Scripture Portions
James
Also Known As Epistle of James
New Testament
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A letter of practical wisdom addressed to the twelve tribes in the dispersion, insisting that faith without works is dead, that the tongue must be tamed, and that partiality to the rich betrays the poor. Tradition ascribes it to James the brother of the Lord. Luther's discomfort with it, an epistle of straw in his 1522 preface, is a famous episode in its reception.
Facts
Origins
Era of CompositionTraditionally c. 45 to 62 CE, which would make it among the earliest New Testament writings; scholars who consider it pseudonymous place it c. 80 to 120 CE 1 Attributed Author / CompilerJames the Just, the brother of Jesus and leader of the Jerusalem church, writing to Jewish Christians scattered outside Judea [traditional] 2 Attributed Author / CompilerMany critical scholars question attribution to James the Just, noting the letter's polished, literary Greek, unexpected from a Galilean tradesman's family, and its concern with dispersed communities beyond Jerusalem; others hold the polish could reflect a scribe or later editing of genuine material [critical] 1 Identity
Position in the CanonBook 20 of 27 in the New Testament 1 Status
Canonical StatusCanonical in every Christian tradition; one of the New Testament's antilegomena, not universally accepted until the 4th century, and Martin Luther later questioned its standing without succeeding in removing it from the Lutheran canon 2 Transmission
Manuscript TraditionP20 and P23, both 3rd century, are among the earliest surviving fragments; the letter is absent from the Muratorian fragment, an important but damaged 2nd century canon list, though the damage makes its original inclusion or exclusion uncertain 1 Learn More
Wisdom Literature in Christian Dress
James reads closer to the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible, Proverbs especially, than to any other New Testament epistle: short, punchy units of practical moral instruction on patience, speech, wealth, prayer, and impartiality, with almost none of the sustained theological argument found in Paul's letters. Its most famous and most argued over claim is that "faith without works is dead," illustrated by the example of Abraham, whose faith, James insists, "was completed" by the act of offering Isaac.
Because Paul, writing about the same Abraham, argues that righteousness comes by faith and not by works, the two texts have been read since at least the Reformation as standing in real tension, though most scholars now read them as addressing different problems rather than directly contradicting each other, Paul opposing reliance on law observance for righteousness, James opposing a merely verbal faith that produces no visible change in conduct. The letter is unusually blunt about wealth and poverty, warning the rich that their gold and silver "will corrode" as a witness against them, and it contains the New Testament's clearest instruction on anointing the sick with oil for healing, a passage still cited directly in the sacramental practice of anointing found in Catholic and Orthodox tradition.
The Epistle Luther Called Straw
James took longer than most New Testament books to secure universal acceptance; Eusebius in the early 4th century listed it among the disputed writings, and its apparent tension with Paul on faith and works kept it a live question well into the Reformation, when Martin Luther, reading it as undermining justification by faith alone, privately called it "an epistle of straw" and questioned whether it belonged in the canon at all, though he stopped short of removing it and it has remained canonical in every Lutheran and other Protestant Bible since.
The dispute over James's relationship to Paul has generated one of the most durable exegetical conversations in Christian history, and most modern interpreters across traditions now read the two as complementary correctives to different failures rather than as opposed theologies, a settled scholarly consensus even where popular impressions of a conflict persist.
James also carries particular weight in Catholic and Orthodox sacramental theology, since its instruction to call the elders of the church to anoint the sick with oil and pray over them is the primary New Testament text underlying the sacrament of anointing of the sick, distinct from the general instruction on prayer for healing that other traditions draw from the same passage.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Authored By
Why this is disputed. Tradition holds James the Just, the brother of Jesus and leader of the Jerusalem church, as the letter's author, writing in the mid first century. Critical scholars have long questioned this on the grounds of its polished, rhetorically sophisticated Greek, unusual for a Jerusalem based Jewish leader, and its apparent familiarity with developed Pauline vocabulary it seems to argue against, suggesting to some a pseudonymous composition written in James's name closer to the end of the first century. Other scholars defend authenticity by pointing to the letter's close ties to Jewish wisdom literature and the Jesus tradition, arguing these fit a Jerusalem context well.
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