James (early Jewish studies, U. of St. Andrews, Scotland) investigates what sort of positive evidence leads scholars to extrapolate a Jewish origin for a pseudepigraphon transmitted by Christians but containing no reference to Christianity. Under what circumstances, he asks, is it possible in principle to demonstrate a Jewish origin for such works and under what circumstances it is impossible to determine whether the work was originally a Jewish, a Christian, or some other kind of composition. A central thesis behind his study is that for the purpose of reconstructing ancient Judaism, a false negative is less harmful than a false positive--that is, if a work may be Jewish but may just as credibly be Christian or of other provenance, it should not be used. Some of the material has been presented at various conferences. Only citations are indexed. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)