I grew up
thinking that the “lost years” of early Christianity referred to Jesus’
childhood and his early twenties. The gospels only record a single story from
his youth.1 I had no idea there was a much more significant gap of “missing
years” in the history of early Christianity, much less a forgotten brother of
Jesus.2 Paul calls him “James the brother of the Lord,” and it is James, not
Peter, who takes over leadership of the movement following Jesus’ death. Paul
met James face-toface, in Jerusalem, on at least three separate occasions.3 In
later tradition he is called “James the Just” to distinguish him from the other
James, the Galilean fisherman, the son of Zebedee and brother of John, and one
of the twelve apostles.4 Who was this James, the brother of Jesus, and why was
he forgotten? And what kind of shape had the early Christian movement taken,
under his leadership, before Paul even came on the scene? The Roman Catholic
Church looks to Peter while the Protestants have focused on Paul, but James
seems to have been deliberately marginalized, as we will see. The tradition
most people know is that the apostle Peter took over leadership of the movement
as head of the Twelve. Not long afterward the apostle Paul, newly “converted”
to the Christian movement from Judaism, joined Peter’s side. Together the
apostles Peter and Paul became the twin “pillars” of the emerging Christian
faith, preaching the gospel to the entire Roman world and dying gloriously,
together under the emperor Nero, as martyrs in Rome—the new divinely appointed
headquarters of the Church. This view of things has been enshrined in Christian
art through the ages and popularized in books and films. Indeed, Peter’s
primacy, as the first pope, has even become the cornerstone of Roman Catholic
dogmatic teaching. We now know that things did not happen this way. As we will
see, the original apostolic Christianity that came before Paul, and developed
independently of him, by those who had known and spent time with Jesus, was in
sharp contrast to Paul’s version of the new faith. This lost Christianity held
sway during Paul’s lifetime, and only with the death of James in A.D. 62,
followed by the brutal destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70, did
it begin to lose its influence as the center of the Jesus movement. Ironically,
it was the production and final editing of the New Testament itself, in the
early second century A.D., supporting Paul’s version of Christianity, that
ensured first the marginalization, and subsequently the death of this original
form of Christianity within Christian orthodoxy. By the fourth century A.D.,
the dominant Roman church classified surviving forms of this Jewish
Christianity as heresy and Christians were forbidden under threat of penalties
to follow any kind of Jewish observances. One of my theses in this book is that
the form of Christianity that subsequently developed as a thriving religion in
the late Roman Empire was heavily based upon the ecstatic and visionary
experiences of Paul. Christianity, as we came to know it, is Paul and Paul is
Christianity. The bulk of the New Testament is dominated by his theological
vision. Its main elements are: 1) the forgiveness of sins through the blood of
Christ, God’s divine Son, based on his sacrificial death on the cross; 2) receiving
the Holy Spirit and the gift of eternal life guaranteed by faith in Jesus’
resurrection from the dead; and 3) a glorified heavenly reign with Christ when
he returns in the clouds of heaven. The mystical rites of baptism and the
“Lord’s Supper” function as experiential verification of this understanding of
“salvation.” It is difficult for one to imagine a version of Christianity
predating Paul with none of these seemingly essential elements. Yet that is
precisely what our evidence indicates. The original apostles and followers of
Jesus, led by James and assisted by Peter and John, continued to live as Jews,
observing the Torah and worshipping in the Temple at Jerusalem, or in their
local synagogues, while remembering and honoring Jesus as their martyred
Teacher and Messiah. They neither worshipped nor divinized Jesus as the Son of
God, or as a Dying-andRising Savior, who died for the sins of humankind. They
practiced no ritual of baptism into Christ, nor did they celebrate a sacred
meal equated with “eating the body and drinking the blood” of Christ as a
guarantee of eternal life. Their message was wholly focused around their
expectations that the kingdom of God had drawn near, as proclaimed by John the
Baptizer and Jesus, and that very soon God would intervene in human history to
bring about his righteous rule of peace and justice among all nations. In the
meantime both Jews and non-Jews were urged to repent of their sins, turn to
God, and live righteously before him in expectation of his kingdom. But that
takes us far ahead of our story. Let’s begin with James the forgotten brother
of Jesus. Since the late 1990s there have been over a dozen major scholarly
studies of James published.5 Prior to this, to my knowledge, not a single major
scholarly study of James had ever been published. But these academic studies by
and large did not reach the public. Remarkably, on October 21, 2002, James made
headline news around the world. Hershel Shanks, editor of the Biblical
Archaeology Review, announced at a Washington, D.C., press conference that a
first-century A.D. limestone burial box, or ossuary (literally “bone box”),
inscribed in Aramaic “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus,” had turned up in
Jerusalem in the hands of a private collector. The news flashed around the
globe. Experts involved in studying the artifact were convinced that it was
genuine, that it most likely referred to James the brother of Jesus of
Nazareth, and that it had once held his bones. As such, it would be our
earliest archaeological reference to Jesus and to James.6 Some scholars have
since questioned the authenticity of various parts of the inscription and it
has become part of a highly controversial ongoing criminal forgery case in
Israel, but there is no question that the ossuary story gave James the brother
of Jesus his fifteen minutes of fame, almost as if he had been resurrected from
the dead after nineteen hundred years.7 Most people who read or heard the news
story, even those claiming a fair knowledge of the New Testament, found themselves
asking—James who? The fisherman James, one of the twelve apostles, might have
been familiar, but who was this mysterious second James? And how could he have
been a brother of Jesus, if Mary, Jesus’ mother, remained a virgin throughout
her life? At least since the fourth century, Roman Catholics, represented by
the church father Jerome, had claimed that the brothers of Jesus, mentioned and
named in the New Testament, were cousins of Jesus, not literal brothers, since
both Mary and Joseph remained virgins throughout their lives.8 Eastern
Catholics, represented by Epiphanius, held the view that they were
stepbrothers, older than Jesus, and children of Joseph from a previous
marriage.9 According to Epiphanius, Joseph was a widower, over eighty years old,
when he took Mary as his wife. Protestants tend to be divided, but many,
particularly in modern times, accept that Joseph and Mary, following the virgin
birth of Jesus, had other children together, so these would be half brothers of
Jesus from his mother, Mary, since Jesus had no human father.10 Paul knows
James as “the brother of the Lord,” and he mentions the “brothers of the Lord”
as a group as well (Galatians 1:19; 1 Corinthians 9:5). He distinguishes these
brothers from Peter, from the Twelve, and from those called “apostles” in a
more general sense (1 Corinthians 9:5; 15:5–7). When he mentions the name James
without a descriptive tag, there is no doubt he refers to Jesus’ brother James,
as Paul is our earliest witness to James being the head of the Jerusalem
church. According to Paul, James stands first, along with Peter and John, as
the “pillars” of the movement (Galatians 2:9, 12). Terminology can be quite
tricky when it comes to James himself, as well as the movement he led for over
thirty years. Before I take up the full story let me attempt some important
clarifications and express some caveats. First, the person we know as James the
brother of Jesus, as well as the author of the letter of James that bears his
name, tucked in the back of the New Testament, twentieth of twenty-seven
documents making up the whole, needs a bit of explaining. James in English is
the name Iakobov in Greek, consistent throughout the New Testament, which is in
fact the name Jacob (Yaaqov in Hebrew). Thus it is the same name as that of the
grandson of Abraham and the son of Isaac, used a total of 358 times throughout
the Bible, including in the New Testament. So when Jesus says that “Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob” will be raised from the dead when the kingdom of God arrives,
the Greek texts of our gospels use the word Iakobov, clearly and properly
translated as Jacob (Mark 12:26). Yet the same word, when used of the fisherman
apostle or the brother of Jesus, becomes James, not Jacob, in English. Imagine
the reverse, if translators had put “Abraham, Isaac, and James.” The effect
would be quite jolting and most readers would have not the slightest idea of
what might be going on. The English name James is so rooted in our language it
is not going to change. I can’t imagine a time when we would speak of the King
Jacob Version of the Bible, or Jacob Dean, the late great movie star. But when
we are translating the Greek New Testament this is a very different matter,
since the English name James did not exist anciently, and the Greek name is
plainly and clearly Jacob and so translated, so long as it does not refer to
the apostle James or the James the brother of Jesus. It simply makes no
linguistic sense. Unfortunately, the effect is more than a matter of style. The
name Jacob is clearly Jewish, not Greek or Latin, with deep roots in the Hebrew
Bible and Jewish culture. To call Jesus’ brother James, in English, dissociates
and isolates him from his Jewish environment. But if one begins to use “Jacob”
for “James,” what tiny measure of familiarity anyone might have with James the
brother of Jesus, given his obscurity and marginalization, will completely
dissolve. So my first caveat is that I will continue to call Jesus’ brother
“James,” even though it obscures his Jewish heritage. It is also problematic in
this period to use terms such as “Judaism,” “Christianity,” or even
“Judaeo-Christian” to describe the emerging movement we come to know much later
as Christianity. Neither Jesus nor his first followers understood themselves as
part of a new religion called Christianity, and that goes for Paul as well. The
word “Christianity” never appears in the entire New Testament and the word
“Christian” never in any of Paul’s writings. The early followers of Jesus were
predominantly Jews, living within a Jewish culture that had as its main
reference points Abraham, Moses, the Hebrew Prophets, and Israel as God’s
chosen people, with the world divided into “Jew” and “Gentile” rather than
Judaism and Christianity. If the movement had any name it was most likely
“Nazarene,” taking its place among a diverse cluster of groups, sects, and
movements that make up the variations of “Judaism” in this period.11 Indeed,
even talking about the “religion of Judaism” at this time is quite problematic,
since those who identified themselves as part of Jewish culture were hardly
monolithic or “orthodox” in their practices or their beliefs.12 I have
nonetheless, and quite purposely, chosen to use the anachronistic term
“Christianity,” or in some cases “Jewish Christianity,” for these early stages
of the Jesus movement, whether associated with James or Paul. I want to
highlight the point that there were rival and competing versions of emerging
“Christianity” during this period, each taking Jesus as their reference point,
but with distinct and irreconcilable differences, even though in the end this
dispute between Paul and the apostles is clearly a Jewish family feud.
REMEMBERING
JAMES
As we have
noted, it is Paul who gives us our earliest reference to James and his leadership
over the Jerusalem-based movement following the death of Jesus (Galatians
1:18–19; 2:9). Paul’s evidence here is invaluable since the author of the book
of Acts only begrudgingly and obliquely acknowledges the leadership of James
over the entire Jesus movement. Acts is our only early account of the history
of early Christianity, and its prominent place in the New Testament, following
the four gospels, ensured its dominance. It is the book of Acts that is largely
responsible for the standard portrait of early Christianity in which Peter and
Paul assume such a dominant role and James is largely marginalized or left out
entirely. The presentation of Acts has become the story, even though its
version of events is woefully one-sided and historically questionable. The
author of Acts surely knew, but was not willing to state, that James took over
the leadership of the movement after Jesus’ death. In his early chapters he
never even mentions James by name and casts Peter and John, the other two
“pillars,” as the undisputed leaders of Jesus’ followers, effectively blurring
out James entirely. His major agenda in the book as a whole is to promote the
centrality of the mission and message of the apostle Paul. Although Acts has
twenty-four chapters, once Paul is introduced in chapter 9 the rest of the book
is wholly about Paul. Even Peter begins to drop out of the picture after
chapter 12. Rather than “Acts of the Apostles” the book might better be named
“The Acts of Paul.” This suppression of James is systematic and deliberate, as
we shall see. According to Mark, our earliest gospel, the townspeople at
Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, are amazed at his teachings and his miracles.
They say to one another: “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and
brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here
with us?” (Mark 6:3). Most scholars are convinced that the author of the gospel
of Luke, who also wrote the book of Acts, used Mark as his main source. He has
some independent material, as well as the Q source (which I will explain
below), but his core story of Jesus is taken from Mark. Accordingly, he edits
Mark freely, based on his own emphases and agenda. Here, for example, when he
relates this scene in Nazareth, based on Mark, he omits the names of the
brothers and has the people ask, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” (Luke 4:22). His
silence has nothing to do with the idea that Mary had no other children. His
clear intention is to make the brothers, and James in particular, virtually
anonymous. He continues this practice throughout his two-volume work of
Luke-Acts. When Mark describes Jesus’ death on the cross he notes that “Mary
the mother of James and Joses” was present.13 Luke changes this to read “the
women [unnamed] who had followed him from Galilee” (Luke 23:49). When Jesus is
buried, Mark again notes that “Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses”
were present at the tomb (Mark 15:47). Luke changes his account to read “the
women [again unnamed] who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the
tomb” (Luke 23:55). In most cases Luke followed Mark rather closely as a
source, much more so than did Matthew, who constantly adds his own editorial
revisions. But this is not the case when it comes to the mother and brothers of
Jesus. Such bold editing could not be accidental; there is something very
important going on here. Since this editing runs through both volumes of this
work, Luke and Acts, it is clearly part of the author’s central agenda to
recast the history of the early movement so that James and the family of Jesus
are muted and Paul emerges as the ultimate hero who proclaims the true gospel
to the world. The author of Luke-Acts was also pro-Roman. Paul, according to
Acts, was a Roman citizen. Luke wants his Gentile Roman readers to know and
value that about Paul, and thus look with favor on the growing Gentile
Christian movement. At the time he writes, in the first half of the second
century A.D., after the bloody Jewish revolts against Rome, it was less and
less popular to be Jewish or to be associated with Jewish causes—particularly
anything that might be seen as messianic.14 For example, in his account of the
trial of Jesus, Luke goes far beyond Mark, his primary source, to emphasize
that Pontius Pilate was a reasonable and just ruler who went to extraordinary
lengths to get Jesus released. He removes the reference to Pilate having Jesus
scourged and even omits the horrible mocking and abuse that Jesus suffered at
the hands of Pilate’s Roman Praetorium guard (Luke 23:25 compared with Mark
15:15–20). In Luke Jesus might not have been a friend of Rome, but he was
surely treated fairly by his Roman captors, as is Paul throughout the book of
Acts when he encounters Roman authorities. For Luke there was no possibility
that the followers of Jesus retreated to Galilee in sorrow and despair after
Jesus’ death. He puts all the “sightings” of Jesus in Jerusalem. He does not
even mention Galilee and what might have happened there, and in Luke Jesus
forbids the apostles to leave the city of Jerusalem. To him Galilee represents
the native, indigenous, Jewish origins of Jesus and his family, where the
leadership of James apparently took root following Jesus’ death, and the
influence of Mary his mother, Mary Magdalene, and Jesus’ other brothers was
strong. Galilee was also known, from the time of the Maccabees (c. 165 B.C.) as
the center of political and religious unrest and ripe for messianic candidates
such as Judas the Galilean, John the Baptizer, and Jesus of Nazareth. These
Jerusalem-based “sightings,” according to Luke, happened on Sunday, the very
day the empty tomb was discovered, so that any doubts the apostles must have
had in response to the brutal and horrible death of their leader were
immediately dispelled. Paul alone, who took the “Gospel” message all the way to
Rome, would fulfill Jesus’ last words, according to Luke: Thus it is written,
that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that
repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all
nations, beginning from Jerusalem. (Luke 24:46–47) According to this standard
story, about forty days after Jesus’ death the eleven apostles gathered
together in Jerusalem in the upper room where they had had their last meal with
Jesus. Their purpose was to choose a successor to Judas Iscariot, who had
killed himself. Luke carefully lists the eleven by name: “Peter, and John, and
James [the fisherman], and Andrew Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew
James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas brother of James.” Luke
then adds this qualifying sentence, which has served to marginalize the Jesus
family for the past nineteen hundred years: “All these [the Eleven] were
constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including
Mary the mother of Jesus as well as his brothers [unnamed]” (Acts 1:13–14).
Luke effectively separates Jesus’ family from the eleven apostles, associating
his mother, Mary, with the group of unnamed women from Galilee, while making
Jesus’ brothers anonymous. Also, in listing the eleven apostles he places Peter
and John first, giving them primacy, changing the order of his earlier list of
the Twelve (Luke 6:14). He is quite aware the three pillars of the Jesus
movement are James, Peter, and John, in that order—but who would ever imagine
that James was actually installed as leader over the newly constituted council
of the Twelve?15 What Luke dared not do was to write the Jesus family out of
his account entirely, knowing that later in his narrative he will have to
reluctantly acknowledge that James was in charge of the entire movement. This
makes it all the more strange that the first time James is ever mentioned by
name in Luke-Acts is when he mysteriously is presented as the undisputed leader
at the Jerusalem council of A.D. 50—twenty years after the death of Jesus! At
this meeting Paul and his assistant Barnabas appeared before the apostles and
elders at Jerusalem to officially give account of the Christian message they
were preaching to Greek-speaking non-Jews in Asia Minor. The main agenda was to
deliberate the status of these non-Jews who had joined the Nazarene movement in
response to Paul’s preaching. At issue was whether Gentiles should be required
to become Jewish through formal conversion, including male circumcision, and
take on the obligations to follow Jewish laws and customs. Paul strongly
opposed any such requirement and according to Acts, Peter supported him. Then
suddenly, with no introduction, after everyone had spoken, James declared his “judgment”
on the matter! (Acts 15:13–21) Luke does not even identify James as Jesus’
brother. James just appears, suddenly, never mentioned by name before, and he
is in charge of the entire movement, rendering a formal decision like a judge
presiding over a Jewish court of law. James declares that converting to Judaism
was not necessary for non-Jews in order to have a right relationship to God.
James here echoed the position of the Pharisees toward the non-Jewish world. So
long as one had shunned the worship of “idols,” giving allegiance to the God of
Israel alone, and was following the minimal ethical standards expected of all
humankind, one could have the status of a “righteous Gentile” or “God-fearer.”
As the rabbis later put things, “The righteous of all nations have a place in
the world to come.”16 The book of Acts mentions James one other time, when Paul
has returned to Jerusalem toward the end of the 50s A.D. The day after his
arrival Paul went to “visit James and all the elders were present” (Acts 21:18).
Once again it is clear that James is leader of the group and Paul knows he must
account to him. There had been a serious charge raised against Paul, based on
rumors that had circulated as to what he was preaching in Asia Minor and
Greece. The claim was that Paul himself, as a Jew, had given up an observant
Jewish life and that he was privately teaching other fellow Jews that they
could do the same (Acts 21:17–26). Presumably this action might involve such
things as dietary laws, observance of the Sabbath day and other Jewish holy
days, and even the requirement of male circumcision (Galatians 4:10; Colossians
2:16–17). It is noteworthy that Luke, who wants to present a perfect picture of
harmony and agreement between Paul and James, does not actually say that Paul
denied this charge, but only that Paul allowed James and the other leaders in
Jerusalem to think that it was not true. Acts presents both of Paul’s meetings
with James and the Jerusalem apostles and elders as harmonious and positive.
Fortunately we have Paul’s side of the story in his letters and we know there
was a diametrically opposite outcome. The irony of the Luke-Acts portrayal of
James is quite amazing. James is mentioned only twice, both times in the book
of Acts in an account that stretches over a thirty-year period. James is not
even identified as Jesus’ brother, yet those two scenes, separated by ten
years, offer us the strongest kind of historical evidence that James presided
over the Twelve as leader of the Christian movement. To get the details of how
James assumed this role of leadership, beyond what the letters of Paul
indicate, we have to go to sources outside the New Testament. The Gospel of
Thomas was discovered in upper Egypt in 1945 outside the little village of Nag
Hammadi. Although the text itself dates to the third century, scholars have
shown that it preserves, despite later theological embellishments, an original
Aramaic document that comes to us from the early days of the Jerusalem
church.17 It provides us a rare glimpse into what scholars have called “Jewish
Christianity,” that is, the earliest followers of Jesus led by James. The
Gospel of Thomas is not a narrative of the life of Jesus but rather a listing
of 114 of his “sayings” or teachings. Saying 12 reads as follows: The disciples
said to Jesus, “We know you will leave us. Who is going to be our leader then?”
Jesus said to them, “No matter where you go you are to go to James the Just,
for whose sake heaven and earth came into being.” Here we have an outright
statement, placed in the mouth of Jesus, that he is handing over the leadership
and spiritual direction of his movement to James. One should keep in mind that
the Gospel of Thomas in its present form comes to us from a later period, when
the matter of “who is going to be our leader” had become a critical one for the
followers of Jesus, with many competing claims of authority and power. The
phrase “no matter where you go” implies that the authority and leadership of
James is not restricted to the Jerusalem church. According to this text, James
had been put in charge over all of Jesus’ followers. The phrase “for whose sake
heaven and earth came into being” reflects a Jewish notion that the world,
though wicked and unworthy of God’s grace, is sustained because of the extraordinary
virtues of a handful of righteous or “just” individuals.18 James the brother of
Jesus acquired the designation “James the Just” both to distinguish him from
others named James and to honor him for his preeminent position. Clement of
Alexandria, who wrote in the late second century A.D., is another early source
that confirms this succession of James. Clement writes: “Peter and James [the
fisherman] and John after the Ascension of the Savior did not struggle for
glory, because they had previously been given honor by the Savior, but chose
James the Just as Overseer of Jerusalem.”19 In a subsequent passage Clement
elaborated: “After the resurrection the Lord [Jesus] gave the tradition of
knowledge to James the Just and John and Peter, these gave it to the other
Apostles, and the other Apostles to the Seventy.”20 This passage preserves for
us the tiered structure of the leadership that Jesus left behind: James the
Just as successor; John and Peter as his left-and right-hand advisors; the rest
of the Twelve; then the Seventy, who are referred to in the book of Acts as the
“elders.” This council of Seventy is one that Jesus himself had established and
appears to function as a kind of proto-Christian “Sanhedrin,” the official
governing body of the Jews at that time. Eusebius, the early-fourth-century
Christian historian, in commenting on this passage wrote, “James whom men of
old had surnamed ‘Just’ for his excellence of virtue, is recorded to have been
the first elected to the throne of the oversight of the church in Jerusalem.”21
The Greek term thronos refers to a “seat” or “chair” of authority and is the
same term used for a king or ruler. In Eusebius’s time the bishop of Rome had
not yet achieved supremacy over bishops in other areas, so Eusebius seems to
have no problem with presenting James as a kind of protopope in Jerusalem.
Eusebius also preserves the testimony of Hegesippus, a Jewish-Christian of the
early second century, who he says is from the “generation after the Apostles”:
The succession of the church passed to James the brother of the Lord, together
with the Apostles. He was called the “Just” by all men from the Lord’s time
until ours, since many are called James, but he was holy from his mother’s
womb.22 The Greek word that Hegesippus used here, “to succeed” (diadexomai), is
regularly used for a royal blood line, for example, when Philip king of Macedon
passes on his rule to his son Alexander the Great.23 We also have a recently
recovered Syriac source, The Ascents of James, embedded in a later corpus known
as the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions, that reflects some of the earliest
traditions related to the Jerusalem church under the leadership of James the
Just.24 It records events in Jerusalem seven years following the death of
Jesus, when James is clearly at the helm: “The church in Jerusalem that was
established by our Lord was increasing in numbers being ruled uprightly and
firmly by James who was made Overseer over it by our Lord.”25 The Latin version
of the Recognitions passes on the following admonition: “Wherefore observe the
greatest caution, that you believe no teacher, unless he bring from Jerusalem
the testimonial of James the Lord’s brother, or of whosoever may come after
him” (4:35). The Second Apocalypse of James, one of the texts found with the
Gospel of Thomas at Nag Hammadi, stressed the intimate bond between Jesus and
James, in keeping with the idea that James was the “beloved disciple.” In this
text Jesus and James were “nursed with the same milk” and Jesus kisses his
brother James and says to him, “Behold I shall reveal to you everything my
beloved” (50.15–22). What is impressive about these sources is the way in which
they speak with a single voice, yet come from various authors and time periods,
confirming what the book of Acts never relates openly, but Paul states
explicitly. The basic elements of the picture they preserve for us are
amazingly consistent: Jesus passes to James his successor rule of the Church;
James is widely known by the surname “the Just One” because of his reputation
for righteousness both in his community and among the people; and Peter, John,
and the rest of the Twelve, as well as Paul, look to James as their undisputed
leader. It is quite remarkable that the contemporary Jewish historian Josephus,
who had no affiliation with the Christian movement, relates the death of James,
not recorded in the New Testament, in some detail. Josephus reports that the
Jewish people viewed James’s death at the hand of the Jewish Sanhedrin, led by
the high priest Ananus, with such disfavor that their protest caused Herod
Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great, to have Ananus removed from his priestly
office after only three months.26 Based on his account we can reliably date
James’s death to A.D. 62. The early Jewish-Christian writer Hegesippus
preserves the bloody details, relating how James was thrown from the corner of
the Temple enclosure into the Kidron valley, where he was stoned and beaten to
death with a club.27 To think that the influence and importance of James has
been all but forgotten by Christians through the ages is cause enough for
wonder, but beyond the man is a message. What about the lost Christianity that
Jesus, James, and the early followers of Jesus represented?
RECOVERING
THE LOST CHRISTIANITY OF JESUS
Although
James has been all but written out of our New Testament records he nonetheless
remains our best and most direct link to the historical Jesus. However one
evaluates Paul’s “Gospel,” it is nonetheless a fact that what Paul preached was
wholly based upon his own visionary experiences, whereas James and the original
apostles had spent extensive time with Jesus during his lifetime. Is there a
reliable way to recover the Christianity of James and the early Jerusalem
church? The difficulty we face is that Paul’s influence within our New
Testament documents is permeating and all pervasive. It includes his thirteen
letters, as well as the letter of Hebrews, sometimes even attributed to Paul,
but much more. Even though tradition has it that the gospel of Mark was based
on the tradition received from Peter, as I have already mentioned, most
scholars today are convinced that Mark’s story of Jesus is almost wholly
Pauline in its theology, namely Jesus as the suffering Son of God who gave his
life as an atonement for the sins of the world (Mark 8:31–36; 10:45;
14:22–25).28 Matthew follows Mark in this regard. Luke-Acts, which comprises
the standard story of early Christianity, with an emphasis on Paul, downplays
James as we have seen. Even the gospel of John, in theology at least, also
reflects Paul’s essential understanding of Jesus. 1 Peter, a document one might
expect to reflect an alternative perspective, is an unabashed presentation of
Paul’s ideas under the name of Peter. Paul’s view of Christ as the divine, preexistent
Son of God who took on human form, died on the cross for the sins of the world,
and was resurrected to heavenly glory at God’s right hand becomes the Christian
message. In reading the New Testament one might assume this was the only
message ever preached and there was no other gospel. But such was not the case.
If we listen carefully we can still hear a muted original voice—every bit as
“Christian” as that of Paul. It is the voice of James, echoing what he received
from his brother Jesus. The most neglected document in the entire New Testament
is the letter written by James. It has become so marginalized that many
Christians are not even aware of its existence. And yet it is part of every
Christian Bible, tucked away well to the end of the New Testament. It was
almost left out entirely. When the Christians began to canonize the New
Testament in the fourth century, that is, to authoritatively determine which
books would be included and which would not, the status of the letter of James
was questioned. It was not included in the Muratorian Fragment, our earliest
list of New Testament books that were accepted as scripture in Rome at the end
of the second century.29 The thirdcentury A.D. Christian scholars Origen and
Eusebius both listed it among the disputed books.30 Even the great Western
Christian scholars Jerome and Augustine accepted the letter only reluctantly.
It was finally made part of the New Testament canon of sacred scripture not
because its content pleased the later church theologians, but on the basis of
it bearing the name of James, the brother of Jesus. These early Christians who
questioned the value of the letter of James were troubled that Jesus is
mentioned just two times in passing and either reference could easily be
removed without affecting the content of the letter or the points James was
making (James 1:1; 2:1). In addition, the letter lacks any reference to Paul’s
view of Jesus as the divine Son of God, his atoning death on the cross, or his
glorified resurrection. How could a New Testament document that lacked such
teachings really be considered “Christian”? In fact, James directly disputed
Paul’s teaching of “salvation by faith” without deeds of righteousness. He
does not mention Paul’s name but the reference is unmistakable, given what we
know from Paul’s letters about faith in Christ alone being sufficient to bring
salvation. James speaks positively of the enduring validity of the Jewish
Torah, or Law of Moses, and insists that all its commandments are to be
observed: What does it profit, my brothers, if a man says he has faith but has
not works? Can his faith save him? . . . So faith by itself, if it has no
works, is dead. (James 2:14, 17) For whoever looks into the perfect Torah, the
Torah of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer that forgets but a doer that
acts, he shall be blessed in his doing. (James 1:25) For whoever keeps the
whole Torah but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. (James 2:10)
James addressed his letter to the “Twelve Tribes in the Dispersion” (1:1). The
term “Dispersion” refers to the notion that large portions of the Israelite or
Jewish people had been scattered widely among the nations and were no longer
living in the homeland. James refers here directly to the scattered Twelve
Tribes of Israel, over which Jesus had promised the twelve apostles would rule.
As the presiding head of this newly constituted Israel, expected to emerge
fully when the apocalyptic Day of the Lord arrived, James intends his letter to
be a call to all Israel to prepare for the imminent Day of Judgment (James
5:7–9). The letter reflects an early Palestinian Jewish cultural context,
perhaps in the 40s A.D., before there was a strict separation between the
Nazarene followers of Jesus and other Jewish groups. For example, James
referred to the local meeting or assembly of proto-Christians as a synagogue,
not a church, reflecting his Jewish understanding of the Christian movement
(James 2:2). Even though the letter is written in Greek, at least as we have it
today, linguistically it reflects numerous Aramaic and Hebrew expressions and
recent research has revealed its Palestinian Jewish milieu.31 What is
particularly notable about the letter of James is that the ethical content of
its teaching is directly parallel to the teachings of Jesus that we know from
the Q source. The Q source is the earliest collection of the teachings and
sayings of Jesus, which scholars date to around the year 50 A.D. It has not
survived as an intact document but both Matthew and Luke use it extensively. By
comparing Matthew and Luke and extracting the material they use in common but
do not derive from their main source, which is Mark, we are able to come to a
reasonable construction of this lost “gospel of Q.” It consists of about 235
verses that are mostly but not entirely the “sayings” of Jesus. The Q source
takes us back to the original teachings of Jesus minus much of the theological
framework that the gospels subsequently added.32 Perhaps the most striking
characteristic of the Q source in terms of reconstructing Christian origins is
that it has nothing of Paul’s theology, particularly his Christology or view of
Christ. The most familiar parts of Q to most Bible readers are in Matthew’s
“Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5–7) and Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain” (Luke 6).
If one takes the letter of James, short as it is, there are no fewer than
thirty direct references, echoes, and allusions to the teachings of Jesus found
in the Q source! A few of the more striking parallels are the following: JESUS’
TEACHINGS IN THE Q SOURCE Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the
kingdom of God. (Luke 6:20) TEACHINGS OF JAMES Has not God chosen the poor to
be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom. (2:5) JESUS’ TEACHINGS IN THE Q
SOURCE Whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments . . . shall be
[called] least in the kingdom. (Matthew 5:19) TEACHINGS OF JAMES Whoever keeps
the whole Torah but fails in one point has become guilty of it all. (2:10)
JESUS’ TEACHINGS IN THE Q SOURCE Not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” shall enter
the kingdom . . . but he who does the will of my Father. (Matthew 7:21)
TEACHINGS OF JAMES Be doers of the word and not hearers only. (1:22) JESUS’
TEACHINGS IN THE Q SOURCE How much more will your Father . . . give good gifts
to those who ask him. (Matthew 7:11) TEACHINGS OF JAMES Every good gift . . .
coming down from the Father. (1:17) JESUS’ TEACHINGS IN THE Q SOURCE Woe to you
that are rich, for you have received your consolation. (Luke 6:24) TEACHINGS OF
JAMES Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon
you. (5:1) JESUS’ TEACHINGS IN THE Q SOURCE Do not swear at all, either by
heaven for it is the throne of God, or by earth for it is his footstool . . .
let what you say be simply “Yes” or “No.” (Matthew 5:34, 37) TEACHINGS OF JAMES
Do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath but let your
yes be yes and your no be no. (5:12) The letter of James has other important
connections to the message of Jesus beyond these characteristic ethical teachings.
James knows about the practice of anointing the sick with oil, as Jesus had
practiced and taught his disciples (Mark 6:13; James 5:14). Jesus had taught
that one is forgiven of sins and “justified” before God through repentance and
prayer—that is, directly calling upon God. James wrote that confession of sins
and prayer were the way to salvation (James 5:15–16). This is in keeping with
Jesus’ teaching in the Q source. Jesus related a story in which two men were
praying in the Temple, one who was proud of his righteousness and the other who
considered himself so unworthy he would not even lift his eyes to heaven. The
latter one struck his breast and cried out “God be merciful to me a sinner.”
Jesus declared “this one went up justified before God rather than the other”
(Luke 18:14). This is in keeping with the general Jewish understanding
regarding forgiveness of sins. As the Psalms express: “Have mercy upon me O
God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy blot
out all my transgressions and cleanse me from my sins” (Psalm 51:1). Judaism
does not teach “salvation” by human merit as sometimes assumed, but rather that
all human beings are “justified” by grace, finding forgiveness from their sins
by repentance and prayer—“calling upon the name of God” (Joel 2:32). Even the
animal sacrifices of the Jewish Temple were never understood to atone for or
cover sins unless one first turned in faith to God and asked for grace and
forgiveness (Psalm 51:16). What we get in the letter of James is the most
direct possible link to the Jewish teachings of Jesus himself. James is quite
sure that the “Judge” is standing at the door, and that the kingdom of God has
drawn very near (James 5:9). He warns the rich and those who oppress the weak
that very soon the judgment of God will strike. James seems to be directly
echoing and affirming what he had learned and passed on from his brother Jesus.
It is important to note that James did not directly quote Jesus or attribute
any of these teachings to Jesus by name—even though they are teaching of Jesus.
For James the Christian message is not the person of Jesus but the message that
Jesus proclaimed. James’s letter lacks a single teaching that is characteristic
of the apostle Paul and it draws nothing at all from the traditions of Mark or
John. What is preserved in this precious document is a reflection of the
original apocalyptic proclamation of Jesus—the “gospel of the kingdom of God”
with its political and social implications. If we move outside the New Testament,
there is another major witness that has surfaced in recent times that allows us
to trace more clearly the trajectory of this forgotten message through earliest
Christianity. A text known as the Didache was discovered in 1873 in a library
at Constantinople, quite by accident, by a Greek priest, Father Bryennios.33
This document dates to the beginning of the second century A.D. or even
earlier, making it as old as some of the books included in the New Testament
canon. Indeed, among certain circles of early Christianity it had achieved
near-canonical status. The word Didache in Greek means “Teaching,” and the
document gets its name from its first line, which functions as a title: “The
Teaching of the Lord through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations.”34 The work is
divided into sixteen chapters and was intended to be a “handbook” for Christian
converts. The first six chapters give a summary of Christian ethics based on
the teachings of Jesus, divided into two parts: the way of life and the way of
death. Much of the content is similar to what we have in the “Sermon on the
Mount” and the “Sermon on the Plain,” that is, the basic ethical teachings of
Jesus drawn from the Q source. It begins with the two “great commandments,” to
love God and love one’s neighbor as oneself, as well as a version of the Golden
Rule: “And whatever you do not want to happen to you, do not do to another.” It
contains many familiar injunctions and exhortations, but often with additions
not found in our Gospels: Bless those who curse you, pray for your enemies, and
fast for those who persecute you. (1.3) If anyone slaps your right cheek, turn
the other to him as well and you will be perfect. (1.4) Give to everyone who
asks, and do not ask for anything back, for the Father wants everyone to be
given something from the gracious gifts he himself provides. (1.5) But it also
contains many sayings and teachings not found in our New Testament gospels but
that nonetheless are consistent with the tradition we know from Jesus and from
his brother James: Let your gift to charity sweat in your hands until you know
to whom to give it. (1.6) Do not be of two minds or speak from both sides of
your mouth, for speaking from both sides of your mouth is a deadly trap. (2.4)
Do not be one who reaches out your hands to receive but draws them back from
giving. (4.5) Do not shun a person in need, but share all things with your
brother and do not say that anything is your own. (4.8) Following the ethical
exhortations there are four chapters on baptism, fasting, prayer, the
Eucharist, and the anointing with oil, which remind one very much of the kind
of instruction one finds in the teachings of Jesus preserved in the Q source.
The Eucharist is a simple thanksgiving meal of wine and bread with references
to Jesus as the holy “vine of David.” It ends with a prayer: “Hosanna to the
God of David.” The Davidic lineage of Jesus is thus emphasized. Absent is
Paul’s idea that the bread represented Jesus’ flesh and the wine his blood,
shed for the sins of the world. There are final chapters on testing prophets
and appointing worthy leaders. Again the instructions seem to reflect a
Palestinian context, similar to that we see in the Q source, where wandering
teachers and prophets are operating within the various communities. The last
chapter contains warnings about the “last days,” the coming of a final
deceiving false prophet, and the resurrection of the righteous who have died.
It ends with language similar to that used by the New Testament letter of Jude,
the brother of Jesus and James. The key phrases are taken from Zechariah and
Daniel: “The Lord will come and all of his holy ones with him” and “Then the
world will see the Lord coming on the clouds of the sky.” Both references to
the “Lord” here are to Yahweh, the God of Israel. The entire content and tone
of the Didache reminds one strongly of the faith and piety we find in the
letter of James, and teachings of Jesus in the Q source. The most amazing thing
about the Didache in terms of the two types of Christian faith—that of Paul and
that of Jesus—is that there is nothing in this document that corresponds to
Paul’s “Gospel”—no divinity of Jesus, no atonement through his body and blood,
and not even any direct reference to Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. In the
Didache Jesus is the one who has brought the knowledge of life and faith, but
there is no emphasis whatsoever upon the figure of Jesus apart from his
message. Sacrifice and forgiveness of sins in the Didache come through good
deeds and a consecrated life (4.6). What we have surviving in the Didache is an
abiding witness to a form of the Christian faith that traces directly back to
Jesus and was carried on and perpetuated by James, and the rest of the twelve
apostles. As we turn to Paul and begin to examine the elements of his
understanding of the Christian message, it is important that we place him
within this world of Jesus and the form of Christianity that he first
encountered when he joined the movement. As we will see, Paul had his own
fiercely independent “Gospel,” which contrasted sharply to the Christianity of
Jesus, James, and their earliest followers. Paul completely transformed
everything from earth to heaven, and the largely untold story of how that
happened is preserved in his own words within the New Testament itself. Paul
occupies a unique place historically in that he not only sets forth his own
independent version of what he calls “the Gospel,” but he is our earliest
witness to faith in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Since Paul’s letters all
date to the 50s A.D., and are thus our earliest Christian documents, they can
provide us with some important historical clues as to how Christians might have
understood Jesus’ resurrection in the very earliest years of the movement—even
before there were written gospels, and for that matter, even before Paul joined
the movement. Before examining Paul’s understanding of his own mission and
message it makes sense to probe as far back as possible, using him as our
earliest source, in trying to grasp what happened immediately after Jesus’
death. As we will see, his view of Jesus’ resurrection differs substantially
from that of the later gospel accounts.
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