The Scandalous Messages of James

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“If the letter of James were sent to the Christian communities of certain countries that suffer from violence and exploitation, it would very possibly be intercepted by government security agencies” -Elsa Tamez

James’ letter made many people suspicious. Even though it was probably written at the end of the first century, it did not make it into the canon until the end of the forth century. Even then it still faced challenges and criticism until after the formation of the canon. Even Martin Luther attacked the book of James, saying it was not faithful to the gospel of Christ, that it had nothing of the nature of the gospel about it. Martin Luther actually placed the book of James at the end of his German Translation of the New Testament. The books of Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation soon joined the book of James. Martin Luther detested these books so much that he did not list them in the table of contents. Even the modern editions of the German translation still has these books at the end, only now they are included in the table of contents. Even today, the book of James is still not as popular as other books. At some churches the letter is skipped because it makes the rich people uncomfortable. The letter of James will probably always be criticized and unpopular for these reasons.
There is no agreement of date, authorship, or geographical origin of the letter between scholars. Sophie Laws, a professor of the University of London, says that the author is someone who took the name of James, a pen name, which was a common practice in Jewish and Greco-Roman literature. Laws also states that the letter is from Rome, because of its similarity to other literature like 1 Peter and Clement of Rome. She dates the letter between 70 and 130 C.E.
Peter Davids, a professor at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry believes the author is James, the brother of Jesus, and someone else edited it for him. Davids believes that the ...