James
Author: James
See reflection below, and also see Eusebius in Book 3, Chapter 25, Verse 3, of Ecclesiastical History.
Date: Possibly 50 A.D. (1)
Language: Greek
Place: Not known
Purpose: To exhort the believer to good behavior, which is what God wants.
What kind of book?: Teaching Epistle to Jewish followers of Jesus, wherever they happened to be.
Reflection: The popular assumption is that the authors of the books of James and Jude respectively, were the "brothers," (though not genetic brothers obviously), of Jesus, however this is not documented. People assume such because Jude states he is the brother of James at the start of his letter.
We definitely know the names of the earthly brothers of Jesus:
"Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us?...." (Matthew 13:55-56 NIV).
Yet both could have been apostles! The apostle Thaddaeus, whose nickname was Judas, and who was probably called Jude to distinguish him from Judas Iscariot, was the son of a James (Luke 6:16), thus it is more likely that he would have a brother named James.
Now I saw a commentary once which asked the question: Why would Jude make special mention of his brother if he himself was an apostle? Good question! But if instead, Jude was the "brother" of Jesus, why did he not mention Jesus instead of his earthly brother?
I lean toward apostolic authorship for these two books, my reasoning being that had the authors been the "brothers" of Jesus, it is more likely that early Christian historians would have made specific mention of that.
But the early Christian historians had doubts about both of these books being Scripture in the first place, so maybe that is because they did not come from one of the twelve apostles.
Professor Tafoya said there still is a loose apostolic connection. That makes sense since the converted "brothers" of Jesus were eyewitness of Jesus, and it is documented by early historians that the "brother" of Jesus, James "the just," was the very first bishop of the Jerusalem church, serving until he was murdered.
Hunter Irvine
(1) J.B. Phillips, Letters To Young Churches (New York: The Macmillian Company, 1947).
