Chris Weimer

James has always been one of my favorite NT books, especially since I'm a big fan of wisdom and ethical humility. So here is a pseudo-debate on the letter. Nota bene - I'm using several websites including earlychristianwritings.com and bible.org for the points and counterpoints, all paraphrased as general thoughts. Please feel free to comment as I'm not making any positive statements, just ruminating them over in my head, and now on paper.

P1. One of the arguements against James the Just writing the letter is the polemic against a Pauline theology which James, according to both Paul and Acts, assented to when meeting him.

C1. The letter then could have been written before the meeting with Paul, and even before Paul's letters explaining sola fide in full. If it was written by James the Just, there's no reason why it couldn't have been written shortly after the death of Jesus (assuming he existed) and right after he gained true authority in Palestine (being, after all, one of the pillars mentioned by Paul).

P2. The content of the letter doesn't deal with Christians, and in fact, only briefly mention Jesus Christ and the special title doulos, thus those possibly being late additions to an early Jewish wisdom book. Even the style of the letter is literary Greek and formatted like a spoken sermon being converted into an epistle (or at least was thought of in that manner).

C2. No doubt that James is a wisdom book, but the MSS don't have anything variant in the Christ locations, thus all speculations about it being a late interpolation are just that - speculative! And the lack of anything Christian would also support a very early date for James, even before the mass hellenisation of Paul and definitely before the Jewish-Christian Matthaean problem in Antioch.

P3. Why wouldn't James use Jesus as an example for the theme of patience instead of Job?

C3. The letter wasn't primarily written for converting Jews to Christianity, thus also falling in line with the James and Jesus as a Jew for the Jews (or the J4 theory). Actually, it's even more evidence against a later Christian writing it who would have wanted to expound on Jesus instead of on Jesus' message.

P4. Tradition for James was started with Origen around 200 CE. Prior to that, James as the author seems non-existant for this letter making it pseudepigraphic.

C4. As a letter for Jews and not Christians, and written before the Pauline reconciliation, it is highly probable then that it wasn't accepted into Christian communities at the time, or that the Christian community in Jerusalem may have regarded it highly but disappeared after the destruction of the temple.

Rick Sumner

I see this bandied about a lot, but backed up pretty rarely, so perhaps advocates of this could share what they see as paralleling a Jewish wisdom text?

It might be pertinent to note James' stance on friends of the world and friends of God. To be sure, wisdom literature emphasizes fidelity to God over all, but it also teaches one to embrace the world, embrace the status quo, and so on. The world, in wisdom literature, is usually good, because God made it that way. This dualism, while not unheard of in wisdom texts, is nonetheless peculiar in them. It's much less out of place in Christian literature.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Editted to add:
I'm not suggesting that there are not elements of Jewish Wisdom literature influencing James, lest we descend into nitpicking. Rather I'm suggesting that I see no reason to view the document as a whole as such, unless we arbitrarily reshape it to fit. There is certainly influence from wisdom literature.

Chris Weimer

Hey Rick,

I didn't really notice their arguements for it, rather, I picked things their arguements which I had already agreed with, so instead of giving their arguements, I'll give you my notes.

First of all, there's no doubt that this text is in the first century. The structure is the primary thing which gives off a wisdom-text scent. Instead of giving specific ecclesiastical instructions, such as Paul and the Pastorals, or anything related to Christians in general, such as John, Jude, and Peter, or any theological understandings of Christ, such as Paul, Hebrews, John, Peter, and Jude (everyone but James), it is basically an ethical understanding of God. Unlike the other letters, Jesus is only mentioned twice, with God being the rest of the respect.

Also, like Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Ben Sirach, he moves from point to point about wise actions, or actions that the God favors and actions that will bring the wrath of the Lord. As with the other "wisdom texts", there isn't so much on wisdom per se, but on what is wise to do; however, wisdom itself is there such as 1:5 and more importantly 3:13-15.

And like the other wisdom texts, it draws heavily off of great figures of the Tanakh who can serve as examples (exemplars?) for current enlightening. Specifically, he names Job, Elias, Abraham, Rahab, but surprisingly not once Jesus Christ, even though passion (as in patience/suffering) is a heavy theme used for both Job and Elias.

Finally, there is no cessation of the law in James, and instead of rituals or understandings of the law, he insteads show practical and wise ways of application.

Chris Weimer

Wanted to add above, that a departure from traditional way of the wisdom texts (which the four most common, Sirach, Sophia Solomon, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs don't all necessarily agree with each other anyway) may be counted for by being constructed in the first century CE where such attitudes were already blossoming most likely even before Christianity gained a foothold.

Rick Sumner

Is a "Wisdom Text Scent" the same thing as being a Wisdom text though? It just seems a long jump to me--from the epistle to a pre-existent Wisdom text, and requires a little too much editting to work very well.

Are Wisdom texts ethical understandings of God? It seems to me that they are, in general, far more pragmatic. Do this, and this will happen. Do this, because it's right. Understandings of God are left to other scripture, Wisdom texts are understandings of life (as an aside, James does to some degree meet this description, my point here is that Wisdom texts are being somewhat misrepresented).

"Wrath of the Lord" is an understatement. James' Lord is merciless, not something we find often in first century Jewish texts in general. That sounds more like polemic to me than anything, and seems to have a specific group in mind. That, combined with the emphasis on Abraham, which I'd argue is distinctly Pauline, points to a Christian origin for the text.

Paul had to use Abraham, it was his only lifeline, and all things considered, a rather brilliant prooftext. James, if he did not know Paul, could have done better. Abraham is far more paradigmatic in Christianity than anywhere else, and James makes the most sense if we view it as countering Paul's use of Abraham as a paradigm.

That doesn't make it a Wisdom text, and if his purpose, as I've suggested above, is polemical, then the lack of mention is not surprising. He's arguing against Paul's Abrahamic paradigm, not waxing poetic about the life of Jesus.

Does this make Isaiah or Amos Wisdom literature? There's no cessation of the Law there either.

Besides which, I'd argue that Paul sees no cessation of the law in any case. One is made righteous through faith. One stays righteous through ethics.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Julian

Paul emphasized faith to combat foreign ideas, probably a severely Jewish brand of Christianity, whereas James seems to say that unless you do stuff your faith isn't worth much.

I tend to think that Paul's arguments were a knee-jerk reaction to foreign influences and doesn't necessarily accurately summarize his idea of christianity. Even Paul exhorts his followers to an ethical lifestyle. At Paul's time the church was very varied and a number of sects probably vied for influence and control. This, to an extent, forces Paul's argument, probably in directions he would not have cared to go and we see him backing off, or at least relaxing, in later letters.

James seems to have the luxury to vax philosophical. He doesn't comment on any topical issues but deals with ethical issues in a high-handed manner. I do think that it reads like a sermon and not a letter. This allows us to investigate the ideology of the writer but doesn't do much for fixing a location in time and place.

I don't believe that this 'letter' is by James. I do see it as a Jewish christian creation, probably late 1st century. I suspect that the writer either doesn't know Paul's letters or has chosen to ignore them. To me, this suggests that the strong movement towards orthodoxy has not yet commenced. This, in my mind, also puts it before Acts.
Even Paul reads like Jewish literature if you ignore his kerygmatic statements. The absence of any gospels and a heavy reliance on the Tanakh in those days makes it very hard to tell the difference. It is not until the appearance of a quotable Jesus from the gospels, not counting Q, that the Jewishness fades. Again, this makes the letter early but, I suspect, not that early.
I suspect that it is pseudepigraphical because of its focus on faith, the way it reminds me of the beatitudes and the genral tone of the writing.

Also interesting because of this statement:

5:10 Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.

Burton Mack assumes that the prophets mentioned here were the original apostles, of whom James was one supposedly, and therefore this sentences makes no sense if the writer was really James. However, the word used is Ï€Ï?οφητας and not αποστολος as one might expect. The word for Lord here is the standard κυÏ?ιος instead of the Θεος used elsewhere for god. It sounds like James is making a distinction between Lord and god. κυÏ?ιος refers in the opening statement to Jesus and could be assumed to be the case here as well arguing for a forgery in the late 1st century or so.

Also the question is what the suffering affliction and patience refers to. The suffering of Isreal and the coming messiah or the crucifiction and second coming.

Hmmm, I will probably have more thoughts on this as I ponder it some more.

Julian

Chris Weimer

Why does it have to not be a letter? I can concede that it was a letter, but that doesn't detract from the Wisdom general layout.

I'm not understanding where you're going with this. By ethics, if you look through James again, they are pragmatic, somewhat, but as much as the other Wisdom literature. In fact, just looking at Ben Sirach and James, the ethical understanding is very similar. Ben Sirach makes extensive use of God's ethics (are you sure we're on the same page of what this means). The very fact that all wisdom comes from God, and there is the element of what God does that is practical for the believer only.

I'm sorry, but a merciful god is so Christian.

I think the presence of the Apocalypse of Abraham should denote that Abraham was a common figure in Judaism of those days. It wouldn't be too uncommon. In fact, Ben Sirach 44:19 uses Abraham in the exact context that James does, i.e. the Abraham held up the law (which accd. to Midrash, he upholds the entire law, even though we can quite clearly see this as not true, but that is a different topic altogether.[/quote]

James' use of Abraham and others mirrors Ben Sirach, which was written closer to the time when James was, as opposed to Proverbs and Ecclesiastes (and that Sophia Solomon heavily mirrors those two), and the non-existance of Jesus' life futher severs the Christian connection.

Oh come on now! It isn't that which makes it wisdom literature, but combined provides an effective conclusion that it is. With that remark, you're beating strawmen here.

With Paul, the Law is made null and void by faith.

You are missing certain points in James, Rick, which if you do not identify, I might have to myself.

best,

Chris Weimer

Chris Weimer

The Beatitudes do have Jewish precedent, such as Sirach and the Demons of Death in the DSS.

Suffering is not uncommon in later Jewish literature directly stemming from Isaiah's suffering servant, aka the Messiah. James, first, doesn't put too much emphasis on it, as if it were not wholly important for a person to live by. But he does have it in tandem with the coming of the Lord, which is more in line with a waiting for the Messiah to come, rather than someone who came and passed and now is coming again.

Chris Weimer

--James 5--
The fifth chapter of James is very tricky. As we saw earlier that faith is secondary to righteousness, in 5.14-15 is an odd depature from the rest. Rick, this is what I was talking about, although let me explain a bit.

Every mention of a divinity before 5 is Θεος, while in 5 only κυÏ?ιος is used. Also, 4.17 seems to be a valid conclusion to the piece, a summarisation of everything prior - Do good not, and you sin.

James 5 instead furthers along with rich v. poor dichotomy, a very Christian theme, and has an almost exact parallel to Matthew in 5.12. Five really seems like an addition, or at least a rewriting of an something else. Unlike the rest of the book, we have Christian terminology (excepting doulos at the very beginning) such as εκκλησια. If εκκλησια was removed, then you have "let him call for the elders" which would to anyone else denote Jewish elders.

Since part of it seems to line up with the other format of James, and since this part deal with patience (suffering), it would probably be the thing a redactor or editor would be pressed to interpolate.

Rick Sumner

I'm not concerned with a Wisdom general layout, I'm concerned with those who suggest it was a Wisdom text that was appropriated by Christians, a la Doherty.

My concern, as I noted, wasn't whether or not James met that description (I explicitly said he did, in fact), it was your definition of Wisdom literature.

I think you missed my point.

There's a difference between being a popular figure and a paradigm. Enoch is popular too, he isn't a paradigm. Likewise Melchizedek. Still no paradigm. Others--Jacob and David for examples most in James' favor--are paradigms. So why did James pick the worst one for his purposes?

No it doesn't. James is using Abraham as a paradigm for justification by works. Ben Sirach isn't.

Your missing my point again. Whether or not the law ceases is irrelevant to whether or not something is Wisdom literature. It provides absolutely nothing either way.

No, one is made righteous by faith. One doesn't stay righteous that way. Some examples.

These, incidentally, are the same way the Rabbis summed up the "whole Law."

Paul hopes his followers are found blameless:

Paul is quite proud of his own blamelessness under the Law:

How many of these do we need before we recognize the rare exceptions as just that--exceptions. Emotional, polemical, exceptions.

Paul's entire career is characterized by promoting the Law as a way to stay righteous, while one becomes righteous without the circumcision. The question he was addressing, again, is how do Gentile converts partake in the covenant.


Regards,
Rick Sumner