James

The Epistle of James identifies its author simply as "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ" (1:1). Church tradition identifies him as James the brother of Jesus, who led the Jerusalem church after the Crucifixion and was martyred around 62 CE (Josephus, Antiquities 20.200).

The identification is ancient but problematic. The letter is written in polished, literary Greek — better than Paul's — which sits uneasily with a Galilean craftsman. Some scholars have proposed a later pseudonymous author writing in James's name; others suggest the use of a secretary (amanuensis) who polished the style.

What is certain is that the letter is remarkable. It reads more like Jewish wisdom literature than a Pauline epistle — a series of moral exhortations about wealth, speech, patience, and practical righteousness. Its famous insistence that "faith without works is dead" (2:26) led Martin Luther to call it an "epistle of straw," though he later softened his view.

The letter's relationship to Paul is debated: is James responding to (and correcting) Paul's doctrine of justification by faith, or are they addressing different questions? The scholarly consensus increasingly favours the latter — James is concerned with social ethics, not soteriological theory.

Whenever it was written and by whomever, the Epistle of James remains one of the most practically challenging texts in the New Testament — a bracing call to match belief with behaviour.