No proper examination of the Epistle of James can be completed without studying the canonical criticism of James. This study would substantiate what could potentially be missing from the Bible if the Epistle of James was not included in the canon. Scholars have found many points and patterns of convergences in James to the sayings of Christ. An ongoing study of the relationship between the gospel traditions and James has been conducted since the first part of the nineteenth century, and findings from this study will be profitable to substantiate James’ congruence with the rest of the New Testament. The theological contributions of James will be listed giving the research material to show what would be missing as well. This perspicacity helps our research in showing the potential liability of the epistle’s exclusion from the canon. This journey of study will allow us as students to unpack the richness of the Epistle of James to our lives perhaps in ways we have never considered before. 
A suitable start is to begin where the early church began with the Epistle of James, and that concerns Apostolic authority. After the Lord’s death, resurrection, and ascension it was the apostles that had the very authority of Christ himself.  They were His messengers.  As such, their teachings were foundational to the church. The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:20 describes the church as “built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.” For the early Church, the benchmark for discerning the authentic Christian message were the Gospels and the teaching of the apostles. It is understandable then that the church would hold significance for apostolic letter over and above other. The epistles that the church considered as apostolic were read, copied, and used in early Christian worship. These are the letters that ultimately became the New Testament canon.  The Canon is the consequence of the ministry of the apostles. Is there any internal evidence that the Epistle of James was, in fact, written by the Apostle James and not a pseudographer? Moreover, if so, which James in the New Testament wrote the epistle? Was it the James with apostolic authority? Many internal pieces of evidence support the Apostle James as the authentic author of the epistle.  
We should rightly begin with the epistle as it asserts being written by “James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ”.  Immediate objections have been made concerning James’ self–discloser in this verse. The most common are “Why James does not call himself the brother of Jesus?” The evidence provides a simple answer. James refers to himself a servant of God rather than holding his biological relationship with Jesus over people’s heads. This attitude is in keeping with the theology in the rest of the letter forbidding favoritism. There are four possibilities for the James in question.   
Of these four, the fourth contender is by far the clearest candidate for the authorship of this letter. James the father of Judas is too obscure to be an aspirant; even worse is that of James, the son of Alphaeus. Interestingly, James the son of Zebedee, on the other hand, does have a prominent role among the Twelve, but the date of his martyrdom falls short at A.D. 44 making him too early to write the letter. We are consequently left, then, with James, the brother of the Lord, “who is certainly the most prominent James in the early church.”  The conventional position is that the James of 1:1 is certainly Jesus' brother. He is also the James acknowledged in Acts as the leader of the church in Jerusalem. Commentators harmonize that this James is the only one with ample authority to have spoken on behalf of the Jerusalem church. This James is “seen in his prominent role at the Jerusalem Council in A.D. 49.”  With this James as the author, the range of dates for writing extends from A.D. 40-62 , the date of James's death at the instigation of Ananus II, the Jewish high priest.  The epistle then has a Palestinian (probably Jerusalemite) origin, occasioned by tensions between the wealthy and poor amid the increasing societal discontent. Although there is a lack of clear citation and consensus among the writings of the early church fathers, the identification of James, the brother of Jesus, as the author was "almost certainly" the reason for the early church's canonization of the epistle. 
