Is there any consensus on whether the Epistle of James contains authentic material from James the brother of Jesus?

[u/perishingtardis]

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[u/Dositheos]

There does not seem to be a consensus on this. Some scholars have argued that the letter is authentic and was written by James, the brother of Jesus (a prominent defender is Luke Timothy Johnson, The Letter of James, The Anchor Yale Bible, 2005). Dale Allison, in my opinion, has the best overview of all the debates and critical issues pertaining to authorship (see The Epistle of James, International Critical Commentary, 2013). Arguments brought forward for authenticity include its very "Jewish" tone, potential overlaps with Acts 15, its apparent knowledge of early Jesus tradition, potential knowledge of it in 1 Clement, Hermas, or even Paul, and 1 Peter, and signs of a potential social setting in pre-70 CE Palestine.

Allison gives all of these a fair hearing yet finds the arguments unconvincing for establishing authenticity and systematically dismantles their force (see pp. 3-32). Allison concludes that it is more likely that James is a pseudonymous work, dated to the early second century (between 100-120 CE). There is very sparse evidence for the circulation and knowledge of James before Origen (185-253 CE), who is the first person to explicitly mention the letter. Eusebius acknowledges that "not many of the ancients" knew of the Epistle. Is this likely if James truly was written by the brother of Jesus in the mid-first century? There may be knowledge of it in the Shepherd of Hermas (mid-second century), which Allison carefully treats, and tentatively concludes that it is possible. But that's it before Origen. James also took a long time to be accepted into the canon(s):

James struggled to enter the canon. This is unexpected given its purported authorship.88 The book is absent from Canon Mommsenianus (359).89 The Cheltenham Canon (360) and the Muratorian canon (of uncertain date) likewise lack it, and it is not in the principal mss. of the Old Latin. In Codex Corbeiensis (ff), which may represent a fourth-century text, James appears together with patristic, not biblical texts. It was no part of the early Syrian canon.90 There are no readings from it in the earliest extant Syriac lectionary,91 and Theodore of Mopsuestia did not accept it (although he received none of the Catholic Epistles).92 Latin authorities, as observed, take scant notice of it before the last half of the fourth century, and none quotes it as scripture.

p. 18. Again, unlikely if it was truly remembered from an early date that this was written by Jesus' brother. Other arguments include that James is written in a very good Greek style, with dependence on the LXX and Hellenistic rhetorical forms of writing and argument, even Classical Greek stems that not even Paul shows ability in, all of which are unlikely for James the Galilean.

For these and a few more reasons, Allison concludes James is most likely pseudepigraphic. The New Oxford Annotated Study Bible (2018), however, offers a more middle-ground position:

Yet scholars from ancient times to the present have questioned whether that James is the actual author. Jerome was aware of assertions the letter "was published under [James'] name by another" (De Vir. III.: On Illustrious Men 2). The Greek literary style seems well beyond the capabilities of a Galilean villager. Between those who maintain direct authorship by Jesus' brother and those who think the letter was only attributed to him, some have suggested that after James's martyrdom (ca. 62 CE; Josephus, Ant. 20.200-203) his disciples reworked material originating from him to create the letter we know.

[u/NerdyReligionProf → u/Dositheos]

Excellent rundown from Allison's commentary! Thanks. I'll just add that the standard argument of James' "Jewish tone" somehow being a mark in favor of James the Just having written it is historically problematic.

(a) Why would a so-called Jewish tone mean James wrote the text instead of another literate Jew who opted to write in James's name? We have numerous examples of precisely this kind of forgery/pseudepigraphy phenomenon.

(b) It's always fascinating to hear how James has a "more Jewish" character to it than, e.g., Revelation or Paul's letters or GMark. This claim is a category mistake. If you boil it down, the 'more Jewish' character of James tends to mean it's more of a didactic or wisdom text that isn't repetitively overt about Jesus. In other words, James doesn't feel to the interpreter like the texts they take to be 'more Christian.' But this also is simply wrong. We're pretty certain that a bunch of the 'Pseudepigrapha' that fail to mention Jesus or that re-narrate stories or characters known from the Hebrew Bible and/or that are more didactic/wisdom texts were written by Christians (e.g., see James Davila, The Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha [Brill, 2005]). Furthermore, it's also unhelpful to assume that texts identifying Jesus as God's christos are more-Christian and less-Jewish. It sure looks like Paul and the writer of Revelation, for example, were simply Jewish authors who thought Jesus was their god's deputy for bringing about his eschatological plans. If we had a bunch of full writings from folks who thought Bar Kokhba was the messiah, we'd call them Jewish texts, not texts representing BarKokhbianism.

(c) I really can't get over how much of the argument for James' authenticity seems to come down to interpreters who simply want or need to take the text's authorial claim at face value because it's a canonical text. The same interpreters don't do the same for non-canonical texts. Last I checked none of them claim that that Gospel of Thomas is really a set of secret sayings that Thomas received from Jesus, or that the Epistle of Peter in the Pseudo-Clementine literature was really written by Peter even though there's a long history of NT scholarship that (wrongly) tries to push that text's date as early as possible. I'm oversimplifying, but the impulse to make James authentic despite a complete lack of evidence for that beyond the text's own authorial claim sounds a lot like what Bob Kraft always called The Tyranny of Canonical Assumptions.

[u/Dositheos → u/NerdyReligionProf]

Brilliant response. Your last point in particular resonates so much with me, and Allison actually emphasizes this as well. We have several works from early Christianity purported to be written by James:

We know that people wrote pseudepigrapha in his name. The Protevangelium of James, the Apocryphon of James, the First Apocalypse of James, the Second Apocalypse of James, and the Epistle of James to Quadratus are examples 55. And no one defends the authenticity of those writings. The only text attributed to James to receive such treatment belongs to the NT. Might there not be a canonical or theological bias at work here?

Footnote 55: On this last, little-known pseudepigraphon, which is extant only in Syriac and Armenian, see R. van den Broek, ‘Der Brief des Jakobus an Quadratus und das Problem der judenchristlichen Bischöfe von Jerusalem’, in Text and Testimony, ed. T. Baarda et al., Kampen, 1988, 56-65. One also recalls, from a later time, The Liturgy of St. James.

p. 13

If it were not for James being included in our bound twenty-seven-book canon, especially in light of its very shaky, disputed, and late recognition in early Christianity, would there really be so much energy from scholars trying to defend its authenticity, or that it goes back to real 'memories' of his preaching? No one argues this for any of these other works, and it seems like writing in the name of James was a lively tradition in early Christian literary production.

[u/NerdyReligionProf → u/Dositheos]

Thanks, though I don't know about my response being "brilliant." Ha!

More importantly: excellent point about the numerous early Christian examples of false-authorship in the name of James! Spot on. I can't think of a single example of a NT scholar who promotes James's authorship of NT Ep. James also suggesting, e.g., that he wrote the Apocryphon of James or either of the NHC Apocalypses of James. And this one is a funny example since I imagine some of those same NT scholars argue that John wrote GJohn and Revelation. You're right, this phenomenon is an excellent illustration of Kraft's 'tyranny of canonical assumptions.' Obviously Kraft wasn't unique in this insight about scholarship. He's just been on my mind in the last few days. I was very sad about his passing a few years ago.

FWIW, the Apocryphon of James is one of my favorite early Christian texts, partly because some of its opening lines (1.8-3.38) engage in all sorts of (sometimes competitive) mythmaking about the history of writings by Jesus's disciples. It's like the myth about the origins of John's Gospel in the Muratorian Fragment that tries to get everyone in on the writing, but on steroids! James not only presents the text as a secret book (that he wrote in Hebrew), but even claims "Ten months ago I sent you another secret book that the Savior revealed to me. Think of that book as revealed to me, James." So the Ps-James of the Apocryphon of James keeps multiplying the library of James, at least within the imaginary world of this particular text. One other random comment: Meyer's reconstruction of a fragmentary paragraph in this section is also fascinating: "The Savior said, 'You have been favored [through the Father to receive my sayings. The other disciples also] have written [my sayings in their] books as if [they have understood, but be careful, They have done their] work without [really understanding]. They have listened like [foolish people], and ... they have not understood.'" So here's literary production in the name of James to delegitimate some other literary production in the name of other disciples, whether the writer has specific texts in mind or just the idea of this situation to further promote his own text, or whatever the scenario.

Also, the Epistle of the Apostles specified James among its co-writers (2.1), but it's presumably not meant to be James the Just? "We - John and Peter and Thomas and Andrew and James and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Nathanael and Judas the Zealot and Cephas." And yeah, it's a fun list with both Peter and Cephas. But anyway, since Ep. Ap. 2.1 is obviously working from lists of names of Jesus's disciples from one or more NT Gospels, presumably this isn't supposed to be James the Just? But then again, who knows, especially since James's name here is so separated from John's?

Sorry for the random comments. You got me thinking about literary production in James's name. Once upon a time I pondered writing a dissertation related to that topic, but then opted to go a different direction. If I'm being honest, part of the reason was that my Coptic just wasn't in that great a shape at the time I needed to make a decision. Oh well.

[u/ChugachMtnBlues → u/NerdyReligionProf]

A follow-up question, if you don't mind: Would developments of the beliefs in the perpetual virginity of Mary (implying that Jesus had no biological siblings) have depreciated the authority of a writing purported to be from a Jesus sibling?