then when they would come back, the other two Simon and James will go for baptism. This method will keep their business running and not quitting fishing, as if they had to leave all the four together.

Back to the long time spent, this should have made Simon get worried about his brother Andrew as well as James for his brother John. This is just symbolic, not to go into details about a whole family murmuring about the matter and making things worst.

If this ever happened this way, then the King James Version of the Bible in John 1: 41 which says that Andrew first found his own brother Simon, is justified.

John 1: 40, One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41 He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.

He first found him could refer that Simon was the first one Andrew introduced Jesus, or better would be, that Simon was searching for Andrew, who had left home over a month ago, and Andrew saw him before he did.

This is how the Story begins with “Stories of Simon”.