James the Brother of Jesus

I have been reading Robert Eisenman's "James the Brother of Jesus" recently. He makes the case that James was the leader of the Christian church after Jesus died, until his own death in AD 62. Since that time, however, his role got downplayed, as Jesus became ever more divine. It was awkward for God incarnate to have a brother, so James was redacted from the narrative.

Eisenman draws on the Dead Sea Scrolls to a large degree, and this is generally regards as suspect, as he has to ignore the dating of the documents to make it work. Nevertheless, the rest of his argument seems to be well regarded, and I found it pretty convincing.

James in Paul

When Paul was writing, James was the leader of Christianity, and Jesus was considered a man chosen by God to be the messiah, the prototype for the coming resurrection. Paul makes clear Peter was subordinate to James in Galatians.

Galatians 1:19 I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother.

Galatians 2:9 James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars...

Galatians 2:12 For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.

From these verses we know for sure that James was the brother of Jesus, that he was one of the top three, the pillars, and that Peter (Cephas) deferred to him.

Paul also mentions James here:

3 For I handed down to you [b]as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to [c]Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to [d]James, then to all the apostles; 8 and last of all, as [e]to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. 

It is interesting that Paul has Jesus appear to James after the Twelve; this suggests James was not one of them.

James in Josephus

Even Josephus mentions James as a religious authority:

... Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought them the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others [or some of his companions]. And when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned...

James in Thomas

This non-canonical gospel also makes clear James was the leader of the church after Jesus was gone.

The disciples said to Jesus, 'We know that you will depart from us. Who will be our leader?' Jesus said to them, 'Where you are, you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into existence'

James in the Synoptic Gospels

But by the time Mark was written, James' status had diminished, and he was largely edited out or re-written so he was no longer Jesus' brother (it is possible this happened later, and the gospel was revised; we know 16:9-20 was added later).  For example, in Acts 12:2 he becomes John's brother, and nowhere in Acts (or Luke) is there any mention of a James who is the brother of Jesus.

Mark 6:3 and Mat 13:55 do mention a brother called James, but it is not clear if this is a disciple or not.

Mark 6:3 Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph,[a] Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

No other brother James is mentioned.

James in John

By the time John was written, James has been erased from history altogether - the last gospel does not even include the name at all!

Other James

James the Son of Zebedee

One of the Twelve, this is someone else.

James, the son of Alphaeus

Another one of the Twelve, this seems to be someone else, but is less clear.

James the Less

This guy only gets mentions as the son of one of the women at the empty tomb, but some people identify him with James, the son of Alphaeus. A further stretch identifies both with James, the brother of Jesus. His mother is Mary, but the fact that she is not called the mother of Jesus makes this unlikely to be that James.

Possible History

It is hard to piece together what happened - in part because it was such a common name -  but my best guess is James was not a disciple of Jesus until later, likely after Jesus died. Perhaps he converted shortly after Peter saw the risen Jesus on Lake Galilee. 

As the brother of Jesus that will have given him some standing, but it is still hard to see how Peter became subordinate to him, but perhaps he just had that kind of personality.

There was some effort at removing the Galilean appearances from history, and this could be related to James.