Minor lesson
James, Son of Zebedee
Brother of John. Inner circle. The only one of the twelve whose death Acts tells.
September 25, 2026
Son of Zebedee, brother of John. Jesus calls them Boanerges, sons of thunder (). A fisherman, in the boat with his father and the hired servants when he is called (). Their mother asks for the two seats in the kingdom. Jesus asks if they can drink the cup he drinks ().
He is with Peter and John at the raising of Jairus's daughter, on the mountain of the transfiguration, and in Gethsemane (, , ).
His death is the one death of the twelve that Acts narrates. Herod the king, the Herod who dies in the same chapter, kills James the brother of John with the sword, in the days around , and then arrests Peter because he sees that it pleased the Jews (). That is early. Peter is still the main figure of the first half of the book. James does not live to the later journeys.
He did not write a New Testament letter. The letter of James is not his. He is already dead before that letter is easy to place, and the letter does not call its writer a son of Zebedee. The man people mean by James of Jerusalem is .
A much later Spanish story brings his body to Compostela. It is not in the Bible and not in the early histories. It is not part of what we know.
This is a deeper teaching under The Apostles. Its home is Sermons and Series.