Jason Helopoulos

Obviously, he names himself at the very beginning.

It's why the book is named this.

It is Jude.

And Jude identifies himself in relation to two people.

If you look there in the opening line, Jesus Christ and James, whom he calls his brother.

Now what you need to know is that Jude can be interchanged with Judas, and so some think this was the lesser well-known of the two Judases that were disciples of Christ.

You have Judas of James, but of James does not mean brother of, it means son of.

So I think we can rule out that this is that Judas.

There are others that point to Acts 15, and there is a man there by the name of Judas Barsabbas, and there are some that will identify him there, but he's not identified there as a brother of James.

And usually, when you're interpreting Scripture, this is a good rule of thumb, when you interpret Scripture, the simplest answer is usually the best answer.

And so, let's think about what would be the simplest answer to this question.

Who is this?

Well, notice that Jude simply mentions James here.

He doesn't feel like he needs to give any descriptor of who James is.

He's expecting that the people that are receiving this letter know James, have some familiarity with James.

So it's likely that this James is a famous individual in the early church.

And so let's think through who is a James that would be famous in the early church.

We know that there is a James that was a brother of Jesus.

So let me just read to you from Mark chapter 6 this.

You'll remember the setting.