Name
James was known as "the Just" because of his ascetical practices, which exposed ingesting Nazarite vows. A title too aids distinguish him from either more crucial numbers around early Christianty, like Saint James the Great and Saint James the Less.

He is occasionally known as "James the Brother of Jesus." Jesus's brothers — James too when Jude, Simon & Joses — come mentioned around Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3, and probably Acts 12:17. James alone is mentioned as a brother of Jesus by Paul around Epistle to the Galatians 1:19.

A accurate relationship between James & Jesus occurs as point of contestation. Many early writers (a Clementine literature, Hegesippus-Eusebius) consider him only a half-brother to Jesus. This review says that Joseph had children from either the last marriage, & that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was not James' mother. This claim is foremost described in the First & Second century texts The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, The Protoevangelium of James, and in the First century Liturgy of St James.

Life
A canonical writings of the New Testament, when well as more written sources from either a early church, provide occasionally insights into Saint James' life & his role in the early church.

Acts of the Apostles provides evidence that James was an significant figure in the Christian community of Jerusalem. Whenever Peter, getting miraculously shake prison, must flee Jerusalem, he asks that James become informed (12:17). While a Christians of Antioch are concerned all over whether Gentile Christians require become circumcised to be saved, & it send Paul & Barnabas to confer with the Jerusalem church there, James played a large role in the formulation of the council's guide (15:13ff). & after Paul arrives inside Jerusalem to deliver a money he raised for the faithful there, these are to James that he speaks, & world health organization insists that Paul ceremonially cleanse himself at Herod's Temple to prove his faith and deny rumors of teaching rebellion against the Torah (21:18ff) (a charge of antinomianism).

Paul further describes James as existence one of a souls a risen Christ showed himself to (1 Corinthians 15:3-8); then down the road inside I Corinthians, mentions James around how else that suggests James got been married (9:5); & within Galatians, Paul lists James by using Cephas (better called Peter) and John, as a leash "pillars" of the Church, & world health organization may minister to the "circumcised" (in the main Jews and Jewish Proselytes) in Jerusalem, spell Paul & his fellows may minister to the "uncircumcised" (in the main Gentiles). (2:9, 2:12). These terms (circumcised/uncircumcised) come typically interpreted to mean Jews and Greeks, who were preponderant, notwithstanding these are an oversimplification when First century Iudaea Province also had a bit of Jews world health organization there is no hanker circumcised, & occasionally Greeks (known as Proselytes or even Judaizers) & others like Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Arabs world health organization did.

Around describing James ascetical modus vivendi, Saint Jerome, De Viris Illustribus, quotes Hegesippus' account of James from a fifth book of Hegesippus' wasted Comment: Jerome adds, "He says also many other things, too numerous to mention." His conceptiin that James went into a Holy of Holies, whether around linen or even wool, shows how else unaware Jerome was of a virtually all basic Jewish practice, though a few use at times utilized a quotation to trend lines a argument that James was considered a high priest - the high priest of the temple alone was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies when a year, on Yom Kippur.

Death
The debated passage, typically characterized as a Christian interpolation, around Josephus's Jewish Antiquities records James' dying within Jerusalem when getting occurred fallowing a death of the procurator Porcius Festus, yet prior to Clodius Albinus took office (Antiquities 20,9)— which has so been dated to AD 62. A high priest Ananus took advantage of this want of royal oversight to assemble the council of judges world health organization condemned James "on the charge of breaking the law," so experienced him executed by stoning. Josephus reports that Ananus' work was widely deem little to the higher degree judicial slaying, & offended a total of "those who were considered the most fair-minded people in the City, and strict in their observance of the Law," who went when far when meeting Albinus when he entered a province to petition him just about a matter. Their agitations led to Ananus existence deposed when high priest.

Eusebius, when quoting Josephus' account, as well records otherwise misplaced passages from either Hegesippus (see links beneath), & Clement of Alexandria (Historia Ecclesiae, 2.Xxiii). Hegesippus' account apparently varied from either what Josephus reports: a Pharisees, upset at his teachings, first threw him from either a summit of the Temple in Jerusalem, then stoned him, & in the end broke his skull by having the to the full's club. (Hegesippus' account can keep around combined trinity variable accounts of James' dying.)

Vespasian's siege & capture of Jerusalem delayed a choice of Symeon, son of Clopas, to succeed James.

Influence
When early when Origen, James a Merely has incline credit for writing the New Testament Epistle of James, although this epistle has also been ascribed to Saint James the Great and James the Less. The total of modern Biblical scholars, such as Raymond E. Brown, while admitting the Greek of this epistle is too fluent for someone whose mother tongue is Aramaic argue that it expresses a number of his ideas, either rewritten by a scribe or by a follower of James the Just.

Modern historiographer of the early Christian churches tend to place James in the tradition of Jewish Christianity, which wwhen more conservativist than a tradition Paul was a share of refered to as Pauline Christianity; where Paul famously emphasized faith on top actions or even observance of Mosaic Law, which he considered a effect, James is thought to own espoused a paired position which is derogatively known as Judaizing. A single corpus usually cited when proof of this come a Recognitions & Preachment of Clement (likewise referred to as a Clementine literature), versions of a novel that hwhen been dated to when early as a Second century, in which James appears as a angelic figure world health organization is assaulted by an unidentified enemy a select few modern critics believe can be Paul.

Robert Eisenman has placed forth river the thesis that James & a observant Christian Jews were marginalized by Paul & the Gentile Christians world health organization followed him, a thesis that has been widely criticized for his recreation of the hostile encounter between Jewish & Pauline Christianity, on his reconstruction to "proto-Christian" elements of the Essenes, as represented in the Dead Sea scrolls. A bit of of the criticism deconstructs when Pauline apologetics, however Eisenman is equally coarse on the Christians at Jerusalem, whom he portrays as a nationalistic, messianic, priestly, & xenophobic sect of ultra-legal pietists.

Occasionally scholars, like Ben Witherington, guess that a conflict between these 2 positions has been overemphasized, & that them actually held quite similar beliefs.

Occasionally apocryphal gospels testify to a reverence Jewish followers of Jesus (like the Ebionites) had for James. A Gospel of the Hebrews fragment 21 relates a risen Jesus' appearance to James. A Gospel of Thomas (one of the works involved in the Nag Hammadi library), saying 12, relates that a adherent asked Jesus, "We are aware that you will depart from us. Who will be our leader?" Jesus said to him, "No matter where you come [from] it is to James the Just that you shall go, for whose sake heaven and earth have come to exist."

Fragment X of Papias refers to "James the bishop and apostle". Epiphanius' Panarion 29.4 describes James as a Nazirite.

A pseudepigraphical First Apocalypse of James associated with James's title mentions numerous details, a bit of of which could reflect early traditions: he is said to keep close at h& authority on top a 12 Apostles & a early church; this function too adds, somewhat puzzlingly, that James left Jerusalem and fled to Pella before the Roman siege of that city around AD 70. (Ben Witherington suggests what is intended by this was that James' bones were taken per early Christians world health organization experienced fled Jerusalem).

A Protevangelion of James (or "Infancy Gospel of James"), the operate of the Second century, likewise presents itself every bit written by James — a sign that his authorship would lend authority — and then wash many tractates in the codices obtained at Nag Hammadi.

Brother, half-brother, step-brother or cousin of Jesus
To numerous cold-eyed outsiders, a total of the Jameses in the immediate circle of Jesus seems to use been multiplied, & Jerome's peradventure accidental remark, "Many indeed are called James" has the disarming frankness. A Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) divides a Just released Testament information to "James" among 5 separate personages [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08280a.htm], separating apart potentially the "James, the brother of Jude", by testimony of the Epistle of Jude 1:1, and remarking "Most Catholic commentators identify Jude with the 'Judas Jacobi', the 'brother of James' (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13), called thus because his brother James was better known than himself in the primitive Church." Non-Catholic readers rather Robert Eisenman (Eisenman 1997) will recognize in that "Jude" of the creator of Luke & Acts Jude Thomas.

Quite aside from either a literary doppelgänger, a relationship of James, one of the desposyni or the "heirs of the Master", to Jesus has been rendered problematic to numbers of Christians. Due to a belief of Christians that Jesus Christ was a Boy of God, born of a Virgin, numerous Christians guess James the Merely & the more brethren of Jesus so must at the best exist as half-half brother. Jesus's brothers—James besides when Jude, Simon and Joses—are unequivocably mentioned in Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3 and, less unambiguously, by Paul around Galatians 1:19. Potentially inside the passage in Josephus' Jewish Antiquities (20.Nina from carolina.Single) a Jewish historiographer describes James when "the brother of Jesus who is called Christ", though this passage has been suggested as an interpolation.

Notwithstanding, a condition has be farther compounded per underdeveloped dogma of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. As a result a belief that Mary's virginity continued possibly when a Virgin Birth (not directly attested in the canonic New Testament), Eastern Orthodoxy treats James as the step-brother, existence a boy of Joseph, but not Mary & instead by a last married woman of Joseph, unmentioned within canonic texts.

Eusebius of Caesarea reports a tradition that James a Only was the boy of Joseph's brother Clopas, and so was of the "brethren" (which he interpretes when "cousin") of Jesus described in the Just released Testament. Jerome (died 420) argued vehemently (De Viris Illustribus, "On Illustrious Men") that James was simply a cousin-german to Jesus, the boy of an additional Mary, a married woman of Clopas & "sister" of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the following manner: Jerome's opinion has been embraced per Roman Catholic church, and has a consequence of suggesting an identification of James a Merely using James the Less. Despite this, biblical scholars tend to distinguish the children.

James a Merely, a sole large Christian James within Jerusalem, is referred to by Paul as an Apostle. Around Galatians 1:18 – 19, Paul, recounting his conversion, recalls "Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and tarried with him fifteen days. But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother."

The ossuary
Independent article: James Ossuary

In the November 2002 issue of Bible Archeology Review, André Lemaire of the Sorbonne University in Paris, published the report that an ossuary bearing the inscription Ya`aqov bar Yosef akhui Yeshua` ("James son of Joseph brother of Jesus") got been identified belonging to the collector, world health organization quickly turned bent on exist as Oded Golan, a forger posing as a collector. Whenever authentic it would stand been a foremost archeologic proof that Jesus existed aside from a manuscript tradition. A ossuary was exhibited at a Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada late that year; nevertheless, in June 18 2003, the Israeli Antiquities Authority published a report concluding that a inscription occurs as modern forgery according to their analysis of the patina. Specifically, it appears that the inscription was added recently & manufactured to look old by addition of a chalk guide. Oded Golan has since been arrested & his forgery devices & part completed forgeries develop been recovered. In December 29 2004, Golan was indicted in an Israeli court along sustaining triplet more men - Robert Deutsch, an inscriptions adept world health organization teaches at Haifa University; collector Shlomo Cohen; & antiquities dealer Faiz al-Amaleh. It is accused of existence the portion of a forgery ring that got been operating for supplementary than Xx years. Golan denies a charges against him.