Loading...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!
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The letter of James begins simply enough:
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Thank you for another fascinating post, Dr. Ehrman. I notice that the Who, When and Why sections of the Nutshell series don’t include a Where (although I know that you have very occasionally ventured an opinion on the writer’s location). In some books/articles I’ve read, usually by Christian authors, they are often quite ‘certain’ where the various NT books were written, eg Antioch, Ephesus, Rome. Do you have any views on this, please?
My view is that we almost never know where books were written — that’s why I decided not to go there. Was Mark written in Rome? John in Ephesus? Matthew in Antioch? Who knows??? Most of these are guesses. Sometimes we are given an indicatoin (1 Peter from “Babylon,” i.e. Rome; Revelation from Patmos) etc., and sometimes there are various factors (some of Paul’s letters). On the whole, though, I’d say the matter is fraught. There’s no way to know for most of the NT books.
A question of authorship…
Hebrews 13:25, from the online King James Bible, reads, “Grace be with you all. Amen. (Written to the Hebrews from Italy, by Timothy.)” Interestingly, BibleHub.com does not include the parenthetical text for the King James variant. Only the Smith’s Literal Translation, the Haweis New Testament, and the Early Modern Geneva Bible of 1587 and Bishop’s Bible of 1568 include the reference to Italy and/or Timothy.
– Is Timothy now thought to be the author of Hebrews?
– Why does the online King James Bible include the parenthetical reference, but BibleHub does not for the King James Bible?
Thanks for reading, and I look forward to your response.
The parenthetic comment is not part of the King James Translation itself but was inserted by the editors of the particular edition of the KJV being used by this online site. The book could not have been written by Timothy because Timothy is mentioned by the author in v. 23 (as you’ll see). Offhand I don’t know why editors thought Timothy wrote it.
Hello Dr.Bart Erhman
In some verses Paul seems to be a universalist and in others he is not. What is going on?
I wish we knew. A struggle between hopeful thinking and realism? Between a deep faith in the complete and ultimate sovereignty of God and a recognition of the deeply entrenched sinfulness of people? Not sure. But he does seem to say both things.
In the Gospel of John we appear to have mixed messages about whether Jesus baptised people. In John 3:22 we are told that Jesus baptised people when he was in Judea but in the next chapter (John 4:1-2) there seems to be an attempt to correct this by saying it was the disciples who baptised not Jesus himself. Please can you say what is going on here and why the change of mind and a distancing of Jesus’ involvement in this practice.
Yes, it’s a fascinating set of verses that make for a peculiar reversal. The common line among the critical commentators is that the original version of John indicated that Jesus baptized people, but then a later editor — possibly the author himself (?) — realized that might be seen as a problem, and so added the parenthetic remark that *he* didn’t baptize anyone but his followers did. (Possibly it would have been seen as problematic because if someone could claim they were personally baptized by Jesus it would give them elevated status in the community and it would lead to problems; something like that seems to be in view later with Paul, 1 Cor. 1:14-16)
Hello Dr.Bart Erhman
Was universalism popular in early christianity?
In at least two of your interviews about your heaven and hell book in which you spoke about Lazarus and the rich man I remember in the interviews you were giving your various reasons as to why you think Jesus didn’t tell the story/Parable of the rich man and Lazarus. You mentioned how the story/parable was only in the book of Luke. At the time I assumed you brought up this point as I assumed it was one of your many reasons to your conclusion that Jesus didn’t tell the parable/story? Am I correct? Thanks Bart.
Hello Bart/ Dr Ehrman.
In the Lazarus and Rich Man story/parable it uses actual names. In the other parables stories in The Book of Luke it never uses names. I haven’t heard you speak of this point in any of your interviews. Not sure if you are aware/unaware of this point that the other parable/stories never use names? Anyway do you think it is significant? What are your thoughts on this issue? Thanks.
James the Just (or Justice) was the leader of the Jesus movement in Jerusalem after the crucifixion of Jesus. What we see in Acts is conflict between Paul and Justice, the conflict between a Jewish movement led by James (based on the Law) and the Gentile (Roman) movement led by Paul. There is no way to reconcile this conflict, unless one reconciles the conflict according to who won the conflict. And who won the conflict? Paul. And here we are.
You often say that a book could not have been authored by the person to whom it is attributed because that person couldn’t write. Authorship doesn’t depend on a person’s ability to do the physical writing. The thoughts and even the phrasing could be theirs if, for example, they dictated to someone who had the necessary skills. Why do you not allow for this in your discussion of authorship? More broadly, what would be the arguments against a position that the book reflects the collected wisdom of James’s teachings, recorded by one of his followers, and published under his name?
I have devoted a good deal of research to the question and have addressed it at length in both my books Forged and Forgery and Counterforgery; you can find some discussoin on this on the blog by doing a word search for “secretaries” The book does not claim to be a collection of James’s teachings; it claims to be a letter James wrote to Christians dispersed throughout the world.
Dr. Ehrman, I would challenge your comment that the James in Acts 12 ff is the brother of Jesus (“BOJ”). When comparing Hegesippus’ account of BOJ’s execution with the same story in Josephus, Josephus’ account is the version that is less embellished, and yet it requires real gymnastics to make it express or imply that the BOJ had become a Christian. Seems best to theorize, in absence of solid evidence of BOJ’s alleged conversion to Christianity, that the unqualified “James” in Acts, 1st Cor and Galatians was one of the two Jameses named among the original 12 apostles, who gained enough prominence after Acts 1 as to merit unqualified designation. It seems absurd to trifle that for this or that reason, a Christian brother of Jesus named James, despite knowing how much pull he’d obviously have, somehow chose to avoid writing (or the church lost it to history) an epistle that spells out exactly the solution to the local church’s apparently serious doctrinal problems. Not likely that the BOJ would avoid identifying his relation, credentials and authority in the book of James, unless the BOJ was less enthused than Paul about Christianity.
Well, he couldn’t be James the son of Zebedee, since he is martyred in Acts 12. The other James never shows up in the historical record apart from being named as one of the disciples. So there doesn’t seem to be much reason to doubt that the James in Jerusalem Paul meets with in Acts is the James in Jerusalem that Paul himself talks about in Galatians 1-2.