The Epistle of James

By Peter H. Davids

Peter David's study on the Epistle of James is a contribution to The New International Greek Testament Commentary, a series based on the UBS Greek New Testament, which attempts to provide thorough exegesis of the text that is sensitive to theological themes as well as to the details of the historical, linguistic, and textual context.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Oct 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781467423113

Peter H. Davids

Peter H. Davids is a professor of Christianity at Houston Baptist University and part-time professor at Houston Graduate School of Theology. He has taught biblical studies at Regent College (Vancouver, British Columbia) and Canadian Theological Seminary (Regina, Saskatchewan), and he continues to teach in theological schools in Europe. He is the author of commentaries on James and 1 Peter.

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INTRODUCTION

THE Epistle of James has long languished in comparative neglect while its more famous sister-letters in the Pauline corpus (not to say the synoptic gospels) enjoyed the limelight of NT research. Perhaps Luther’s overrated disparaging remarks were the cause of this, turning German Lutheran scholarship aside and directing it to the more christological Pauline literature, or perhaps its small size, obscure position (tucked in as it is behind the mighty book of Hebrews), and apparent disjointedness produced the effect without Luther’s assistance, but the fact stands that the mainstreams of scholarly interest have flowed in other directions.

Now, however, there are signs that this pall of obscurity is coming to an end. New interest in the work has been sparked by the appearance of several commentaries over the last decade. In 1964 two major commentaries appeared, H. Greeven’s updating of M. Dibelius’s work and F. Mussner’s own fine work. Since then there have been significant updates of most of the series aimed at the pastor: J. Michl, C. L. Mitton, R. R. Williams, B. Reicke, W. Schrage, and J. B. Adamson are a few examples. More recently J. Cantinat has produced a major French work replacing J. Marty’s now dated masterpiece, and S. S. Laws has added an original work in English. All of this interest has been matched by an upsurge in journal articles and theses on the epistle.

But this activity has only reopened questions that have been hovering over this work ever since the turn of the century, questions of author and provenance, certainly, but more especially questions of structure, purpose, and theology. It is toward these questions that this introduction aims, attempting to make some contribution by using tradition-critical and (to the extent possible) redaction-critical methodology to apply the insights which in many cases others have discovered. In doing this it pays little attention to the questions others have thoroughly answered: their works are available for consultation. This essay wishes rather to point up some of the still-to-be-answered questions and to make an approach toward answering them on the basis of the following commentary on the text.

I. AUTHORSHIP AND DATE

One cannot discuss the background of a book unless he has a good idea of its date in history. Thus, the debate over the dating of James¹ leaves some of the conclusions concerning its background open to question. Conversely, discoveries concerning the Jewish background of the book support some theories about its date more strongly than others. In the case of this epistle, authorship is related to its date, for if one must date it in its present form within the lifetime of James the Just, the Lord’s brother, then this James probably wrote the work, or at least provided its major source.² Therefore one cannot separate the discussion of date and authorship of James into two discussions—it is properly a single issue.

1. The Major Historic Positions

The traditional position on the authorship and date of James definitely appeared by AD 253 (the death of Origen) and established itself firmly by the end of the fourth century (Jerome, Augustine, and the Council of Carthage). From then until the sixteenth century James was generally accepted as coming from the hand of James the Just while he presided over the church in Jerusalem (roughly AD 40–62, the lower limit being the less clear). Luther, like Erasmus,³ attributed the work to another pious Christian named James due to internal evidence, but criticism of the epistle remained muted in the church until the rise of its modern criticism with DeWette in 1826.⁴ Three new major lines of thought appeared after him.⁵

The first major new line of thought, chronologically as well as in order of presentation, dates the epistle later than the lifetime of James the Just. Harnack, Jülicher, and the Tübingen School, who dated the epistle late in the second century because of its apparent synthesis of Jewish Christian and Pauline concepts, represent the more radical form of this position.⁶ Recent scholars holding this general position usually date the book in the last quarter of the first century or very early in the second century, assigning the work to a pseudonymous author.⁷ Scholars holding this general position stress the epistle’s late attestation, its good Greek, its Greek rather than Jewish thought and form, and its dependence upon some version of Paulinism (usually a Paulinism dependent upon Romans and Galatians, if not these letters themselves).

The second and more recent new line of thought believes that the epistle depends upon material coming from James the Just, either in oral or written form, but that in its final form the epistle represents a reworking of and adding to this material. Burkitt holds this position, but on unsubstantial evidence, claiming the epistle is a free translation of an Aramaic original.⁸ On the other hand, W. L. Knox has elaborated a more easily defended form of this position, carefully separating the various layers of material he believes are present.⁹ The arguments for a Hellenistic origin of this epistle put forward by the first group impress these scholars, but they also accept those arguments which point toward a primitive Jewish Christian or Palestinian Jewish origin for much of the material. Thus this position is a compromise attempting to solve a difficult dilemma.

The third new line of thought argues for a purely Jewish origin for James with later Christian reworking or interpolations. In its simplest form, F. Spitta and L. Massebieau independently originated this theory, arguing that James represents a pre-Christian Jewish work taken over into Christianity by the simple addition of two interpolations, one at 1:1 and one at 2:1.¹⁰ Arnold Meyer, followed by Easton and Thyen, intrigues the reader by arguing that James is an address of the patriarch Jacob to the twelve tribal fathers, his sons, each represented allegorically by a characteristic virtue, vice, or action. On first examination this theory sounds very plausible and exciting, for it explains some of the difficulties of the work, especially the address in 1:1. But Meyer disappoints us in his identifications of the tribes, for most of his identifications are very weak and the better ones are for Isaac, Rebecca, and several non-Israelite nations—none of them sons of Jacob.¹¹ Both Meyer and Spitta, however, have a strong case for the essentially Jewish nature of the epistle, explaining away the evidence for a Hellenistic origin.

TABLE 1

REPRESENTATIVE POSITIONS ON THE DATING OF JAMES

Notes: 1. This selection includes only works of this century: the following older commentators favor the early date: H. Alford (1859), Ε. H. Plumptre (1878), J. Huther (1882), A. Plummer (1891), G. Salmon (1894), A. Carr (1899). F. Godet (1876) favored the later date.

2. The dates listed after the names are normally those of the latest edition of the work in which the author states a preference.

The traditional position has not lacked defenders, but it has split into two distinct positions. Parry and Tasker exemplify one position, which argues that James the Just wrote the work, but that he did it late in his life, c. AD 60–62.¹² These men believe that the settled and widespread nature of the church indicates a later date. But their belief that Jas. 2:14–26 argues against a distorted form of Paulinism and is thereby probably later than Galatians and Romans decides the question. This position is, therefore, a conservative version of the first new line of thought mentioned

Reviews for The Epistle of James

[temsmail · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A good tool, but needs others to complete and fill out the theology of this fine work.

[matthauck_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As with most of NIGTC, this was a very thorough and detailed commentary, though not as much as I had hoped. I would look to Davids for more detailed information as the second pass through, but sometimes I would find nothing new here that others hadn't already mentioned. Good that he is concise, but I had hoped for more detail.Other than his conclusion that James is a redactor (compiling his own sermons, or others), it is recommended.Compared w/ Martin, Blomberg and Adamson, this gets rank 2.