What makes every form of this intermediate dating impossible is the total absence from the epistle of any reference to the question of the conditions upon which Gentiles were to be received into the Church. In A. D. 62 this question had recently been the subject of bitter controversy. At that time no one could have touched upon the closely related topic of faith and works as James does and yet have ignored so completely the controversial question.
Evidently, therefore, the epistle was written either before the Judaistic controversy arose or else long after it was over.
(=2=) =The Late Date.=--The latter view makes the epistle a pseudonymous work--it assumes that an unknown author has here tried to enhance the influence of his work by putting it under the name of the first head of the Jerusalem church. This is of itself sufficient to refute the late dating. For the procedure of the supposed falsifier is quite incomprehensible. He has chosen James as the alleged author only because of the lofty position which James held, and yet he has designated him in the first verse merely as a simple Christian! The procedure of real forgers is very different.
There are also, however, other objections to the late dating. Would any writer in the second century, when the authority of Paul was well established, have ventured to introduce such an apparent contradiction of Paul as appears in James 2:24? In a writer of A. D. 150 we should have had formal agreement with Paul and material disagreement; in the Epistle of James we have formal disagreement and material harmony. Apparent contradiction of expression combined with perfect unity of thought is a sure sign of independence. The Epistle of James has made no use of the epistles of Paul.
Against this conclusion may be urged only the coincidence that James and Paul both use the example of Abraham, and cite the same verse, Gen. 15:6, with regard to him. But it must be remembered that to every Jew Abraham offered the most obvious example in all the Scriptures. It is possible, too, that the faith and works of Abraham had in pre-Christian Jewish circles already been the subject of controversy. Furthermore, James does not confine himself to Abraham, but introduces Rahab also, who is not mentioned by Paul. The coincidence between Paul and James is quite insufficient to overbalance the clear evidence of independence.