James, son of Alphaeus, was one of Jesus’ twelve apostles (Matthew 10:2–3) and one of three people named James mentioned in the New Testament. He is distinguished from the other Jameses in the Bible by his father’s name. In Bible times, people did not have last names as we do in Western cultures. They were often identified by their fathers and grandfathers. For example, the other James of the twelve apostles is described as “James the son of Zebedee” (Mark 3:17). A third James mentioned in Scripture was the brother of the Lord Jesus (Galatians 1:19), a leader in the Jerusalem church (Acts 12:17; Galatians 2:9), and the author of the book of James.