Of the time and place of the composition of this Letter
we know nothing beyond what may be inferred from its contents.
These seem to show that it was written in Palestine, and the
absence of any reference to so striking an event as the
destruction of Jerusalem points to a date earlier than 70 A. D.
It has, however, been thought that such a rebuke of error
and licentiousness as that which this Letter contains can only
apply to the forms of Gnosticism known to have existed in the
first quarter of the second century. But there is no reason to
doubt that the author was the man he asserts he was, the brother
of James, the head of the Church in Jerusalem. He was, therefore,
not an Apostle but one of the Lord's brothers.
The abiding value of the Letter consists in its severe
condemnation of merely professional Christianity, and its
remarkably beautiful doxology.