The Brother of Jesus the Church Tried to Erase

What if the real leader of early Christianity wasn’t Peter or Paul—but Jesus’ forgotten brother the Church tried to erase?

Neo-Byzantine icon of James

Let’s tear off the holy band-aid: Jesus had siblings, and one of them — James — was kind of a big deal. We’re not talking about “brothers in Christ” or fuzzy spiritual metaphors. We’re talking about a real, biological, flesh-and-blood sibling.

And guess what? The church has spent centuries trying to cover that up — because the …