Where Was James at the Crucifixion?

The gospel of Mark tells us that a few women stood by Jesus when he was crucified:

• Mary Magdalene
• Mary the mother of James the Less and Joses
• Salome

Most biblical scholars think that the second Mary on this list, the mother of “James the Less and Joses” was the mother of Jesus. The gospel of Matthew gives a similar list or women, and so does the gospel of Luke.

But we know that Jesus had four brothers—James, Joses, Simon, and Judas. (See my earlier post, The Mysterious Brothers of Jesus.)

The oldest of these, James, eventually became the leader of the Jesus movement in Jerusalem and was murdered by the high priest about the year AD 62. (See my post, James the Brother of Jesus, Part 1.)

But that raises a question.

Why Wasn’t James With His Brother Jesus?

If James was so important in the early history of the Jesus movement, why wasn’t he there at the cross beside his mother? Why didn’t he stand up and fight for his brother?

That’s a hard question to answer, because none of our sources tells us. But we can guess. We have a couple of clues:

• James and his other brothers were on bad terms with Jesus.
• Jesus was executed for treason.

What do those two clues have to do with the fact that James didn’t show up for his own brother’s crucifixion? Let’s look at those two data points.

James Was on Bad Terms With Jesus

Probably about six months before the crucifixion, Jesus and his brothers had an argument in their hometown.

The brothers told him he should go up to the Feast of Tabernacles and make a name for himself, if he thought he was such a big deal. The story is found in the gospel of John.

Jesus told them he wasn’t going to the feast.

So the brothers went without him.

Then Jesus changed his mind and went to the feast after all.

The passage makes the interesting comment that even his brothers did not believe in him.

That’s pretty harsh. It tells us that there was a lot of friction in Jesus’s own family.

James was the oldest of the brothers of Jesus, and the obvious leader. Clearly, James had some major issue with Jesus. We don’t know exactly what this issue was. But they didn’t get along.

So that’s one fact that explains why James didn’t come to the crucifixion. But there’s another.

Jesus Was Executed for Treason

All four gospels report that Jesus was executed as “King of the Jews.” Governor Pilate ordered that those words were written on a sign above Jesus’s head on the cross.

“King of the Jews” was not meant as a compliment.

“King of the Jews” was the charge against Jesus.

And that amounted to treason, because the Jews already had a king over them, the emperor of Rome, Tiberius Caesar.

Jesus was executed on charges of making a treasonous claim to be the “King of the Jews.”

And that put all his brothers in extreme danger, because once he was dead, they would naturally have been considered next in line to be “King of the Jews.”

The man in the most danger was James, the oldest brother of Jesus.

Even if James had been on good terms with his brother, he didn’t dare come to the crucifixion.

He would have been crucified too.

That’s the second fact that explains why James wasn’t there.

How Does This Make Sense?

We now have three crucial facts about James that don’t seem to make sense when you put them together:

• James didn’t believe in his brother Jesus before his crucifixion.
• James was afraid to come to the execution of Jesus.
• James eventually came to believe in Jesus, became the leader of the Jesus movement, and was executed because of it.

If James didn’t believe in Jesus before the crucifixion, and was too chicken to show his face at the crucifixion, what changed? Why did he come to believe in him? Why did he take on the leadership of the Jesus movement? What gave him the courage to face execution?

We can’t know the answer for sure, but we can guess.

Jesus Appeared to His Brother James

In a famous passage in the apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, Paul gives a list of people that Jesus appeared to after his resurrection. According to Paul, Jesus appeared to Peter, then the twelve disciples, then to five hundred people all at once, and then to James the brother of Jesus.

And how did Paul know that? Again, we can’t know the answer for certain, but we can make a very good guess.

Paul knew James personally. Paul met with James several times. The first time was probably within about five years of the crucifixion. Paul’s source of information seems most likely to be James himself.

We don’t know anything more about the appearance Jesus made to his brother James. We don’t know exactly when it happened, or where, or how long it lasted, or what Jesus said.

But it changed James for the rest of his life. James was reconciled to his brother Jesus. James believed in Jesus. James took up leadership in the Jesus movement.

And about thirty years later, James was executed by the high priest as a “law breaker”. It’s not clear what that means, but the real issue the high priest had with James is simple. James was a follower of Jesus, the “King of the Jews.”

It Makes Sense After All

We saw three facts above that didn’t seem to make sense. Before the crucifixion, James was at odds with his brother Jesus. And James was too afraid to come to his own brother’s crucifixion. But then James spent the rest of his life as a follower of Jesus, and he was executed for it.

But we see that they do make sense in the light of one other fact—that James said that Jesus had appeared to him alive after the crucifixion.

We know very little about that appearance. If I had to guess, I’d say it most likely happened back home in Galilee within a week or two after the crucifixion. But that’s just a guess, and it could be wrong.

What we can know is that after this mysterious appearance, James changed his behavior.

He was reconciled to his brother. He went back to Jerusalem for good. He took up leadership in the Jesus movement. He lived unafraid for the rest of his life. And he was widely respected within Jerusalem. My novel Premonition tells the story of the end of his life.

James failed his brother Jesus at the crucifixion.

He spent the rest of his life as a very different man.

James will play a major role in the series of novels I’m working on right now — Crown of Thorns — which tells the story of Jesus before his crucifixion.