I now begin to explain why someone might have wanted to (falsely) claim to be James the

brother of Jesus when writing the letter attributed to him in the NT. My basic argument is
that the letter is being written to oppose the writings of Paul (at least as they were being
*interpreted*: whether Paul himself would have agreed with the interpretation of his views
that they oppose is a completely different question), and the author needed someone of the
stature of James in order to make the refutation convincing, both because James was the
head of the Jerusalem church and because it was widely thought that he was at loggerheads
with Paul.

I have taken this again from my book Forgery and Counterforgery. It’s written for scholars,
but I’ve tried to make it accessible by explaining the terms I use and translating the Greek.
This will take a few posts, so here’s the start, where I lay the groundwork: the letter of
James does seem to be responding to the writings of Paul.

**************************************************************

James as a Counter-forgery

Luke Johnson has made a strong argument that there is no hard evidence of real animosity
between the historical James and the historical Paul, based in large measure on Paul’s
neutral references to James in 1 Cor. 15:7; Gal. 1:19; 2:9, 12, and possibly 1 Cor. 9:5.[1] This
reading may falter on the Antioch incident of Gal. 2:11-14, as already mentioned (if you’re
not familiar with the passage – go ahead and read it). If “James” is not to be blamed for the
highly controversial stance of Cephas – who acted “out of fear for the circumcision party”
–why would Paul bother to specify that it was the representatives of James who created the
problem in the first place? Paul’s stance, in any event, is clear: these “men from James”
represented a completely intolerable view that threatened the essence of his gospel
message. Would James have agreed? We have no way, ultimately, of knowing. What we do
know is that later traditions portrayed James and Paul at loggerheads.

This can be seen, for example, in the graphic account of the (apocryphal fourth-century book
called the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions), where Paul is said to have tried to murder
James for …

To see the rest of this post you’ll need to belong to the blog. If you don’t, now’s your big
chance!

where Paul is said to have tried to murder James for his missionary success among Jews in
Jerusalem and by implication in the Epistula Petri (a forged letter in Peter’s name that
attacks Paul, again part of the Pseudo-Clementine literature from later), where James is the
recipient (eager and willing, one might infer) of the letter of Peter in which Paul, though not
named, is clearly described as “the man who is my enemy.” The tradition appears to have
lived on in some Christian groups who swore allegiance to Jerusalem and the church started
there, ruled by James, such as the Ebionites, who understood Paul as Christian enemy
number one.

Despite occasional disclaimers, there should be no doubt that Paul, or at least the tradition
associated with Paul, is under attack in the letter attributed to James in the New
Testament. Johnson is absolutely right to object that there is more to the book than 2:14-26;
but it is also the case that this passage is where the principal polemic lies. Moreover, the
themes of these thirteen verses resound throughout the short letter. The book is about
nothing if not “doing good works” and so being a “doer of the word” instead of simply a
hearer. It is overwhelmingly concerned with followers of Jesus living out their faith. All the
parenesis is directed to that end, and the book is almost completely paranesis.

Moreover, Johnson is wrong to argue that “there is absolutely no reason to read this section
[i.e., 2:14-26] as particularly responsive to Paul.”656 Much to be preferred, for clear and
compelling, for reasons I will enumerate, is Kari Syreeni: “Not only does [James] heavily
draw on Paul, it goes very decidedly into a debate with well-known Pauline statements. The
reluctance of many scholars to see a literary dependence here is stunning.” 657

Stunning indeed, but understandable. Who wants two of the leading authorities of early
Christianity to stand at loggerheads? But at loggerheads they stand – at least in the opinion
of the author of this letter, who put words on the pen of James in order to attack what he
understood to be the views of Paul.

What I will be arguing – here I stand at some variance with Syreeni – is that even though the
author based his argument against Paul on “authentic” Pauline traditions, he read these
traditions through the lens provided by later Pauline interpreters, so that what he attacked
was not (the “real”) Paul but a kind of Deutero-Paul, one evidenced, in fact, in surviving
Pauline forgeries. The book of James, in other words, is a counter-forgery.

James as Dependent on Paul

The evidence that James depends on Pauline formulations for its polemic is clear and

compelling; it hinges on verbatim agreements, conceptual formulations, and polemical

constructions that are simply too closely aligned to be discounted. Here are the key
examples (in this post I’ll give one: others to come)

James 2:21 and Rom. 4:2 (and Gal. 3:7)

James 2:21: Abraham our father was not justified by works

Romans 4:2: For if Abraham was justified by works.

The precise verbal overlap alone would be significant (it’s a bit more striking in the Greek),
but it is important as well to recognize that for James, both the concept of justification and
the example of Abraham appear completely out of the blue in 2:21. “Being justified” has not
been part of the discourse of faith and works until this point: the word “justified” occurs
here for the first time in the letter. This shows that James is responding to someone who
made justification – and more specifically, Abraham’s justification — the key point in a
discussion of faith and works. This point is made nowhere in early Christian literature,
outside of Paul and James.

Moreover, both James 2:23 and Romans 4:3 quote Gen. 15:6 in order to establish their
(contrary) views about Abraham in relationship to his justification. Again, nowehere else in
early Christian (or Jewish) literature is Gen. 15:6 brought to bear on the question of
justification, let alone justification by works or by faith. In addition, it is worth noting that
the author of James 2:21 understands that Christian believers are the children of Abraham
(“Abraham our father”), the one who was justified “by works.” This stands in stark contrast
with Gal. 3:7: “those who are from faith, these are the children of Abraham.”
[1] Letter of James, pp. 94-96.

The Close Connections of James and Paul

Does James (the Book) Have the Same Concerns as James (the Man)? Part 2