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Why James Did Not Write James

Here I conclude my string of posts dealing with whether James the brother of Jesus wrote the book of James as the book itself implicitly claims. Again this is taken from my more academic study Forgery and Counterforgery, but I've edited it a bit for an audience of regular folk instead of irregular scholars. In my previous post I talked about how our ancient sources everywhere talk about the major concerns and interests of the the historical James and his focus on the Torah and keeping the law. Does this book reflect any of his widely known interests? ****************************** The book of James hints toward a James-like audience, as it is addressed to “the twelve tribes” (that is, faithful Jews scattered throughout the world). What is striking is that none of the cultural or cultic concerns of James of Jerusalem is in evidence in the book. Just the opposite. The book is thoroughly concerned about the “Law,” but not about the aspects of the Law that James himself is reported to have been interested in. Here, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:12:51-04:00August 6th, 2025|Catholic Epistles|

Could James, the Brother of Jesus, Even Write?
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Could James, the Brother of Jesus, Even Write?

Catholic Epistles

Could James, the Brother of Jesus, Even Write?

In my previous post I tried to show what the author of James is almost certainly claiming to be “that” James, the actual brother of Jesus. In this post and the next will be explaining why it probably (well, almost certainly was not, in my view) written by him. I’ve decided, as is my occasional wont, to get down into the weeds a bit here; sometimes that’s important because it’s oh so very easy to give broad and general reasons for a view that are so general and broad they’re not convincing to anyone who wants to get the real low down. So here we go, down low. (This taken from my book Forgery and Counterforgery, but I’ve edited it a bit to make it more user friendly, including by removing the academic footnotes). ****************************** There are solid reasons for thinking that whoever wrote this letter, it was not James, the brother of Jesus. The first, as already mentioned, is that James of Nazareth could almost certainly not write. That of course, needs to be [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:12:51-04:00August 5th, 2025|Catholic Epistles|

James: Who, When, and Why? Does It Claim to be by THAT James (the brother of Jesus)?

In my previous post I summarized the major themes and emphases of the five-chapter letter of James, one of the Catholic Epistles. I now want to get into the questions of Who Wrote It, When, and Why. This will take a couple of posts, and I've decided to give a fuller scoop in this case than usual, by citing how I discussed the matter in my book Forgery and Counterforgery. I think the discussion is accessible to the non-expert. I have edited it a bit here, in paret to make it more more user-friendly). This issue is rather important for anyone interested in the history of early Christianity. Do we have a writing from Jesus’ own brother? Now *that* would be interesting! ****************************** The letter of James begins simply enough: “James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion, greetings” (1:1). A number of persons are named James in the New Testament, including the father of Joseph (Jesus’ “father,” Matt. 1:16), the son of Zebedee [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:12:51-04:00August 3rd, 2025|Catholic Epistles|

The Book of James in a Nutshell

In this “New Testament in a Nutshell” thread I come now to the intriguing book of James, long one of my favorites among the Catholic epistles. At one point in my earlier existence, I liked the book so well that I memorized it. Don’t ask me to recite it now; that was 50 years ago. Even so, I still think it is a terrific book. And now I realize it is intriguing for all sorts of reasons I never would have imagined back when I was able to recite it at a drop of the hat. I start here with a one-sentence, fifty-word summary. The Book of James consists of ethical instruction for followers of Jesus who are to live in ways pleasing to God as a way of demonstrating their faith, since anyone who thinks they can be saved only through what they believe does not understand that “faith without works is dead.” For the rest of this post, I will summarize the major themes and emphases of this short, five-chapter book, which, hey, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:12:51-04:00August 2nd, 2025|Catholic Epistles|

Can You “Lose Your Salvation”?

Does the New Testament teach that a person can lose their salvation? It depends whom you ask. And possibly which New Testament books you read. I have been discussing the letter to the Hebrews, and a couple of passages there are some of the key texts for discussing the issue. First, some background: Since the 16th century, many protestants have believed that that once a person has become a committed follower of Jesus and is therefore bound for heaven it is literally impossible for her/him to lose their salvation. In modern lingo, this is often expressed by the phrase “once saved/always saved.” The idea stems from the teachings of John Calvin (1509-1564), who, among other things, believed that people were “predestined” for salvation by God. Being saved was not based on a person’s choice/decision. It was determined by God, from the beginning. There was a clear logic to this view. In simple terms, if God is ultimately sovereign in every way, then he is the one who determines what happens in the world. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:12:50-04:00July 27th, 2025|Catholic Epistles, Early Christian Doctrine, Public Forum|

Does the Book of Hebrews Indicate Jesus Ever Came To Earth? A Response to Richard Carrier.

In an earlier post I indicated that I have difficulty responding to writings of mythicists, largely because they often say things that I think are dead wrong, but it would take so much time and effort to explain why. This morning I did think I should at least give one example of the sort of thing I mean, and I have chosen (just) one of the claims made several times by one of the mythicists’ leading spokespersons, Richard Carrier. Carrier argues that the earliest Christians did not believe Jesus ever came to earth but was a god who ministered and crucified in the heavenly realms. He also claims this view is supported by a close reading of the early New Testament writings themselves. He lists a number of them and discusses them all. I am here simply picking one example, the book of Hebrews. I could do the same thing with others (he equally surprisingly includes the letters of Paul and the non-canonical book of 1 Clement, for example) but my idea is not to [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:12:50-04:00July 26th, 2025|Catholic Epistles, Historical Jesus, Mythicism, Public Forum|

The Letter to the Hebrews: For Further Reading

Here is a list of readings of relevance to the book of Hebrews. Some of the books, as you will see, are just on Hebrews itself; more are on the broader topic that Hebrews addresses, the relationship of Jews and Christians in early Christianity. This is a fraught topic: the first two on the list more or less argue that it’s not right to consider Judaism and Christianity as separate religions (!); the others address the question of how they became separate and how that led to the history of anti-Judaism and then, eventually, anti-Semitism. I include a a couple of important commentaries specifically on Hebrews. One benefit of serious commentaries is that they always begin by discussing major critical issues in understanding a book: authorship, date, historical context, major themes, disputed issues, and so on. Stand-alone books Beker, Adam, and Annette Yoshiko Reed. The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007. A collection of essays by leading scholars [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:12:49-04:00July 24th, 2025|Catholic Epistles, Public Forum|

The Book of Hebrews: Who Wrote It, When, and Why?

Now that I have discussed the overarching themes and emphases of the letter to the Hebrews, I can turn to the historical question of who actually wrote it, when, and why. ****************************** The authorship of the book has been debated for nearly as long as the book has been in circulation; and part of that question involves the issue of what kind of writing it actually is. Although Hebrews is normally labeled an epistle, this designation is not particularly apt. The book has an epistolary closing – where the author gives a final exhortation, gives some personal greetings, and signs off by wishing his readers the best (Heb 13:20–25). That is, it ends the way letters tend to end. But there is no epistolary prescript. That is, in the opening the author never names himself nor his addressees, he nor does he include an opening prayer, benediction, or thanksgiving on their behalf (check out Paul’s letters, which always begin that way). So is it really a “letter”? Scholars have long been [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:12:50-04:00July 23rd, 2025|Catholic Epistles, Public Forum|

The Letter to the Hebrews: In a Nutshell
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The Letter to the Hebrews: In a Nutshell

Catholic Epistles, Jews and Christians in Antiquity

The Letter to the Hebrews: In a Nutshell

I now return to my long “Nutshell” thread, explaining each book of the New Testament in brief terms, with one post laying out its major themes and emphases; another discussing what we can know about who wrote it, when, and why; another that provides suggestions for further reading; and at least one (and sometimes more) on other aspects of the book that are very much worth bearing in mind. Eventually we will collect all these and issue them together (in some format or other – to be decided). For now, if you want to check out earlier posts in the series, simply do a word search on the blog for “Nutshell.” We have finished the Gospels, Acts, and the Pauline epistles, and now move on to the “Catholic” or “General” epistles. In this context “catholic” does not refer to the Roman Catholic church (or any other “Catholic” church), but means simply “universal.” The idea, rightly or wrongly, is that rather than being addressed to a specific congregation, these books were written to be [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:12:50-04:00July 22nd, 2025|Catholic Epistles, Jews and Christians in Antiquity|

Proof That Historical Narratives (not just myths) Constantly Change in Oral Cultures

I have been discussing some of the many problems with assuming that oral traditions are passed along intact, without significant change, in oral cultures. In graduate school we all learned that they are and did, so that, for example, the fact that we might have a saying of Jesus or story about him in a source 50 years removed from his life isn’t really a problem. It would have been kept intact from the beginning without being changed. That’s how oral cultures work and always have worked. Nope. Not true. At least based on the hard-core research that actually examines the question. My previous two posts have marshaled some of the evidence. Here I continue on the theme, again in an excerpt from my 2017 book, Jesus Before the Gospels (HarperOne). *************************** Given these realities (that oral traditions are constantly changed when told and retold in oral cultures), as attested by numerous anthropological studies, why is it that people in literate cultures so often claim that people in past oral cultures had phenomenal memories and [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:06:26-04:00February 18th, 2024|Catholic Epistles, Historical Jesus|

Religion and the Wrecking Ball of Truth

In my last post I began to discuss the importance of "truth" to conservative evangelical Christianity, through a bit of autobiography. You don't need to have read that post for this one, so I begin here with the final paragraph that I left off with there. This is from my book Forged. ****************************** One of the ironies of modern religion is that the absolute commitment to truth in some forms of evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity, and the concomitant view that truth is objective and can be verified by any impartial observer, has led many faithful souls to follow the truth wherever it leads, but where it leads is often away from evangelical or fundamentalist Christianity. That is to say, if you can, in theory, verify the “objective” truth of religion, and then it turns out that the religion being examined is verifiably wrong, where does that leave you? For many one-time evangelical Christians it leaves them in the wilderness outside the evangelical camp, but with an unrepentant view of truth. Objective truth, to paraphrase the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T13:00:18-04:00November 22nd, 2022|Bart’s Biography, Catholic Epistles|

Can’t We Just Get Rid of Some of the Books of the Bible?

Here's an interesting question I received from a blog reader long ago! QUESTION: Given the criteria used to determine what would go on to constitute the New Testament canon, how is it that Hebrews and the book of Revelation remain part of the canon? I understand that Christians came to believe that they were authored by the apostles which is why they made it into the canon, but we now know that they weren't authored by Paul or John..so why are they still in the NT? RESPONSE: Interesting idea! I sometimes get asked what I would exclude from the canon if given the choice, and I almost always say 1 Timothy, because of what it says about women in 2:11-15, and how the passage has been used for such horrible purposes over the years. But, well, it ain’t gonna happen. I don’t get a vote. And that’s the problem with Hebrews and Revelation – and all the other books that were admitted when Church Fathers (wrongly) thought they were written by apostles of Jesus [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:59:48-04:00October 25th, 2022|Catholic Epistles, History of Christianity (100-300CE), Reader’s Questions|

Did Ancient Writers Use Secretaries?

In my previous post I tried to show that the disciples of Jesus were almost certainly not literate. Yet we have books allegedly written by them. Is it possible that people like Peter, John, James, and Jude used a secretary to write their books for them? So that the apostles in the ultimate sense were the "author" but someone else composed the writing for them? To answer the question with something other than common sense (that is, common guessing), we need to know about secretarial practices in antiquity. As it turns out, we do know some things, as I'll explain in this post and the next. Again, this is taken, in slightly edited form, from my book Forgery and Counterforgery, which goes into a great bit of detail about what we know about writing practices in the ancient world. ****************************** The notion that early Christian authors used secretaries .... is so widespread as to be virtually ubiquitous. There is no need here to cite references; one need only consult the commentaries, not only on the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:59:21-04:00September 1st, 2022|Catholic Epistles, Forgery in Antiquity|

How Many People Were Literate in Antiquity?

Over the past month I have received a number of questions on the blog about whether it was possible that some of the apostles used "secretaries" to write their books -- so that when 1 or 2 Peter, say, claims to be written by Peter, it actually was written by Peter in a sense. Peter told a secretary what to write and the secretary (e.g., Silvanus? 1 Peter 5:12) actually put pen to papyrus. But the thoughts and ideas were all Peter's. It's an important question, and I've dealt with it a good bit over the years. I actually did a short thread on it over six years ago now here on the blog. I've decided to return to the issue. This will take three posts. The first is on what levels of literacy back at the time of the New Testament: how many people cold read and how many write (which is not the same thing in antiquity!); and apart from who could write, who could compose a writing? Here is what I said about [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:59:20-04:00August 31st, 2022|Catholic Epistles, Forgery in Antiquity|

You Don’t Think Peter Wrote 1 and 2 Peter?

In my previous post I indicated that I didn't think Peter wrote 1 and 2 Peter. One of my main reasons for thinking so is that I'm pretty sure Peter could not write. These books were composed in highly literate Greek by someone skilled in Greek composition. To be able to compose a book took years and years of training starting with childhood. Everyone we know like that was elitely trained and connected with a wealthy family, almost always in an urban area. Not, for example, a rural Aramaic-speaking daylaborer from a remote part of Galilee. But couldn't Peter have "written" these books some other way -- e.g., by having a secretary or scribe do it for him? I dealt with that question many years ago on the blog (based on much fuller discussions in my books Forged and Forgery and Counterforgery, if you want to see more of the evidence and logic) and still think the same thing. As it turns out, there is New Testament evidence about Peter’s education level. According to Acts [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:59:07-04:00August 9th, 2022|Acts of the Apostles, Catholic Epistles, Forgery in Antiquity|

A More Serious (Specific) Problem with the NRSV Translation

In my last post I mentioned John 3:22 as a verse that is mistranslated in the NRSV, leading to problems; but the problems of interpretation are not that enormous there – the translators simply removed an internal inconsistency by the way they mistranslated the verse. This second problem, the subject of this post, is more severe. A mistranslation has completely altered the meaning of a passage; it is the result of a very good motive – to make the translation gender-inclusive. But motive has led to a very bad result in this case. The policy of the NRSV was to render gender neutral statements in a gender neutral way. If a passage refers to humans in general, then it does not make sense to translate it as referring only to “men” (or only to “women” for that matter). And so instead of “man” the translators chose to use “person” or “human” or – if the mortality of people is the issue – “mortals” or … whatever; instead of “men” they used “people,” “humans,” etc. That’s [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:55:23-04:00October 3rd, 2021|Catholic Epistles, History of Biblical Scholarship|

Was Christ So Divine That He Was Not Human? The “Antichrists” of 1 John

Just as there were “adoptionist” Christians in the second century, who maintained that Christ was not really a divine being, but a human being who had been “adopted” to be divine by God (so: not pre-existent; not born of a virgin; not “equal” with God; etc.), so too, on the other end of the spectrum, there were others who claimed that he was so *entirely* God that he was not actually human. Here is how I talk about early representatives of that view in my book How Jesus Became God. **************************** We have seen that those holding adoptionist views of Christ claimed to represent the earliest views of Jesus’ own apostles. Of course, every group representing every view of early Christianity claimed that its views were the original teachings of Jesus and his earthly followers – but in the case of the adoptionists, they may well have been right. The view we will consider now is in some ways the polar opposite: it maintained that rather than being completely human, and so not – by [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:53:03-04:00March 16th, 2021|Catholic Epistles, Early Christian Doctrine|

How the Trinity Got Into the New Testament: Part 2

I continue now with the story of how the doctrine of the Trinity as stated in 1 John 5:7 (the only passage in the entire Bible that states that there are three divine figures and “these three are one”) was actually not originally part of 1 John – or the Bible at all. It was a later addition. But how did it come into the King James Bible then? Read on! This is how I explained it in my book Misquoting Jesus. (If you haven’t read the previous post, it provides some background) (it also does even if you did read it). ************************** Even though the Complutensian Polyglot was the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament, it was not the first published version. As I pointed out, even though the work was printed by 1514, it did not actually see the light of published day until 1522. Between those two dates a famous and enterprising Dutch scholar, the humanist intellectual Desiderius Erasmus, both produced and published an edition of the Greek New [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:51:59-04:00January 9th, 2021|Catholic Epistles, Early Christian Doctrine, New Testament Manuscripts|

Did Some One Forge the Writings of “John”? Guest Post by Hugo Mendez

Here my colleague Hugo Mendez wraps up his discussion of the writings of "John" -- the Gospel of John, 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John -- and he does so with a BANG. I hope you can see both the quality and significance of these conclusions. This is very serious and persuasive scholarship put at a level that even non-scholars can understand, with huge implications for understanding four of the important writings of the New Testament but also for rethinking questions of authorship of the early Christian writings and the history of our earliest Christian communities. It's easy for scholars to see these implications (mainly because the conclusions he reaches are contrary to what most critical scholars actually teach their students all the time), which is why Hugo has stirred up a bit of a hornets' nest. I hope it's possible for you to both appreciate and enjoy the argument as well. There is only one point on which he and I probably disagree, and it has to do with the authorship of the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:49:09-04:00May 19th, 2020|Canonical Gospels, Catholic Epistles, Forgery in Antiquity|

Problems with Thinking the “Letters of John” in the NT are Forgeries? Guest Post: Hugo Mendez

This thread of posts we have been having by Hugo Mendez on the writings of "John" in the New Testament has been unusually stimulating and in the world of scholarship, controversial. If you haven't followed the thread, just look at the four that have already been posted starting two weeks ago. If he were to argue that 1 Timothy was not really written by Paul, but someone claiming to be Paul (i.e., that it was a "forgery"), not a single New Testament scholar in the country would raise an eyebrow. But to claim the letters of John are forgeries? Yikes -- now *that* is something you don't hear every day. But can the claim be sustained? Here Hugo answers some of the objections others might raise. What do you think? Convinced? NOTE: most posts on the blog are for members only. This one is open to anyone who wants to see it. Wanna see this kind of post five times each and every week, going back eight years? Join [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:49:09-04:00May 18th, 2020|Catholic Epistles, Forgery in Antiquity|

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