Showing results for "James" in Jewish

The whole city gained a Messiah. He lost a brother. James ben Joseph never believed Jesus was a rebel. Reckless with His words, perhaps, and impossible to reason with, but never a man deserving of a cross. He traveled to Jerusalem for Passover hoping to persuade his older brother to abandon His dangerous teaching and come home to Nazareth. Instead he watched betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion unfold, and when the moment came to stand beside his own blood, James turned away to protect his family.

The year is 31 AD. It is five years into the Judean governorship of Pontius Pilate and the province ever stands on the edge of a knife. The Jewish religious leaders, the Sanhedrin, use their patronage with the Emperor to vent the slightest grievance, and the people themselves burn with a hatred for Rome. Pilate’s only military forces are Samaritan auxiliaries, little more than an undisciplined mob that abuse and torment the populace. The Emperor Tiberius finally relents and assigns to Judea a single cohort of legionaries to restore order.