Bringing James Out of the Shadows

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History, it is said, is written by the winners. Perhaps that’s why we know so little about James, the brother of Jesus. Although he was a major player in the first-century A.D., his popularity waned in the next few centuries as the followers of Peter and Paul came to dominate the church. Their views, not James’s, are now more prominently reflected in the canon. Paul is named as the author of 40 percent of the New Testament, and he’s a central character in Acts. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus singles out Peter (author of two letters) as his “rock” (petros)—the foundation stone on which the church will be built (Matthew 16:18). Jesus’ brother James remains a shadowy figure, mentioned only in passing in the Gospels and credited with one brief letter.

But if we could travel back to the first century and ask the earliest church members whom they considered their leaders, they would probably mention James first—before Peter or Paul.

The Gospels themselves offer little help in our search for James. They mention him only a handful of times, usually in lists of Jesus’ siblings, such as Matthew 13:55–56, in which Jesus astounds the crowd in his hometown synagogue. They ask, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power?”

Elsewhere, the Gospels portray James and the other siblings as being at odds with their brother. In Mark 3, the family is so disturbed and frightened by Jesus’ attempts to cast out demons, they seek to restrain him; they seem to agree with the hostile crowd that he is “out of his mind.”

In John 7:3–5, the brothers of Jesus see him as a glory seeker, and they try to goad him into performing miracles publicly in Jerusalem. “For not even his brothers believed in him,” John explains. Finally, when Jesus is crucified, neither James nor the other brothers come to bury him—perhaps because they are so ashamed.

Yet, within 20 years after Jesus’ death, James is so well established and respected by his brother’s followers that Paul calls him a “pillar” of the church (in Galatians 2:9).

What transformed the embarrassed and ashamed brother into a pillar of the church? And what kind of church was it anyway?

Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians suggests a singular event may have caused the dramatic change in James’s attitude. Paul writes:

I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter, from the Aramaic word for “rock”], then to the twelve. Then he appeared 030to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

(1 Corinthians 15:5–8)

From this, it appears that James, like Paul, might have been a convert to the Jesus movement because he experienced the risen Jesus. James, the brother of Jesus, is the only James ever mentioned in Paul’s letters, so the reference here is clear. We are given no other possible explanation for James’s change of heart than that he saw Jesus resurrected.

That James’s attitude (or at least the family’s) did change around the time of Jesus’ death is confirmed by the opening chapter of Acts, where we find Jesus’ followers gathered together, “devoting themselves to prayer,” just after Jesus’ ascension to heaven. Among the solemn group are “Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers” (Acts 1:14). The death and resurrection of Jesus has transformed the family, apparently including James.

We next encounter James in Acts 12. It’s a decade later—about 40 A.D.—and King Herod Agrippa I is angry with the Christians because they seem to be causing trouble in Jerusalem and Galilee and perhaps also because their proclamation of Jesus as Messiah was seen as competition with the king’s own claim to rule in the land. Herod Agrippa orders that the one of the apostles (also named James) be “killed with the sword” (Acts 12:2), and he places Peter in prison, with four guards to watch over him. But Peter has an angelic visitor, who helps him unshackle himself and escape.

“Get up quickly,” the angel tells Peter. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me” (Acts 12:7–8). The angel guides Peter out of the prison and into the city, where Peter tells the assembled crowd what happened and begs them to let James—the brother of Jesus—know. “Tell this to James and the believers,” he urges. He then flees to safety in Caesarea.

Peter’s urgent request suggests that by this time, James was a leader of some stature. New Testament scholar John Painter has suggested that Peter’s sudden departure may have given James an opportunity to take even greater control over the church.¹

The letters of Paul also hint at James’s emergence as a church leader in the 30s. The Epistle to the Galatians is one of Paul’s earlier letters, written around 49 A.D. 032(before the major Jerusalem council of c. 50 A.D., mentioned in Acts 15). Galatians is thus one of the first New Testament books to be written.

The letter takes up an issue that divided the early church: whether Gentile converts needed to become Jews before they could become Christians. In making his argument against this requirement, Paul describes events from the time of his own conversion in 32–33 A.D. until 49 A.D. His references to Jesus’ brother offer a window on how James’s role developed throughout this period. The first reference is in Paul’s description of his own conversion experience. He states that after “God revealed his Son to [him],” he (Paul) left Jerusalem and stayed away for three years. When he finally returned in about 37 A.D., he went to stay with Peter (whom he calls Cephas).² “I did not see any other apostle,” writes Paul, “except James the Lord’s brother” (Galatians 1:19). James is clearly an important church figure, although maybe not as important as Peter.

In the late 40s A.D., Paul visits Jerusalem for a second time. He tells the Galatians:

Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas [a Jewish Christian who was connected with the Jerusalem church], taking Titus [another emissary of Paul] along with me … When James and Cephas [Peter] and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised [the Jews].

(Galatians 2:1–10)

Note that James is now listed first among the “pillars of the church.” The term “pillars,” in Greek stuloi, is frequently used in the Greek version of the Old 033Testament (the Septuagint) to refer to the supports of the Tabernacle and, later, the columns of the Temple (1 Kings 7:15–22; 2 Chronicles 3:15–17).³ By choosing this term, Paul is suggesting that these three men—James, Peter and John—should be seen as the supporting columns not only of the present-day church but of the promised future Temple. (The idea of leaders serving as supporting columns of the end-time Temple appears in Revelation, too: “If you conquer, I will make you a pillar in the Temple of my God; you will never go out of it” [Revelation 3:12].)

Paul hints at his own subordinate relation to these pillars. They give him “the right hand of fellowship” (Galatians 2:9), a gracious gesture typically made by a superior.⁴

Paul then goes on to relate an incident that took place in the mid-40s in the Syrian city of Antioch—one of the most important sites for attracting both Jewish and Gentile followers.

A problem had arisen regarding relations between Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus, in particular whether the two groups could eat together. The Jewish followers of Jesus observed the Jewish dietary laws (kashrut), while the Gentiles, of course, did not.

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According to Paul, James sent some men to Antioch to check on the situation:

When Cephas [Peter] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction [Pharisaic Jewish Christians]. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

(Galatians 2:11–13)

When James’s men arrive, Peter bows out. He defers to James’s judgment, which suggests that James was the head of the church.

In Paul’s first reference to James in Galatians 1:19, James is mentioned after Peter; here, he is clearly Peter’s superior. This one letter traces James’s gradual ascendance over the church.

In Galatians, we also become increasingly aware of some of the fundamental concerns facing James as leader of the first-century church: How should the mixed community of Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus live? Should there be separate communities for the two kinds of Christians? Or should Gentiles and Jews live (and dine) together as one group? And if so, should Gentiles first convert to Judaism?

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Paul strongly opposed such conversion, arguing that forcing Mosaic Law on Gentile converts was not necessary for their salvation. For Paul, faith in Jesus was the only true means of entering the community of God’s people. But certain members of the Jewish Christian community strongly disagreed.

The crisis in Antioch made it necessary for the church leaders to address these issues at a public council convened in Jerusalem in 50 A.D. Paul doesn’t mention the council, but it is described in detail in the Book of Acts. The passage in Acts 15 is the longest discussion of James in the New Testament and by far the most significant. At the council, Peter, Paul and other apostles and elders weigh in as to whether Gentiles must observe the Jewish Law. But it is James who resolves the matter.

As described in Acts, the proceedings begin soon after Paul and Barnabas arrive in Jerusalem from Antioch:

When they [Paul and Barnabas] came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the leaders and they reported all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, “It is necessary for them to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses.”

The apostles and the elders met together to consider this matter. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers. And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” The whole assembly kept silence, and listened to 053Barnabas and Paul as they told of all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles.

(Acts 15:4–12)

Peter is here taking Paul’s view of the matter: Salvation comes through the grace of Jesus, not through circumcision or observance of the Law. (It’s not surprising that Peter is sympathetic to Gentile converts; the first Gentile convert, a centurion named Cornelius, came to the church through Peter [Acts 10].)

The next person to step up to address the meeting was James:

After they finished speaking, James replied, “My brothers, listen to me. Simeon [a variant of Hebrew Shimon, translated into English as Simon and referring here to Peter] has related how God first looked favorably on the Gentiles, to take from among them a people for his name. This agrees with the prophets, as it is written, ‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen; from its ruins I will rebuild it, and I will set it up, so that all other peoples may seek the Lord—even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called. Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things known from long ago.’”

(Acts 15:13–18)

James quotes the prophets (specifically, Amos 9:11–12) in order to convince his audience that they should not be surprised by the influx of Gentiles. The prophets predicted that the Lord would return so that all other peoples may seek the Lord.

James continues:

Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God, but should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood.

(Acts 15:19–20)

When James finishes speaking, his decree is written down (with slight variation) and sent to the Jewish-Christian apostles to the Gentile communities of Antioch, Syria and Cilicia.

James’s speech before the council is one of the most frequently misinterpreted passages relating to James. Based on James’s words here, history has defined James as in direct opposition to Paul. Paul would permit Gentile conversion to the incipient Christian movement without observance of the Jewish Law and circumcision; James would require it, so it is supposed.

The problem is that many readers have assumed that James is here insisting that the Gentile Christians observe Jewish dietary laws; they thus infer that James believed Gentiles must observe Jewish Law in general.

But the specific dietary restrictions James imposes on the Gentile Christians are not listed in Leviticus 17–18 or Genesis 9; neither of these Old Testament texts mentions meat sacrificed to idols or fornication. Rather, James is listing practices believed to be common in pagan temples: worshiping of false gods, eating of meat with blood in it in the presence of an idol as part of an act of worship, and engaging in sexual immorality at pagan feasts. He is not telling Gentile Christians to observe Jewish Law; he is ordering them to make a clean break from their pagan past.⁵

James’s argument is subtle—and effective. He is a mediator. He is trying not to stifle the Gentile mission by insisting on such unappealing rituals as adult circumcision.

The real difference between Paul and James revolves around the need of Jewish Christians to observe Jewish law, as is clear in the final episode in which James appears in Acts. It is the late 50s A.D., and Paul, who has stated elsewhere that he is no longer under Mosaic Law but under the Law of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 9:20–21), is asked by James and the elders of the Jerusalem church to demonstrate that he respects the Jewish Law by undergoing a purification rite with several other men. The elders tell Paul they hope this will convince the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem that “there is nothing in what they have been told about you [Paul] but that you observe and guard the Law” (Acts 21:24).

This then was the compromise: To be accepted into the Christian community, Gentiles must give up their pagan practices. Jews, however, must continue to observe the Mosaic Law. James was the first great leader of the church who felt strongly about the inclusion of both Gentiles and observant Jews. But if James had insisted that Gentiles had to be circumcised, even as adults, and to keep all of the requirements of the Law, few would be attracted to the church. On the other hand, if he allowed some Jewish Christians to abandon the Law, Jews and observant Jewish converts would be scandalized and might reject or abandon the Jesus movement.

James appealed to both groups—and for a while he succeeded. But in the end, James and his form of Jewish Christianity lost out—for a variety of reasons: James did not travel and evangelize like Paul but rather chose to stay in Jerusalem. This meant staying in an environment that was often volatile and sometimes violent, and the Jerusalem church suffered from this. It also suffered from famine; it needed Paul’s collection money for famine relief (Romans 15:26; see also Acts 6:1–4). Further, the martyrdom of James (in 62 A.D.) followed by the First Jewish Revolt against Rome (66–70 A.D.) and the subsequent destruction of the Temple by the Romans weakened the Jerusalem church and caused its influence to decline. The church’s center naturally shifted to the west and, eventually, to Rome.

Ultimately, those Christians who were most indebted to Paul, Peter and others chose the books to be included in the New Testament canon. James’s story was obscured in the process. History is indeed written by the winners, which is why we must always pay heed to the losers as well.

This article is based on Ben Witherington’s contribution to the new book The Brother of Jesus, cowritten with Hershel Shanks (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003).

History, it is said, is written by the winners. Perhaps that’s why we know so little about James, the brother of Jesus. Although he was a major player in the first-century A.D., his popularity waned in the next few centuries as the followers of Peter and Paul came to dominate the church. Their views, not James’s, are now more prominently reflected in the canon. Paul is named as the author of 40 percent of the New Testament, and he’s a central character in Acts. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus singles out Peter (author of two letters) as his […]