DATE
DATE
The explanation offered above for the relationship between the teaching of James 2:14-26 and Paul requires that James be dated sometime after Paul’s teaching had begun to have an influence and before James and Paul met at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15). Paul was engaged in a ministry of teaching and preaching from the time of his conversion (c. A.D. 33), and the Jerusalem Council is probably to be dated in 48 or 49.
If, then, we allow some time for Paul’s teaching of justification by faith to develop and become known, the most likely date for the letter of James is sometime in the early or middle 40s. 19 Such a date fits the circumstances and emphases of the letter very well. There is no hint of conflict between Jewish and Gentile Christians (such as we would have expected if the letter was written after the Jerusalem Council), and the theology of the letter is relatively undeveloped.
There are two main alternatives to this dating. Others who identify James the brother of the Lord as the author date the letter toward the close of his life (he was martyred in
A.D. 62). Alleged in favor of this date are (1) the need to have Paul’s letters sufficiently well known that James could be responding to Paul’s teaching, and (2) the typical second-generation problem of worldliness that James confronts in the letter. 20 Yet worldliness hardly needs a period of time to develop, and as we have argued, James 2:14-26 makes better sense if James has never heard Paul or read any of his letters. A date sometime toward the end of the first century is generally adopted by those who think the letter is pseudonymous. 21