Did James really write the Epistle of James? (John S. Kloppenborg)

Attestation of James

James and 1 Peter share a striking number of elements:

• (1) an address to the diaspora (Jas 1:1; 1 Pet 1:1);
• (2) the alliterative phrase peirasmois poikilois (‘manifold testings’) (Jas 1:2; 1 Pet 1:7);
• (3) the phrase ‘the approval of your faith’ (Jas 1:3; 1 Pet 1:7);
• (4) a quotation of Isa 40:6–8 (Jas 1:10–11; 1 Pet 1:24);
• (5) the motif of birth from the divine word (Jas 1:18; 1 Pet 1:23);
• (6) a quotation of Prov 3:34 (Jas 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5); and
• (7) an allusion to Prov 10:12 (Jas 5:20; 1 Pet 4:8). All the more striking is the fact that these elements appear in almost the same order in the two letters.
• These agreements strongly suggest some form of dependence between James and 1 Peter. The critical question is, however, which direction? Does 1 Peter know James or does James know 1 Peter? Allison’s observation is convincing: James cannot be the source for 1 Peter, at least, for the quotations of Isa 40:6–8 (#4) and Prov 10:12 (#5), since in 1 Peter these quotations include elements from the Septuagint that are absent from James (Allison 2013, 69–70). This suggests strongly that James knew 1 Peter rather than vice versa.
• The consequence of this conclusion is clear: James must be dated sometime after 1 Peter, which was composed late in the first century or early in the second. As Allison points out, while 1 Peter was cited by 2 Peter and Polycarp in the middle of the second century and used extensively by Irenaeus and Tertullian at the end of the century, none of these authors seems to have known James (Allison 2013, 69).

Authorship

Jerome’s work on ‘Illustrious Men’, completed in 392–3 ce, reported that some believed it to have been penned by someone else and then published under James’s name:

• James … wrote a single letter which is among the seven catholic letters; even this is claimed by some to have been published by someone else under his name, and gradually, as time went on, to have gained authority. (Jerome, De viris illustribus PL 23:609A–609B)

The problem with James is that it was not in widespread circulation at all. During the mediaeval period, James was accepted as authoritative and there were few doubts about its authorship. This all changed in the sixteenth century when doubts about the authorship of James were formulated more systematically. Erasmus had noticed that in none of the Greek manuscripts of James was James ever called an apostle and he wondered whether another James had composed the letter and that he had been confused with the apostle James, the brother of Jesus (Annotationes, 737). Erasmus also had stylistic grounds for doubting Jacobean authorship:

• For neither does it seem to bear anywhere that apostolic majesty and dignity, nor the large number of Hebraisms that one would expect from James, who was bishop of Jerusalem. (Erasmus, Annotationes, 744)

1. Luther’s nemesis, Cardinal Thomas de Vio (Cajetan) also had his doubts:
   • It is not even certain whether the letter is by James the brother of the Lord. The greeting [chairein] is simple and agrees with no other apostolic letter whatsoever. It does not mention God or Jesus Christ or grace or peace but is a profane-type greeting; nor does he [the author] call himself an apostle but only a servant of Jesus Christ. (Cajetan, In omnes divi Pauli et aliorum apostolorum epistolas Commentarii, Lyons 1531, 1639, p. 362)
   Luther agreed. When in the famous debate with Luther in 1519, Johannes Eck cited Jas 2:17 (‘faith without works is dead’), Luther retorted:
   • The style of that epistle is far beneath the apostolic majesty, nor does it compare in any way with that of Paul; now Paul speaks of living faith. Faith that is dead is not faith; it is opinion. (Luther, Resolutiones super propositionibus Lipsiae diputatis, WA 2:425)
2. By 1522 Luther had assembled other arguments against Jacobean authorship: (1) Jas 2:14–26 contradicted Paul in Romans; (2) it did not ‘proclaim Christ’—a key criterion of apostolicity for Luther; and (3) it was chaotically organized (Preface to the Epistles of James and Jude [1522], LW 35:362).

The Case for Pseudigraphy

More troubling are the facts the letter does not seem to have been quoted at all in the second century ce by authors like Irenaeus or Tertullian, who otherwise were well acquainted with the breadth of early Christian literature, and that James was not recognized as authoritative until sometime in the third century in the East and even later in the West. The stronger reason for concluding that James is a pseudepigraphon is its level of Greek and awareness of rhetorical conventions. Assessments of James’s Greek vary, but in general one should agree with Mayor’s judgment that James’s Greek ‘approach[es] more nearly to the standard of classical purity than that of any other book of the NT with the exception perhaps of the Epistle to the Hebrews’ (Mayor 1892, ccliv). There are a few lapses and usages of semitizing expressions that would sound odd to a native Greek speaker. But on the other hand, James has alliterations possible only in Greek and grammatical constructions that are impossible in Semitic languages, learned phrases, and even a line in dactylic hexameter (1:17, pāsă dŏ|sīs ăgă|thē kaī | pān dō|rēmă tĕ|leīōn, ‘every gift is good, and every perfect present … ’).

1. • For example, James uses several philosophical terms that are rarely attested in six centuries of Greek literature prior to James—that is, they do not belong to the most basic tiers of Greek vocabulary. A few words appear for the first time in James, although some of them are also found in 1 Clement and Hermas.
   • Even more significantly, James uses vocabulary that belongs to epic and lyric registers: age (4:13; 5:1, ‘come now!’), bruō (3:11, ‘gush’), damazō (3:7, 8, ‘tame’), and enalios (3:7, ‘maritime’). This vocabulary points to a relatively sophisticated level of lexical use, which is a marker either of a native speaker with a rich vocabulary or someone with pretensions to learning.
2. • This issue is not whether someone in Palestine could speak and read Greek. That is amply demonstrated by inscriptions and other data. Nor is it unlikely that some members of the Jerusalem Christ group could write Greek or that even that the brother of Jesus, who surely spoke Aramaic as his first language, could speak and write some Greek. The issue is whether James, from a family of artisans, could have acquired the level of Greek displayed in the letter of James. Second-language learners typically use the most basic tiers (or registers) of vocabulary, for example saying ‘I will start a project’ rather than ‘I will launch a project’. Use of high-register words presupposes either an educated native speaker or a very welltrained second-language learner. The question is whether James, from a non-elite family, without access to expensive grammatical and rhetorical schools, could have acquired the facility in Greek that is evidenced in the letter of James. If the questions are framed in this way, then the answer is surely No.
3. • It has also been recognized that the content of the letter reflects Stoic conceptions of the law as a written expression of the divine law and their psychology, based on the view that desire was a threat to the balance of the soul (Jackson-McCabe 2001; Kloppenborg 2010). That is, the grammar, vocabulary, and contents of the letter are well beyond what one could reasonably attribute to James of Jerusalem.

Provenance

The arguments in favour of Alexandria and Rome are heavily based on lexical similarities with documents provenanced in those locations. By contrast, the number of Greek texts from Roman Palestine is tiny, which means that the case for Jerusalem as a provenance for James must be built on other observations. Likewise, the case for Antioch depends less upon a comparison with the few documents provenanced in Syrian Antioch and more on hypothetical constructions of the circumstances in Antioch in the late first or early second century, and sparse contacts with the Didache, often supposed to be Antiochene.

Several factors support Jerusalem as a provenance for the letter, the strongest of which are references to Palestinian climate and flora (Davids 1999). The cultivation of olives and figs (3:12) is certainly compatible with a Palestinian locale; but these are panMediterranean crops and not peculiar to Palestine. The linguistic or conceptual features of James that were invoked to undergird the claim to Jacobean authorship (above, pp. 22–23) are all compatible with composition in Palestine: the influence of Semitic syntax on James’s Greek; the use of synagōgē rather than proseuchē to designate a prayer house; allusions to the ḥamsin wind; the reference to the ‘early and latter rain’ (5:7); and the use of ge(h)enna in 3:6 to designate a place of final punishment.

Argument for Antioch/Syria:

Argument for Alexandria:

Argument for Rome:

Conclusion: Since the traffic between Alexandria and Rome in both directions appears to have been strong, James’s affinities with documents from both locales are explicable. Given the very late appearance of the letter of James in the West, it seems better to suggest an Alexandrian provenance for James than to suppose that James was composed in Rome under Philonic influence, but remained virtually unknown there for more than a century.

Dating

• Nienhuis (2009) proposed that James is a ‘canon-conscious pseudepigraphon’, composed as a preface to the other catholic letters. This would imply a very late-second- or early-third-century date, since it presupposes the formation of the collection of catholic letters.
• Given James’s knowledge of 1 Peter, we must presume a date after the composition of 1 Peter, that is, sometime in the second century. If James were composed in Rome, access to 1 Peter would presumably not pose a problem. If James is Alexandrian, as I think more probable, one must allow time for 1 Peter to reach Alexandria. Given the regularity of traffic between Rome and Alexandria, that might not have taken very long. Since both Clement of Alexandria and Origen frequently cite 1 Peter, we must assume that it became available in Alexandria well before the end of the second century ce.
• The best indication of date are the lexical affinities of James with 1 Clement and Hermas, both dated to the early to mid-second century. Hence, a date in the in the first half of second century is the best guess.

The first quotation from the Latin West is from Hillary of Poitiers in 356 CE. This silence indicates that it was probably written long after the death of James the brother of Jesus. Erasmus already noticed the lack of Hebraisms, which doesn’t fit a native Hebrew/Aramaic speaker like James the brother of Jesus. Kloppenborg also thinks that the author of James knew Q. More on that can be found in the book James and the “Q” sayings of Jesus by Patrick Hartin. He thinks that the author of James was antagonistic towards the Pauline letters. Kloppenborg dates the epistle to the early second century.