James the Brother
The Voice Christianity Buried The earliest figure named in Christian history after Jesus himself is not Peter. It is not Paul. It is not John. It is a man whose name appears in the oldest layer of the New Testament, who led the original community in Jerusalem, who issued rulings the Apostle Paul had to accept whether he liked them or not, and whose voice was progressively marginalized over the two thousand years that followed. His name was James. He was the brother of Jesus.
What this resource contributes
The Voice Christianity Buried The earliest figure named in Christian history after Jesus himself is not Peter. It is not Paul. It is not John. It is a man whose name appears in the oldest layer of the New Testament, who led the original community in Jerusalem, who issued rulings the Apostle Paul had to accept whether he liked them or not, and whose voice was progressively marginalized over the two thousand years that followed. His name was James. He was the brother of Jesus. He was killed in Jerusalem in 62 CE — thirty years after his brother — and the historian Josephus recorded the death within thirty years of it happening. He was the leader of the original Jesus movement during the founding decades of what would become Christianity. He wrote an epistle that survives in the New Testament. The epistle preaches a religion of works, mercy, and warning against the rich.
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Primary sources detected
New Testament