“Only once more. He passed through the village to pay his respects to our mother, several months later. By then he had gathered a small following of disciples, who were with him.”

“How was he received by your family?”

“As always, my mother and sisters treated him with special care, love, and attention while my brothers and I, when the women were not present, accorded him nothing but disrespect. We taunted him, saying that we had heard many tales of how he performed miracles by healing the lame, making the blind see again, and even driving out evil spirits. We told him that we believed none of the stories. We even challenged him, saying that if he truly did such wondrous things he should not keep them a secret by performing in the smallest of villages but should go to Jerusalem so that the great crowds, as well as the Temple priests, would see his mighty works and know that he spoke as a true prophet of God.”

“And what did Jesus say to you?”

“His only reply was that his time had not yet come. We laughed and jeered and left him to himself.”

Now we were getting close to the most important question James would hear from me. I moved to return to my seat but instead, for some inexplicable reason, I bent one knee and knelt in front of him, boldly placing both my hands in his lap. “James, I believe you said you were married by this time. Had there been no family responsibilities, would you have considered joining your brother’s group?”

“No!” he roared, sounding as he had from the platform. “While I endeavored, as best I could, to live my life within the laws of our Torah and practice the injunctions of our prophets, Jesus, according to those who saw and heard him, violated some of our most sacred laws openly. He drank and ate with publicans and harlots, he violated our Sabbath with disdain, he derided our great scribes and the wisdom of the Pharisees, he washed not his hands before the breaking of bread, and—worst of all—he dared to Twice, forgive sinners! Not even Moses or Abraham or Elijah had that power. Only our Father in heaven can remove the curse of sin. I was convinced that Jesus was on a path that would lead to his shame and destruction, and I wanted no part of it.”

Beads of perspiration dropped from the face of James onto my wrists. His lower lip was quivering, and deep furrows of anguish creased his forehead. I almost hated myself for putting him through the torture of recollection that he was willingly enduring as if it were some sort of penance. “You never saw your brother bring anyone back from the dead or cure the affliction of blindness or cause a cripple to walk again or make a leper whole, as others claimed he did?”

“Never.”