Category:James--history (subject)

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Survey of scholarly works on James the Just.

Overview

In their exaltation of Peter's and Paul's leadership respectively, neither Catholics (who denied the very existence of Jesus' brothers) nor Protestants (who were deeply influenced by the negative view expressed by Martin Luther on the Letter of James) showed any interested in James.

Only in the 1800s the Tubingen School rediscovered his figure as the main opponent of Paul of Tarsus.

In 2002 great sensation came from the discovery of an ossuary with the inscription “James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” The finding was presented to the public by the Discovery Channel on October 21, 2002, and in November of the same year the artifact was exhibited in connection with the Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. On June 18, 2003, however, a report by the Israeli Antiquities Authority concluded that the inscription on the “James ossuary” was a modern forgery.