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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

JAMES (Person)

1. James, brother of Jesus; leading elder in the church at Jerusalem; author of the epistle bearing his name.

The only two references to James in the Gospels mention him with his brothers Joseph (Greek Joses), Simon, and Judas (Mt 13:55; Mk 6:3). This James may have been, after Jesus, the oldest of the brothers. The question has been raised about whether these were indeed full brothers of Jesus by Mary, for such a situation has created difficulty for those who cannot square it with their views on the perpetual virginity of Mary. But there seems to be no good reason to challenge the fact from Scripture. As with the other brothers, James apparently did not accept Jesus’ authority during his earthly life (Jn 7:5).

There is no specific mention of James’s conversion; it may have dated from Jesus’ appearance to him and the others after Jesus’ resurrection (1 Cor 15:7). He became head of the church at Jerusalem (Acts 12:17; 21:18; Gal 2:9). Although Jesus had always taught the relative subordination of family ties (Mt 12:48-50; Mk 3:33-35; Lk 8:21), it is hard to believe that James’s authority was not somehow enhanced because of his relationship to the Master.

James was regarded as an apostle (Gal 1:19), although he was not one of the Twelve. Some suggest he was a replacement for the martyred son of Zebedee; others infer his apostleship by widening the scope of that term to embrace both “the Twelve” and “all the apostles” (see the two separate categories cited in 1 Cor 15:5, 7).

Tradition stated that James was appointed the first bishop of Jerusalem by the Lord himself as well as the apostles. What is certain is that he presided over the first Council of Jerusalem, called to consider the terms for admission of Gentiles into the Christian church, and he may have formulated the decree that met with the approval of all his colleagues and was sent to the churches of Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia (Acts 15:19-20). James evidently regarded his own special ministry as being to the Jews, and his was a mediating role in the controversy that arose in the young church around the place of the law for those who had become Christians, from both Gentile and Jewish origins.

That he continued to have strong Jewish-Christian sympathies is apparent from the request made to Paul when the latter visited Jerusalem for the last time (Acts 21:18-25). This was also the last mention in Acts of James’s career. His name also occurs in the NT as the traditional author of the Epistle of James, where he describes himself as “a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” (Jas 1:1).

According to Hegesippus (c. 180), James’s faithful adherence to the Jewish law and his austere lifestyle led to the designation “the Just.” It seems clear that James suffered martyrdom. Josephus places it in the year 61, when there was a Jewish uprising after the death of Festus the procurator and before his successor had been appointed.

2. James, son of Alphaeus; one of the 12 apostles.

James, son of Alphaeus, is always listed as one of the 12 apostles (Mt 10:3; Mk 3:18; Lk 6:15; Acts 1:13), but nothing is known for certain about him. Levi (also known as Matthew) is also described as the son of Alphaeus (Mk 2:14), but it is improbable that he and James were brothers. Many scholars have identified him with the one called “James the less” or “James the smaller.” The description “the less” seems to have been given to distinguish him from the son of Zebedee, and it may signify that he was either smaller or younger than Zebedee’s son (the Greek word can cover both interpretations).

3. James, son of Zebedee. One of the 12 apostles; the first of them to be martyred (AD 44).

James was a Galilean fisherman whose circumstances we can suppose to have been comfortable (Mk 1:19-20) and who was called to be one of the disciples at the same time as his brother John (Mt 4:21; Mk 1:19-20). It is reasonable to assume that he was older than John, both because he is nearly always mentioned first and because John is sometimes identified as “the brother of James” (Mt 10:2; 17:1; Mk 3:17; 5:37).

James, John, and Simon Peter, who were part of a fishing partnership that included Andrew, Simon’s brother (Lk 5:10), were a trio who attained in some sense a place of primacy among the disciples. They are found at the center of things—for example, when Jairus’s daughter was raised (Mk 5:37; Lk 8:51), at the Transfiguration (Mt 17:1; Mk 9:2; Lk 9:28), on the Mount of Olives (Mk 13:3), and in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mt 26:37; Mk 14:33). It was James and John, moreover, who had earlier accompanied Jesus to the home of Simon and Andrew (Mk 1:29).

James and John were given by Jesus the nickname Boanerges, or “sons of thunder” (Mk 3:17), when they were rebuked by the Lord for impetuous speech and for having totally misconceived the purpose of his coming. This may have been the consequence of the suggestion made by them that they should pray for the destruction of the Samaritan village, the inhabitants of which had rejected the Lord’s messengers (Lk 9:54; cf. Mk 9:38; Lk 9:49).

The presumptuous and ill-considered thinking of the two brothers was obvious also when, after asking with his brother for a place of honor in the kingdom, James was corecipient of the prophecy that they would drink the cup their Master was to drink (Mk 10:35-40; cf. Mt 20:20-23). The two sons of Zebedee are also assumed to have been present with the other disciples when the risen Christ appeared by the Sea of Galilee (Jn 21:1), though curiously James’s name is nowhere mentioned in the fourth Gospel.

We know nothing about James’s career subsequently until about the year 44, when Jesus’ prophecy was fulfilled: James was killed “by the sword” by Herod Agrippa I, and thus became the first of the Twelve whose martyrdom was referred to in the NT (Acts 12:1-2).

The wife of Zebedee was Salome (Mt 27:56; Mk 15:40), who may have been a sister of the Lord’s mother (Jn 19:25). If this were so, it would mean that James and John were first cousins of Jesus and that they may have considered themselves to have been in a privileged position.