The Secret Book of James

James was a brother of Jesus and this book is attributed to him. According to the book James the Just did not drink alcohol and did not eat meat. He also never took baths which means that he probably didn't smell very good after a time.

He was martyred in 62 C.E.

The book notes what some followers said: "...we've abandoned our fathers, our mothers and our villages. ' Later it adds that they abandoned their families which most probably includes children.

This is one thing which bothers me. I can understanding moving away from the place you grew up in when you got older and got a job. But abandoning their families seems a little extreme. There is no mention made of any attempt on their part to make sure that the families they left were cared for in some manner.

The book says Jesus was buried in the sand. I read in another book that when the guards took bodies down from crosses, etc, they just threw them in sand rather then giving them any special burial.

Another thing that bothers me is the saying that 'no one will be made whole unless that believe in my cross.'

Let's consider this statement logically. The area of the world he grew up in covers a fairly good swath of land yet it did not cover anything in the Americas, north or south, and it did not cover places like China or Japan, nor did it cover Australia or any of the Pacific Islands. So, even though these people had (at that time) never heard of Jesus and very probably did not even know that part of the world existed they would be effectively be punished because they did not believe in something they did not know about?

Then it gets even stranger when the book says '...no one who's worn the flesh will be made whole.'

Every single human being who has existed since Homo sapiens arose has 'worn the flesh.' Yet they will not 'be made whole' simply because they were made of flesh? That seems massively strange to me.

The book has an appendix, text notes, general notes and a bibliography.

This is another of the books that understandably was not considered acceptable to be put into the Bible. Some of these books seem to me to have been written by people who did not really think about the implications of what they were writing.

Still, it's good this particular volume was made so people can see just how bad some of these original writings were.