The Book Of James

1332 Words6 Pages
BOOK OF JAMES The book I chose to write about is the book of James, which is present in the New Testament of the Christian bible. The book of James was written around 45 A.D., which would make it the first book written in the New Testament. There are four different James’ that occur throughout the bible, but though the process of elimination most people believe it was James the brother of Jesus who wrote the book of James. The process of elimination that people use is not a complicated one. They eliminate James the son of Zebedee because he died in 44 A.D. so if the book of James was written in 45 A.D. it would be impossible for this James to have written the book. James the less and James of Luke did not hold authoritative positions and since the book of James was written in an authoritative tone we can eliminate these two as well. According to Matthew 13:55 Jesus did in fact have a brother named James, and two other brothers as well (Judas and Joseph). Even though James was the brother of Jesus he did not believe that Jesus was really the son of God until his resurrection. In 1Corinthians 15:7 it is said that the resurrected Jesus appeared personally with James, this is probably why James had the sudden change of heart. The book of James is an epistle (a long formal letter) written to everyone within the twelve tribes of Judah. The epistle tells the people of these tribes a number of messages. One message that is delivered through the epistle is that faith alone is not enough; it says that faith has to be accompanied by works. This is in direct contradiction with the works of Paul. Most people believe that the apparent contradiction is a misinterpretation of the works. They believe this is misinterpreted because the two epistles were written to two different societies in two different ages, but they do in fact carry the same message. As I stated in the
Open Document