Series: The Twelve Apostles · Part 10 of 13
Four lists, four mentions, and not one recorded word or deed.
James son of Alphaeus is the quietest man among the Twelve. His entire biblical biography is his name. Almost everything popularly said about him belongs to somebody else.
Who Was James the Son of Alphaeus?
He appears in Matt 10:3, Mark 3:18, Luke 6:15, and Acts 1:13. In every list he heads the third group of four, which is a fixed position and suggests a standing the text does not otherwise explain.
Acts 1:13 puts him in the upper room after the ascension. That is the last thing Scripture says about him.
He may be the James whose mother Mary stood at the cross in Mark 15:40, described there as James the younger or the less. The identification is plausible and unprovable, and the nickname is where the traditional title comes from. It probably distinguished him by age or height rather than by importance.
How Many Men Named James Are in the New Testament?
Three matter, and keeping them apart fixes a surprising amount.
James son of Zebedee, one of the Twelve, brother of John, beheaded by Herod Agrippa I in AD 44. The only apostolic death Scripture records.
James son of Alphaeus, one of the Twelve, this man, about whom nothing else is preserved.
James the brother of Jesus, who was not one of the Twelve. He becomes a leader of the Jerusalem church after the resurrection, speaks decisively at the council in Acts 15, is named by Paul among the pillars in Gal 2:9, and is almost certainly the author of the letter of James.
Sermons routinely collapse the third into one of the first two. The result is an apostle credited with a letter he did not write and a council he did not run.
Was James the Less the Brother of Jesus?
No, and the text is direct about why not.
John 7:5 says that even his own brothers did not believe in him. That is stated during the ministry, at a point when the Twelve had already been appointed. A man who did not believe was not among the apostles Jesus had selected and sent out.
What happened to the brother is one of the more striking turns in the New Testament. He goes from unbelief to leadership of the Jerusalem church, and Paul mentions in 1 Cor 15:7 that the risen Jesus appeared to James. Something happened between those two points, and the text names it in half a verse.
But that is a different man. Merging him into the apostolic list erases the very thing that makes his story worth telling.
How Did James the Son of Alphaeus Die?
Unknown, and most accounts on offer were taken from the other James.
The familiar stories of a James thrown from the temple pinnacle and clubbed to death belong to James the brother of Jesus. Josephus records his execution, and Hegesippus supplies the fuller account. Neither is describing a member of the Twelve.
What remains for James son of Alphaeus is a scatter of late martyrologies sending him to Egypt or Persia with no early or independent support. The honest verdict is that we do not know how this apostle died.
Which Apostles Have No Recorded Words in the Bible?
Several, and it is worth listing them plainly.
James son of Alphaeus says nothing. Simon the Zealot says nothing. Bartholomew says nothing, unless he is Nathanael. Matthew, despite the Gospel bearing his name, says nothing in any Gospel narrative. James son of Zebedee speaks only in the request for a throne, which he makes jointly with his brother.
That is a substantial portion of the Twelve leaving no dialogue at all. These were men Jesus chose after a night of prayer, trained for three years, and sent out with authority. The record of what most of them said is empty.
Which is a problem only if impact is measured by documentation. The office in Matt 19:28 is twelve thrones judging twelve tribes, and the man with no recorded sentence holds one of them.
Part of a series working through the Twelve one at a time. See the overview of the Twelve as a group and the Twelve Apostles timeline.
Continues from Part 9: Who Was Matthew the Tax Collector? · Continues in Part 11: Who Was Thaddaeus? Jude, Not Iscariot · Start at Part 1: Who Were the Twelve Apostles of Jesus?
All 13 parts in this series
- Part 1Who Were the Twelve Apostles of Jesus?
- Part 2Who Was the Apostle Peter? Life and Death
- Part 3Who Was the Apostle Andrew?
- Part 4How Did James the Apostle Die? Acts 12
- Part 5Who Was the Apostle John? Patmos and Ephesus
- Part 6Who Was the Apostle Philip? Two Philips
- Part 7Was Bartholomew the Same as Nathanael?
- Part 8Did Thomas the Apostle Go to India?
- Part 9Who Was Matthew the Tax Collector?
- Part 10Who Was James the Less? The Three JamesesYou are here
- Part 11Who Was Thaddaeus? Jude, Not Iscariot
- Part 12Who Was Simon the Zealot?
- Part 13How Did Judas Iscariot Die? And Matthias
New field notes when they are ready, along with the research underneath them. No drip sequence, no course, nothing to buy.
Footnotes1
- The three-groups-of-four structure is consistent across all four lists, with the same four names in each group and the same man heading each group, while the order inside a group varies. Peter heads the first, Philip the second, James son of Alphaeus the third. Whatever accounts for that fixity applies to him as much as to Peter.
Sources
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1. Records the execution of James the brother of Jesus, which is the death most often misattributed to James son of Alphaeus. Free in full at several public-domain hosts.
Hegesippus, preserved in Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 2.23. The fuller account of that same death, including the temple pinnacle. Free in full at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
Where the sourcing stops: the count of apostles with no recorded words is my own tally from the Gospel texts. The suggestion that heading a group of four in all four lists implies standing is an inference from the pattern, not a claim any source makes.
