many of the sayings appear to be shared with the canonical gospels, and the text includes this reference to other sayings: "it sufficed for some persons to pay attention to the teaching and understand 'the shepherds' and 'the seed' and 'the building' and 'the lamps of the virgins' and 'the wage of the workers' and 'the double drachma' and 'the woman'." the references to salvation through "the cross" seem to imply familiarity with paul's letters, or at least his teachings. but its introduction says, "and five hundred and fifty days after he arose from the dead, we said to him: ...", which is considerably longer than the forty days which luke's acts of the apostles gives for the ascension. some have felt that this implies that the relationship of the apocryphon of james with the canon is through oral tradition, and that the community which wrote it rejected or else did not know luke-acts. (on the other hand, irenaeus in "against heresies" gave a time span of eighteen months, and irenaeus was certainly familiar with the work.) some scholars posit that the earliest version of the apocryphon was independent of the canonical gospels, but that an unknown redactor knew of and referenced canonical works in the known edition.