Why Doesn't John Say More About James?

If the fourth gospel was written by John the son of Zebedee, why does the gospel say so little about John's brother, James? The two are mentioned prominently, typically together, in the Synoptics. I addressed the subject to some extent in my response to Richard Bauckham a few years ago. Steve addressed it in a post earlier today. I won't repeat everything that's been said already, but I want to supplement those previous comments.

Part of what makes Luke's writings so valuable is that we can compare and contrast what he wrote in his gospel and Acts. The similarities and differences are often significant. In his gospel, James and John are prominent and keep getting mentioned together. They're not always mentioned together (9:49, 22:8-13), but usually are. In Acts, however, they're mentioned apart from one another more often (3:1-4:31, 8:14-25, 12:2). And much of what the author of the fourth gospel says about himself involves contexts James probably wouldn't have been involved with. It's unlikely that James also leaned on Jesus' breast, was at the cross, went to the tomb of Jesus with Peter, etc. John and James likely acted independently of one another to a larger extent than the Synoptics report. It's natural to place brothers together, and once the early Christians noticed multiple significant events in Jesus' life that involved both James and John in some important way (the Mount of Transfiguration, etc.), they may have developed a tendency to focus on those events. The Synoptics reflect that tendency, whereas the fourth gospel, which was intended to supplement the Synoptics and was written decades later and in a significantly different context in other ways, doesn't. To some extent, Acts corroborates the fourth gospel's portrayal of James and John as more often acting independently of one another.

As I mentioned in my article responding to Bauckham, there's probably an element of humility both in Peter's lack of reference to Andrew, as reflected in the gospel of Mark, and John's lack of reference to James. If you're providing testimony of what you experienced, you have to mention yourself to a large extent, but you can more easily avoid giving prominence to somebody like a close relative. Giving a lot of attention to somebody like a brother isn't necessarily inappropriate, but it's something that can easily be misunderstood or misrepresented, in the context of humility and in other contexts.

Not only had James already received a lot of attention in the Synoptics, but he'd also been dead for close to half a century. In some ways, John's audience probably had less interest in him than they had in other disciples who had lived among them and their predecessors longer, were more remembered, etc.

It would make sense for the Christians of John's time to have wanted more information about James if John could provide it, but James wasn't their primary or even secondary interest. Jesus was of the most interest, and, after Jesus, they wanted John's testimony more than they wanted to get additional information about James.

We don't know that James did much of significance beyond what the Synoptics report. If John was involved in some significant activities independent of James, whereas there wasn't much to report about James' activities that was independent of John (in the relevant timeframe), then John may not have had much to offer about James, even if his audience had wanted that sort of information.