The Epistle of Jacob

An interesting Bible trivia here: the name "James" that we see in modern English Bibles can be replaced with "Jacob."

In fact, the Greek title for the Epistle of James is Iakob, which is Jacob in English. So how did we come up with James?

James is the Old French variation of the late Latin name Iacomus,  which was derived from Iakobos, the Greek form of the Hebrew name Ya'aqov (behindthename.com). Basically, James and Jacob both have the same meaning: take by the heel, or supplant.

Hence, no worries of being labelled a heretic/false teacher if we say Jacob wrote a letter in the New Testament!

In the Philippines, we often translate James into Jaime and pronounce Jacob as Hakob. Why, then, do we have Ang Sulat ni Santiago in our Tagalog Bible?

Jacob in the Spanish language is translated to either Jacobo, Jaime, or Yago. So the phrase SantYago (sant an old form of saint) simply means Saint James or Saint Jacob. Could that be the reason why we have San Pedro and Santo Tomas but no Santo Santiago?

*Maybe the English translation of Jose Rizal's Kapitan Tiago should be Captain Jimmy, or Captain Jameson, hehe.