Extracts from James or Jacob in the Bible? Giving Jacob his due by Mark Wilson, published in BAS on January 29, 2026
So how did the Jewish name Ya’akov become so Gentilized as James? Since the 13th century, the form of the Latin name Iacomus began its use in English. In the 14th century, John Wycliffe made the first Bible translation into English and translated Iakobus as James. (However, in both the Old and New Testaments he arbitrarily used the name Jacob for the patriarch). In all future English translations the name stuck, especially after 1611, when King James I sponsored the translation then called the Authorized Version. Since 1797 it has been called the King James Bible.
Extract from: Tabor, James D.. Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity (pp. 27-28). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.
Terminology can be quite tricky when it comes to James himself, as well as the movement he led for over thirty years. Before I take up the full story let me attempt some important clarifications and express some caveats.
First, the person we know as James the brother of Jesus, as well as the author of the letter of James that bears his name, tucked in the back of the New Testament, twentieth of twenty-seven documents making up the whole, needs a bit of explaining. James in English is the name Iakobov in Greek, consistent throughout the New Testament, which is in fact the name Jacob (Yaaqov in Hebrew). Thus it is the same name as that of the grandson of Abraham and the son of Isaac, used a total of 358 times throughout the Bible, including in the New Testament. So when Jesus says that “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” will be raised from the dead when the kingdom of God arrives, the Greek texts of our gospels use the word Iakobov, clearly and properly translated as Jacob (Mark 12:26). Yet the same word, when used of the fisherman apostle or the brother of Jesus, becomes James, not Jacob, in English. Imagine the reverse, if translators had put “Abraham, Isaac, and James.” The effect would be quite jolting and most readers would have not the slightest idea of what might be going on.
The English name James is so rooted in our language it is not going to change. I can’t imagine a time when we would speak of the King Jacob Version of the Bible, or Jacob Dean, the late great movie star. But when we are translating the Greek New Testament this is a very different matter, since the English name James did not exist anciently, and the Greek name is plainly and clearly Jacob and so translated, so long as it does not refer to the apostle James or the James the brother of Jesus. It simply makes no linguistic sense.
Unfortunately, the effect is more than a matter of style. The name Jacob is clearly Jewish, not Greek or Latin, with deep roots in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish culture. To call Jesus’ brother James, in English, dissociates and isolates him from his Jewish environment. But if one begins to use “Jacob” for “James,” what tiny measure of familiarity anyone might have with James the brother of Jesus, given his obscurity and marginalization, will completely dissolve.
