![]() James 2.21-25 5.10-11, 17-18) and also the references to the Law in an exclusively ethical context were general practices possible anywhere within early Christianity. The reception of Old Testament figures (cf. James is numbered among the few New Testament writings in which neither Israel nor the Jews are mentioned by name. Central themes of strict Jewish Christian theology such as circumcision, Sabbath, Israel, purity laws and temply play no role in this letter. Nonetheless, there are weighty arguments against James the Lord's brother as author of the Letter of James. Udo Schnelle also argues against the authenticity of James ( The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings, pp. Thus there does not seem to have been any old tradition that it originated with the brother of the Lord. As the history of the canon shows (see 27.2), it was only very slowly and against opposition that James became recognized as the owrk of the Lord's brother, therefore as apostolic and canonical. The debate in 2:14 ff with a misunderstood secondary stage of Pauline theology not only presupposes a considerable chronological distance from Paul - whereas James died in the year 62 - but also betrays complete ignorance of the polemical intent of Pauline theology, which lapse can scarcely be attributed to James, who as late as 55/56 met with Paul in Jerusalem (Acts 21:18 ff).ĥ. Would the brother of the Lord really omit any reference to Jesus and his relationship to him, even though the author of JAmes emphatically presents himself in an authoritative role?Ĥ. It is scarcely conceivable that the Lord's brother, who remained faithful to the Law, could have spoken of "the perfect law of freedom" (1:25) or that he could have given concrete expression to the Law in ethical commands (2:11 f) without mentioning even implicitly any cultic-ritual requirements.ģ. Most of those who defend the thesis that James was written by the Lord's brother must assume that it achieved its linguistic form through the help of a Hellenistic Jew, but there is no evidence in the text that the assistance of a secretary gave shape to the present linguistic state of the document, and even if this were the case the question would still remain completely unanswered which part of the whole comes from the real author and which part from the "secretary."Ģ. Sevenster's evidence that the Greek language was much used in Palestine at that time and could be learned does not prove that a Jew whose mother tongue was Aramaic could normally write in literary Greek. The cultured language of James is not that of a simple Palestinian. Kummel presents the reasons that most scholars suspect James to be a pseudepigraph ( Introduction to the New Testament, pp. ![]() Recommended Books for the Study of Early Christian Writings Information on the Epistle of James
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