Who wrote the Epistle of James?

Answer 1

As the name implies, the Epistle of James is traditionally attributed to James the brother of Jesus, and this remains the belief of almost all Christian laypeople and most theologians. However, there are some problems with this attribution, including that the author relied on the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew scriptures. The James that we learn most about from Paul's epistles was a Palestinian Jew and would have been very familiar with the original Hebrew scriptures, but not the Greek translation that was used only in the Greek-speaking diaspora. It is very unlikely that James really wrote this epistle, so its author remains unknown.

Answer/

The General Epistle of James that he wrote for followers, was subscribed to James son of Zebedee.

James the Apostle who witnessed the Transfiguration has his superscription recorded on each of the earliest editions, sourced here - Codex Corbeinsis; Widmanstadt; Tremellius, etc.

Answer 2

The Epistle of James seems to have been difficult for the early Christians to place. It appears not to have been read or even noticed by authors in the centrist tradition before Origen in the third century. The teaching of the letter is not about the Christian faith, but about the importance of living a moral life. The arguments for doing so are set forth as common wisdom. The source and authority for this wisdom are taken for granted by the author and sayings reminiscent of the teachings of Jesus are not even attributed to him as their author or authority. This could hardly be the work of James, the brother of Jesus.

Although the work is attributed to James, we do not know who really wrote it.