The Epistle of James

THE EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES

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What kind of weight would James' brotherly relationship with Jesus carry in the apostolic church? Why is it important to know something about the Jewish background of James' audience when interpreting this letter? If we pray and ask God for wisdom, how can we be sure that the decisions we make will come from God's wisdom and not from ourselves?

What is wisdom literature? What kind of influence did the wisdom literature of Second Temple Judaism have on the epistle of James? What is the relationship between wisdom and understanding? How does James tie together the themes of "true religion" and the "royal law"? What relevance do James' instructions concerning the rich and the poor have in today's global economy?

Why did James place such a high value on "the tongue" as an indicator of a person's spiritual state? Explores both reflective and practical wisdom found in the book of James and discusses what this meant for the original audience and what it means for Christians today. A companion video to lesson 2 of the same series that asks the following questions: Why does James give so much emphasis to the challenges facing poor believers?

The author is indeed a Christian, writing to believers, but the focus is not on how to become believers. It is on the second stage—on how to advance along the way of holiness and to tr.

The Gospel fulfilled the law. Though there are only five direct verbal quotations from the OT James 1: Allusion is made to passages from all three divisions of the canon. This Hebraic coloring is, he believes, one of the most pronounced characteristics of the epistle. A strong tendency to assonance and pleonasm as well as a terse and forceful way of putting things are Hebraic qualities. A still more striking fact is the number of parallels between this epistle and the words of Jesus.

Instead of quoting specifically from the gospels, it seems that the author is simply reflecting the words he heard from the lips of Jesus Himself, perhaps as they worked together as youths in Nazareth. He certainly knew and shared the insights and attitudes reflected in the Sermon on the Mount, in parables, and in other teachings about life, poverty, and values cf.

Opinions differ concerning the unity of this epistle. Various ideas of composite authorship have been suggested, often based on a core of materials coming from James in Jerusalem, perhaps in Aram. Burkitt, Christian Beginnings, He calls attention to its four divisions, each containing four subdivisions. The truth may not be at either extreme.

There is a tone of authority that hardly goes with a late and composite authorship. Fifty-four imperatives occur in one hundred eight vv.

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This seems to reflect the kind of certainty that belongs to a recognized leader and spokesman among the apostles. Likewise, the absence of the usual references to incarnation, atonement, and the death and resurrection of Jesus inclines toward unity of authorship. Late editors, overlooking the cause for the omissions, would almost certainly have supplied this lack.

Furthermore, hortatory materials tend to have their own peculiar kind of unity. Even so, there is a unity and pattern of thought centering around the exhortation to constancy and holy living that could hardly have been the work of any but the original writer. Note, under Contents , how the main body of the epistle is an elaboration of the three elements of 1: The authority, freshness, directness, and intrinsic outline can hardly be explained other than by unity of authorship.

The epistle, if not pseudepigraphic, must have been written by James, the brother of the Lord. This view has also appealed to those modern scholars who on general considerations assign it a late date and who regard it as a moral treatise instead of a letter. However, the absence of motive for a pseudonymous production is a strong argument against it. Furthermore, the epistle bears none of the marks usually claimed as indications of pseudepigraphy.

In the one v. Nor is there any autobiographical reference in the body of writing. In view of these facts and of the total absence of proof that any canonical book was ever written under an assumed name, it is better to believe that the recognition of the book involved a general agreement on its genuineness. Besides, would an unknown 2nd cent.

Biblical Studies (NT)/The Epistle of James: Faith and Action

Does not the meaning of the name depend on the well-accepted authority of this president of the Jerusalem church? Once this identity is established, does it not carry with it a sitz im leben quite impossible to counterfeit? Certainly the author was a Jew see section 5. Which Jew was he? At any rate, the son of Zebedee died too early about a. He had the recognized authority that would permit him to speak so freely in the imperative mood.

It was he who appeared in the unvarying role of leader in Jerusalem—when Peter escaped from prison Acts Other factors support the identification. There are coincidences of phraseology between the epistle and both the speech of James at the council of Jerusalem and the letter from the council cf.

The epistle therefore is the work of the type of mind reflected in all that is known of this James. He was strict, careful, and zealous, possibly to the point of asceticism see [http: Severe with himself, he commanded discipline on the part of others. Finally, there are the verbal reminiscences of the teaching of Jesus, to which attention has already been called. The abundance and naturalness of these do not indicate the work of a 2nd cent.

These are not formal quotations from a hardened tradition.

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They drop freely as from a mind saturated with the thoughts of Jesus from long association with Him. Objections have been raised. Barclay, for example, marvels that such a book should have only two incidental references to Jesus, and none at all to the Resurrection, or to Jesus as the Messiah The Letters of James and Peter , 38, The answer to the first problem seems to be in the purpose of the book.

James is not presenting the Gospel. He is defending the practical and ethical demands of God upon His people. Why should it be complicated with theological questions that would only divert the pressure from their smarting consciences?

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As to the excellence of the Gr. Is there any reason that a bilingual Jew from Galilee of the Gentiles could not polish his Gr. It should be remembered that James avoided complex sentences. Short, pungent commands served his purpose better. Those who accept James the Just, brother of the Lord, as author of the epistle are obliged to date it before a. Others tend to date it anywhere from late 1st cent. Oesterley avoids the difficult choice by suggesting the possibility that the core of the epistle was a work of James, but was elaborated as time went on by commentary—much after the manner that, on a much larger scale, the comments on the words of Scripture became the Mishna, the comments on these the Gemara, and finally the Talmud EGT, IV, For reasons already discussed under Unity, this composite authorship should likely be rejected.

If Lightfoot and others are correct in seeing James reflected in Clement, the epistle must belong to the 1st cent. James gives the thought in a more terse and rugged form than Clement, and he must have written first Mayor, James , p. Once a 1st cent. The writing comes too close to the lifetime of James for one to borrow his name successfully. A choice still remains for those who accept James as the author.

Who wrote this book?

Was it before or after the council in Jerusalem? The seemingly settled condition of affairs and the presence of wealth and perhaps intellectualism in the Christian communities tend to indicate as late a date as possible, therefore around a. Josephus, at least, makes abundant mention of the oppressive rich in the period leading up to the rebellion against Rome a. However, none of these arguments are conclusive for the later period.

Would not the foundations of the Jewish Christian church have already been well laid by a. Were there not people of means among the followers of Jesus and even among the apostles as, for example, the sons of Zebedee, Matthew, and the ladies who ministered of their means? Foster, "there is little consensus as to the genre, structure, dating, and authorship of the book of James. Jesus had two apostles named James: James, the son of Zebedee and James, the son of Alphaeus , but it is unlikely that either of these wrote the letter.

The other apostle James, the son of Alphaeus, is not prominent in the Scriptural record, and very little is known about him. From the middle of the 3rd century, patristic authors cited the Epistle as written by James, the brother of Jesus and a leader of the Jerusalem church. Paul described him as "the brother of the Lord" in Galatians 1: Pseudonymous authorship 3 above implies that the person named "James" is respected and doubtless well known.

Moreover, this James, brother of Jesus, is honored by the epistle written and distributed after the lifetime of James, the brother of Jesus. John Calvin and others suggested that the author was the Apostle James, son of Alphaeus , who is referred to as James the Less.

The Protestant reformer Martin Luther denied it was the work of an apostle and termed it an "epistle of straw" [15] as compared to some other books in the New Testament, partly because of the conflict he thought it raised with Paul on the doctrine of justification see below. Many scholars consider the epistle to be written in the late 1st or early 2nd centuries: It contains no reference to the events in Jesus' life, but it bears striking testimony to Jesus' words. Jesus' sayings are embedded in James' exhortations in a form that is clearly not dependent on the written Gospels.

If written by James the brother of Jesus, it would have been written sometime before AD 69 or AD 62 , when he was martyred. Jerusalem would also be the place of writing. The earliest extant manuscripts of James usually date to the mid-to-late 3rd century. James is considered New Testament wisdom literature: The content of James is directly parallel, in many instances, to sayings of Jesus found in the gospels of Luke and Matthew, i.

According to James Tabor , the epistle of James contains "no fewer than thirty direct references, echoes, and allusions to the teachings of Jesus found in the Q source. Some view the epistle as having no overarching outline: The Catholic Encyclopedia says, "the subjects treated of in the Epistle are many and various; moreover, St.

THE LETTER OF ST. JAMES

James not infrequently, whilst elucidating a certain point, passes abruptly to another, and presently resumes once more his former argument. Others view the letter as having only broad topical or thematic structure. They generally organize James under three Ralph Martin [22] to seven Luke Johnson [23] general key themes or segments. A third group believes that James was more purposeful in structuring his letter, linking each paragraph theologically and thematically:.

James, like the gospel writers, can be seen as a purposeful theologian, carefully weaving his smaller units together into larger fabrics of thought and using his overall structure to prioritize his key themes.

The third view of the structuring of James is a historical approach that is supported by scholars who are not content with leaving the book as "New Testament wisdom literature, like a small book of proverbs" or "like a loose collection of random pearls dropped in no particular order onto a piece of string. A fourth group uses modern discourse analysis or Greco-Roman rhetorical structures to describe the structure of James. Understanding the circumstances of James' writing helps scholars better understand James' organization of the letter.

Epistle of James

They view the epistle as having a legitimate purpose for its composition, a response to the suffering of its recipients. A journal article [28] explores a violent historical background behind the epistle and offers the suggestion that it was indeed written by James, the brother of Jesus, and it was written before AD 62, the year he was killed.

It continued into the 60s, four years before James was killed. War broke out with Rome and would lead to the destruction of Jerusalem and the scattering of the people. The epistle is renowned for exhortations on fighting poverty and caring for the poor in practical ways 1: Worldly wisdom is rejected and people are exhorted to embrace heavenly wisdom, which includes peacemaking and pursuing righteousness and justice 3: This approach sees the epistle as a real letter [30] with a real immediate purpose: It contains the following famous passage concerning salvation and justification:.

Can that faith save him? Even the demons believe—and shudder! That passage has been cited in Christian theological debates, especially regarding the doctrine of justification. Gaius Marius Victorinus 4th century associated James's teaching on works with the heretical Symmachian sect, followers of Symmachus the Ebionite , and openly questioned whether James' teachings were heretical.

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