St. James the Apostle by the Rev’d Stuart Ansell

Matthew 20:20-28 
Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favor of him. And he said to her, "What do you want?" She said to him, "Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom." But Jesus answered, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?" They said to him, "We are able." He said to them, "You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father." When the ten heard it, they were angry with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." 
James the Apostle, friend and confidant of Jesus, is sometimes known as James the Greater to distinguish him from that other James, James the Lesser. James the Lesser was a step-brother or cousin of Jesus. James the Greater, probably so called because he was bigger in stature than the other James, was brother of John and son of Zebedee the fisherman. Zebedee was probably comfortably off with his own fishing business in which his sons worked. Zebedee is thought to have been married to Salome (Matthew 17:56; Mark 15:40; 16:1), who was the daughter of a priest and may have been the sister of Mary the mother of Jesus. 
Zebedee and Salome and their sons, James and John, probably lived in or Bethsaida (John 1: 44), perhaps in Capernaum where Peter lived. Although John was personally known to the high-priest (John 8:16), presumably through his mother, it's unlikely that James and John received the technical training of the rabbinical schools. In this sense they were unlearned and without any official position among the Jews (Acts 4:13). But because of the social rank of their parents, they must have had some Jewish education and they often came into contact with Greek life and language, which were already widely spread along the shores of the Galilean Sea. 
If Salome was a sister of the Mary the mother of Jesus, so that James the Greater and John were first cousins of Jesus, this may explain the call of the two brothers to follow Jesus. It may also explain Salome's extraordinary request on behalf of her sons to the first position in Jesus' kingdom. And it may be the basis of Jesus' recommendation on the cross, of his mother into John's care, if John was her own nephew. But it has to be said that the relationship of St. James to Jesus is by no means certain. 
Jesus nicknamed James and John "the sons of thunder" (Mark 3:17). When the Samaritans refused to receive Jesus, James and John said: "Lord, shall we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them?" (Luke 9: 54) Perhaps their Galilean origin explains to some extent this energy of temper and the vehemence of character, for the Galilean race was known to be religious, hardy, industrious, brave, and the strongest defender of the Jewish nation. 
James was present at some of the key events in Jesus's life, such as the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-13), the raising of Jairus's daughter (Mark 5:37) and the Agony in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:37). The fact that the name of James nearly always occurs before that of his brother seems to imply that James was the elder of the two. Interestingly, James isn't mentioned at all in John's Gospel. 
The only certain fact recorded of James after the gospels is his martyrdom by sword at the hands of Herod Agrippa in AD 44 (Acts 12:1-2).