Editing Epistle of James (section)

=== Pseudonymous authorship ===
{{See also|Antilegomena}}
A prevalent view within scholarship considers the Epistle of James to be [[pseudonym]]ous.{{sfn|Perkins|2012|pp=19ff}} The real author chose to write under the name James, intending that the audience perceive James the brother of Jesus as the author. Scholars who maintain pseudonymous authorship differ on whether this was a deceitful<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ehrman |first=Bart D. |title=Forged: Writing in the Name of God – Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are |publisher=HarperOne |year=2012 |isbn=978-0062012623 |location=New York |pages=192–99}}</ref> or pious<ref>{{Cite book |last=David R. |first=Nienhuis |title=The Catholic Epistles and Apostolic Tradition: A New Perspective on James and Jude, ed. Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr and Robert W. Wall |publisher=Baylor University Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-1602582156 |location=Texas |pages=185 |chapter=James as Canon-Conscious Pseudepigraph}}</ref> practice.

The following arguments are often cited in support of pseudepigraphy:

# The Greek in the Epistle of James is rather accomplished, leading many scholars to believe that it could not have been written by Jesus’ brother. While it has been noted that James's hometown of Galilee was sufficiently Hellenised by the first century CE to produce figures such as the rhetorician [[Theodorus of Gadara|Theodorus]] and the poet [[Meleager of Gadara|Meleager]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=deSilva |first=David A. |title=The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude: What Earliest Christianity Learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0195329001 |location=Oxford |pages=46}}</ref> there is no evidence (outside the Epistle of James) to suggest that James attained a Greek education.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jackson-McCabe |first=Matt |title=Pseudepigraphie und Verfasserfiktion in frühchristlichen Briefen |publisher=Mohr Siebeck |year=2009 |isbn=978-3-16-150042-8 |editor-last=Frey |editor-first=Jörg |location=Tübingen |pages=622 |chapter=The Politics of Pseudepigraphy and the Letter of James}}</ref>
# The Epistle of James appears to borrow from [[1 Peter]], and if this is the case, James must be dated after 1 Peter (often dated between 70 and 100 CE).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Allison |first=Dale C. |title=A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle of James |publisher=Bloomsbury T&T Clark |year=2013 |location=New York |pages=67–70}}</ref>
# If the Epistle envisages a conflict with later Paulinism, this would likewise presuppose a time after the death of James.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kümmel |first=W. G. |title=Introduction to the New Testament |year=1966 |location=London |pages=291}}</ref>