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Introduction
readers face. But it is finally the spiritual issues that are brought to the surface in these challenges that James focuses on particularly. The book of Acts may provide indirect evidence for the specific situation that James addresses. Tasker makes the attractive suggestion that Acts 11:19 may provide the specific background against which we should understand James’s use of diaspora. Here Luke tells us that, as a result of the persecution connected with the stoning of Stephen, many Jewish Christians were “scattered” (diaspeirō, the verb used here, is cognate to diaspora) and “traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews.” We can imagine James, the leader of the Jerusalem church, sending a pastoral admonition to these believers from his “home” church who had been scattered abroad because of persecution.83 This theory cannot be proven, but it does fit remarkably well with the nature and circumstances of the letter, as well as with the date I will suggest for the letter.
B. Date Scholars who think that James is pseudepigraphical usually date the letter sometime in the late first or early second century.84 If James the brother of the Lord wrote the letter, as I have argued, it must be dated sometime before AD 62, when James was martyred. Most scholars think that the letter was probably written very close to this date.85 They note the many similarities between James and 1 Peter and think that the problem of worldliness that surfaces repeatedly in the letter reflects a “settled” situation in the churches. But the letter contains parallels with many Jewish and Christian books, dated all the way from 100 BC to AD 150. As noted earlier, these parallels usually involve traditional teaching that was common stock among early Christians. The parallels with 1 Peter are all of this nature. Furthermore, it is not clear that the Christians to whom James writes have been settled in their faith for a long time. None of the problems that arise in the letter are unusual among fairly young Christians. Temptations to compromise one’s faith with the world afflict the believer almost immediately after conversion, and this is especially true 83. Tasker, 39; see also Burdick, 162–63. Bauckham (James, 16–23) is among many who argue for a Jerusalem provenance for the letter. See, for a contrary view, Allison, 9. 84. E.g., the last third of the first century (R. E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament [New York: Doubleday, 1997], 741–42); or AD 100–120 (Allison, 28–32). 85. E.g., Tasker, 31–32; see also Hengel, “Jakobusbrief,” 252.
