In Luke 21:20-23 Jesus warns the people to flee Jerusalem when it is surrounded by armies.
Church Historians like Eusebius in Church History Book III drawing on older sources like Hegesippus record how the Early Christians in Jerusalem did exactly that, placing the Martyrdom of James the Brother of The Lord at about this same time (I believe a different brother was killed in 62 and that a Scribe mistakenly added the name of James to that account in Antiquities Book 20)..
Secular Historians and Bible Skeptics may be inclined to doubt that narrative because it does not at first glance seem to be in Josephus’s account in Wars of The Jews.
However I have noticed that Wars of The Jews Book VI Chapter 8 Section 2 does tell how when Jerusalem was surrounded by the Roman Army there was a distinct community of the Jews in Jerusalem who saw the writing on the wall and decided to leave. However Simon Bar Giora sought to prevent their leaving and killed five of their leaders including one named Jacob/James and imprisoned more. Yet most were able to escape the city anyway.
However it’s the Idumeans Josephus is talking about there. Also this Jacob is called the son of Sosas but I really doubt that is literally supposed to be identifying the name of his father, it must be some kind of title or epithet.
“It was at this time that the commanders of the Idumeans got together privately, and took counsel about surrendring up themselves to the Romans. Accordingly they sent five men to Titus; and intreated him to give them his right hand for their security. So Titus thinking that the tyrants would yield, if the Idumeans, upon whom a great part of the war depended, were once withdrawn from them, after some reluctancy and delay, complied with them; and gave them security for their lives; and sent the five men back. But as these Idumeans were preparing to march out, Simon perceived it: and immediately slew the five men that had gone to Titus: and took their commanders, and put them in prison. Of whom the most eminent was Jacob, the son of Sosas. But as for the multitude of the Idumeans, who did not at all know what to do, now their commanders were taken from them, he had them watched; and secured the walls by a more numerous garrison. Yet could not that garrison resist those that were deserting. For although a great number of them were slain, yet were the deserters many more in number. These were all received by the Romans: because Titus himself grew negligent as to his former orders for killing them: and because the very soldiers grew weary of killing them: and because they hoped to get some money by sparing them. For they left only the populace; and sold the rest of the multitude, with their wives and children; and every one of them for a very low price: and that because such as were sold were very many, and the buyers very few. And although Titus had made proclamation beforehand, that no deserter should come alone by himself; that so they might bring out their families with them; yet did he receive such as these also. However, he set over them such as were to distinguish some from others; in order to see if any of them deserved to be punished. And indeed the number of those that were sold was immense. But of the populace above forty thousand were saved: whom Cæsar let go whither every one of them pleased.”
I have a post on my SolaScripturaChristianLIberty blog about how Jewish tradition came to identify Christianity with Esau/Edom and how the Idumeans likely played a role in that even though their own presumed connection to Edom is dubious.
Mark 8:3 refers to there being Idumeans among those who came to listen to Jesus so there were likely Idumeans in The Early Church right from Pentecost. Acts 8:1 refers to the Christians spreading throughout Judaea and Samaria following the Martyrdom of Stephen, Idumea is entirely part of Biblical Judah so it’s likely included in that since the NT never uses Idumea as a geographic term. And how James quotes Amos 9:11-12 in Acts 15:13-19 may have early on encouraged a poetic identification with Edom.
Also one can infer in this Josephus account that it’s not only the Idumeans who were trying to leave, he’s just putting a special focus on them.
The English Translations of Josephus I use sometimes calls this figure Jacob and sometimes James, they are truly interchangeable. And in my attempts to google what Sosas means the best I could find is that it’s likely derived from the Greek word for Save or Saved. So it could be a title for this James being the son of the family who brought about Salvation. In Hegesippus’s account when James is asked about Jesus he answers that Jesus is the Savior.
Antiquities of The Jews was written decades later when Josephus had become more informed about a lot of things. That’s why when it refers to the execution of a Brother of Jesus who was called Christ it knows to identify him by that family relation rather than Sosas.
Back in Wars Book IV Chapter 4 Section 2 is when Jacob son of Sosas was first mentioned, three other Idumean leaders are also named. A John with no Patronym (it’s plausible to imagine he and Jacob were meant to share Son of Sosas enabling theorists more fringe than me to make a different theory about which Biblical James this Jacob could be) a Simon son of Cathlas and Phineas son of Clusothus. Those Patronyms also do not seem like actual names to me.
The names Simon and Simeon are interchangeable so maybe this Simon is the Simeon traditionally considered the second Bishop of Jerusalem. Cathlas seems to likely be related to a Greek word for Pure and in Eusebius via Hegesippus account of Simeon it’s stressed how “the Church up to that time had remained a pure and uncorrupted virgin”. This Simon gave a speech in Section 4.
Another story from Josephus of someone being killed by the rebels in Jerusalem resembles the specifics of how Hegesippus says James was tried and Executed, Zacharias son of Baruch from Wars Book IV Chapter 5 Section 4.
“Hereupon there arose a great clamour of the zealots upon his acquittal: and they all had indignation at the judges, for not understanding that the authority that was given them was but in jest. So two of the boldest of them fell upon Zacharias in the middle of the temple, and slew him. And as he fell down dead, they bantered him, and said, “Thou hast also our verdict: and this will prove a more sure acquittal to thee than the other.” They also threw him down from the temple immediately into the valley beneath it. Moreover they struck the judges with the backs of their swords, by way of abuse; and thrust them out of the court of the temple; and spared their lives with no other design than that, when they were dispersed among the people in the city, they might become their messengers, to let them know they were no better than slaves.”
Now a skeptic of the historicity of Hegesippus’s account may say he just pastiched together different stories he found in Josephs. However what happens to Zacharias is not meant to be entirely unique, Josephus is presenting it as the first of many Show trials the other victims of which he doesn’t describe in full detail but just names starting in Chapter 6, like the "Death or Exile” scene from The Dark Knight Rises. So the execution of James son of Sosas of the Idumeans was almost certainly mostly the same sequence of events repeating.
I do believe Hegesippus’s account is somewhat fictionalized and not a perfect record of what happened. It’s only The Gospels and Acts I view as Perfect.
I also want to point out that regardless of if these Idumeans were or significantly overlapped with the Christians of Jerusalem I still doubt they were specifically guilty of all the things Josephus accuses them of. Part of Josephus’s agenda seems to be to scapegoat the Zealots and Idumeans for the worst things that the Rebels did during this war.
In this very chapter of Wars I find it hard to believe that the Idumeans were both involved in the killing of this Zacharias and then displeased with it in the very next verse.
