Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 162:647 (Jul 2005)
Article: The Sermon on the Mount in the Book of James, Part 1
Author: Virgil V. Porter, Jr.

Bsac 162:647 (July 2005) p. 344

The Sermon on the Mount in the Book of James, Part 1

Virgil V. Porter Jr.

Virgil V. Porter Jr. is Pastor, Northside Missionary Baptist Church, Garland, Texas.

Scholars have long debated the date when the Book of James was written. Some have dated it “in the early or middle 40s,”1 and others, as Guthrie notes, have put the date somewhere between the late first century and the late second century, with many preferring a date of about a.d. 125.2 Adolf von Harnack, Adolf Jülicher, and others in the Tübingen School are some who have said the epistle was composed late in the second century, but this date is not popular now.3 Davids lists twenty-one writers who place the date between a.d. 70 and 130.4

Obviously “decisions about the authorship [of the epistle] will affect opinions about the date.”5 If the epistle was written by James, the Lord’s brother, the date of composition would have to be before a.d. 62,6 the traditional date of James’s martyrdom. Scholars who reject James, the Lord’s brother, as the epistle’s author are prone to select a late date since they believe the Epistle of James could have been written after the death of James.

However, two factors in the contents of the epistle favor an early date. James’s lack of any mention of the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70, though an argument from silence, does seem to

Bsac 162:647 (July 2005) p. 345

support an early date. The destruction of Jerusalem was a highly significant event for the Jews. James, a Jewish author, writing to a Jewish audience, the twelve tribes who were dispersed (James 1:1), and writing a letter with Jewish concepts, would likely mention the destruction of Jerusalem, especially if he was writing after the city was destroyed. If James wrote after a.d. 70, some of his readers could have been present at the destruction of Jerusalem.7

Also the absence of any mention in the epistle of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 may support an early date. In fact since the Council occurred in a.d. 48 or 49,