(8) And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did
unto us;
(9) And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.
(10) Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our
fathers nor we were able to bear?
(11) But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.
(12) Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what
miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them.
(13) And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me:
(14) Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his
name.
(15) And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written,
(16) After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will
build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up:
(17) That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is
called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.
(18) Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.
(19) Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to
God:
(20) But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from
things strangled, and from blood.
(21) For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every
sabbath day‖. (Acts 15:5-21)
Some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, "It is necessary for them to be
circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses". ...James replied, "My brothers, listen to me...I have
reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to YHWH (with too many
Instructions from Torah all at once), but we should write to them (to start) to abstain from things polluted by
idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood".
Antiquities 20. 9.1 199-203: ―The younger Ananus, who had been appointed to the high priesthood, was rash
in his temper and unusually daring. He followed the school of the Sadducees, who are indeed more
heartless than any of the other Jews, as I have already explained, when they sit in judgment. Possessed of
such a character, Ananus thought that he had a favorable opportunity because Festus was dead and Albinas
was still on the way. And so he convened the judges of the Sanhedrin, and brought before them the
brother of Jesus, the one called Christ, whose name was James, and certain others, and accusing
them of having transgressed the law delivered them up to be stoned. Those of the inhabitants of the city
who were considered the most fair-minded and who were strict in observance of the law were offended at
this. They therefore secretly sent to King Agrippa urging him, for Ananus had not even been correct in his
first step, to order him to desist from any further such actions. Certain of them even went to meet Albinus,
who was on his way from Alexandria, and informed him that Ananus had no authority to convene the
Sanhedrin without his consent. Convinced by these words, Albinus angrily wrote to Ananus threatening to
take vengeance upon him. King Agrippa, because of Ananus' action, deposed him from the high priesthood
which he had held for three months and replaced him with Jesus the son of Damnaeus‖. (Louis Feldman
translation)
The death of James does not appear in the New Covenant. The events described by Josephus occurred
about 62 AD – which is just about when the latest writing of the New Covenant, the Book of Acts, comes to a
close – with Paul waiting in Rome for two years after arriving there in 60 AD. James is depicted in Acts as
the leader (with Peter) of the Jerusalem Believers after the death of Y‘shua, and depicts James as adhering
to the full Jewish law.
Josephus' account is interesting in that it demonstrates the Sadducees as enemies of James and the
believers to the extent of resorting to summary execution to dispose of them. The accusation against James
is that he transgressed the Law of Moses. But he is defended by those "strict in the observance of the law‖,
which is a way Josephus often refers to the Pharisees. The dispute here thus seems to be another of the
Sadducee-Pharisee arguments, with James the victim in the middle; Acts depicts Paul as being in the same
spot three years earlier (Acts 23:6-10).
Thus there was some question in the minds of both Jews as well as the Nazarenes as to whether James
completely supported adherence to the Law of Moses. It is interesting to see Pharisees defending James, as
some Pharisees are also shown in the Acts passage cited above to belong to James' group of Netsari. And
in Acts 5:34, Rabbi Gamaliel of the Pharisees similarly defends Peter and John.