If the consensus disagrees with Bart’s theses, so much the worse for the consensus. Although Bart wanted to embarrass Wallace in the debate, he made a brief eulogy about Zuntz and his achievements in reconstructing the fate of Paul’s letters. It’s a playfully interesting approach to the methodology of building a coherent reconstruction. Serious research should strive to build a simple coherent system – like Lego bricks.
Literary polemics are possible only when you know the literature with which you are polemicizing. And again, it turns out that the first client of the scriptoria was Marcion, thanks to whom further gospels or James’s letter were possible. Because there would be nothing to argue with.
There would be no Marcion case if someone else had run an organized mission before him.
Bribes and baksheesh are not given from the start-up capital of the company, but from the profits. You need to know that you can earn money and that it is worth investing. An old law, from before the time of Abraham.
I actually thought the epistle of James had a fairly solid grasp of Paul’s theology and style of teaching by prophecy in the Spirit (using just the 7 undisputed letters of Paul as the source). Porphyry can you provide textual examples of the epistle of James misunderstanding Pauline theology?
I think the argument was that James seems to think that Paul is a full-on, all-flags-flying antinomian: once you have faith you can do or not do whatever you want, you are bound by no moral law. Consider the “faith without works is dead” section at the end of James 2.
Paul doesn’t reject works entirely (Gal 5:6; Rom 2:6-8). He rejects the idea that doing the works *of the law* can save (Gal. 2:16); but even that summary of his position isn’t sufficiently nuanced given that he equates the charity that does save with the fulfillment of the whole law (Rom. 13:8-10) and still seems to hold up fulfilling the law as necessary (e.g., Rom 2:13; Rom 2:26-28).
Connected to this they also seem to have different understandings of what is meant by faith. So when Paul writes that we are saved by faith, and James says, no we aren’t, they seem to be talking past each other. I mean, I doubt that Paul would recognize his position as being addressed in Jam 2:19.
Paul’s thought on the law and faith is notoriously difficult–whether because it is subtle or incoherent doesn’t matter. But what James is addressing doesn’t seem to be hitting the mark.
this was the position argued by Joseph Bickersteth Mayor in his commentary on James (1892 1st edition, 1897 2nd edition, 1910 3rd edition).
For the interested, in the third edition, the discussion of the relation between the Epistle of James and those of Paul begins on p. cxi.
I’ll also add that I’m fascinated by this proposal. It would make sense of Jame’s apparent misunderstanding Paul if, in fact, Paul was later and had sharpened his teaching by the time of the epistles precisely to address the objections of James. The fact they are both preoccupied with the relation between faith, works, and law–and that they look to Abraham–though in opposite ways–as the answer to that set of problems, seems to suggest that they were at least participating in the same controversy, and likely one probably knew the other at least indirectly.
I’m trying to think of compelling reasons to reject the thesis.
That the epistle of James took a long time to be accepted could just be a function of Paul’s early success among the proto-orthodox and the apparent conflict between the theology of Paul and that of James. If Gentile converts converted to Pauline Christianity, then it seems natural that they would look askance at the epistle of James. If you really wanted to push the argument, you could turn it around: The fact that James still got canonized, despite the apparent antipathy toward the longest accepted books of the NT, can only be explained if its historical credentials were unassailable.
Even if the Epistle of James is too linguistically sophisticated to have been authored by Jesus’ brother, (and assuming that ghostwriting can be set aside as unknown in the time), it is still possible that it was forged by an adherent of James’s theology prior to Paul’s letters–and so exerted an influence on Paul. Heck, maybe it was forged by someone sent, by James, to deal with the problems Paul was making (if you are going to send someone on such a mission, wouldn’t you choose someone who could speak Greek well?), and who proceeded to take some liberties with the commission he had been given by authoring a letter and signing it with the name of the one who had sent him.
Concerning post #22, I think this is where the question of whether or not the epistle of James pre-dates the Pauline epistles comes into play. James can’t directly address the concept of works of love in lieu of works of the Law if Paul (and Tertius) hadn’t explicitly put the idea in ink yet. Paul is using the concept of works of love as a defense against those who accused him of having faith but without works (of the Law). It would make logical sense that the accusation came first, and that Paul then responded with a rebuttal. By extension, that would imply that the epistle of James was written first and that is Paul responding to James’ accusations in a string of letters defending his theology while honing his arguments from epistle to epistle.
The epistle of James was not written for a universal audience, James was writing specifically to first century Hebrews who would have understood that the “works” he mentioned in his letter referred to the works of the Torah, just as Paul assumed Peter’s Jewish congregation in Rome understood that he was referring to the Sabbath day when he said “He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord” (Romans 14:6). The language – in both instances – are short form, but the intended audience would have understood without further clarification, regardless.
I would argue that the passage in Romans 2:13 is referring to when a Gentile unwittingly comes into compliance with the Mosaic Law. Paul is making the case that this also makes that person a doer of the Law and thus justified by the Law, even though that person didn’t consciously strive to obey the Mosaic Law or even know of its existence. “For not the hearers of the Law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the Law will be justified; for when Gentiles, who do not have the Law, by nature do the things in the Law, these, although not having the Law, are a Law to themselves, who show the work of the Law written in their hearts” (Romans 2:13-15).
In doing so, that Gentile would inadvertently come into compliance with at least one commandment of the Mosaic Law, but James set a high bar and expected all of the commandments of Law to be adhered to. “But if you show partiality (if you partially keep the Law), you sin and are convicted by the Law as Lawbreakers…For He who said, “Do no commit adultery,” also said “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you commit murder, you have become a Lawbreaker of the Law.” (James 2:9-12) While statistically possible, it is nevertheless highly improbable that someone not making a conscious effort would never be in violation of the Mosaic Law for the duration of his or her life.
I think Paul was trying very hard to get his followers accepted by Jewish Christianity by trying to at least somewhat justify them under the Law, but don’t think James would have swallowed Paul’s argument.
I’m receptive to your overall argument, but I’d dispute your interpretation of Rom 2:13. I think Paul is reducing the law to the moral (rather than say ceremonial or judicial) precepts; I don’t think he is talking about Gentiles accidentally doing what the law requires, as if he just happened to have an unfortunate accident in which he lost his foreskin or happened to eat a lamb on Passover. Look at Rom 2:15–in doing the works of the law they show that what the law requires is written on their hearts; it is that they know the law that makes it possible for their conscience to bear witness; that doesn’t seem to be describing accidentally doing something; it seems to be describing some deliberate fulfilling of the law, albeit aside from any written law. And that works out if you reduce the whole law to acting with charity while essentially dismissing all the stuff about ritual purity and animal sacrifice and so on, which, not coincidentally, is exactly what Paul does later in the same epistle (Rom 13:8-10). Indeed, it’s what he does here in talking about in the irrelevance of physical circumcision–no one cares whether you cut your foreskin off, it simply doesn’t mean jack squat whether you physically fulfill that requirement of the law as written.
Here is a fun argument in favor of your proposition:
One argument for James being late–sometime after Paul–is that James misunderstands Paul’s theology, and treats him, inaccurately, as an antinomian; this misunderstanding of Paul’s theology suggests a considerable distance between Paul and the letter of James. And yet we know that Paul was understood as an antinomian before he wrote Romans (see, for example, Rom 3:8). Thus the argument fails; the interpretation of Paul that we see in James needn’t be placed a considerable distance after Paul’s life.
Again, it is the natural order of things; it is more likely that an intelligent person (like the author of James) would misunderstand an author’s meaning early (when the debate was fresh), than late (when the dust had settled and everyone had had time to digest the outcome). We are more likely to misunderstand each other early in a dispute than we are after we have each had time to say all we have to say in response to one another and to think, in turn, about what the other has said.
In ancient times, thoughts were believed to originate from the heart as it was the only moving organ in the body. Those “who show the work of the Law written in their hearts” (Romans 2:15) have conscious awareness of having performed the work of the Law even though they were “Gentiles, who do not have the Law” (Romans 2:14). Paul is saying that those Gentiles who “by nature do the things in the Law” (Romans 2:14) and have become “a Law onto themselves” (Romans 2:14) shouldn’t feel guilty in their minds (hearts) for not being Mosaic Law observant like the Jewish Christian: “their conscience also bearing witness, between themselves thoughts accusing or excusing” (Romans 2:15).
As far as I can tell, Paul doesn’t distinguish between which “things of the Law” he is referring to, whether moral, ceremonial, or ritual, although it would be hard to find someone masochistic enough who “by nature” wanted to circumcise themselves.
In this way, Paul appears to be arguing that the ‘work of the Law’ was being performed by his Gentile followers and that his opponents should get off his back and quit complaining that his followers weren’t doing the work of the Law.
However, it was the partial observance and not the full observance of all the commandments of the Mosaic Law that seemed to rile James. Whether Paul was having his followers partially observe just the love your neighbor commandment or if the person by “nature do the things in the Law” (Romans 2:14) and have now become “a Law onto themselves” (Romans 2:14), there’s no good evidence that Paul’s adversaries accepted this argument.
it was the partial observance and not the full observance of all the commandments of the Mosaic Law that seemed to rile James.
Okay, but this goes back to the point Robert raised above. When the Ep. of James gives examples of not fulfilling all points of the law, the author points to moral, not ceremonial, precepts. He writes,
“For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” said also, “Do not kill.” If you do not commit adultery but do kill, you have become a transgressor of the law.
What’s really striking for our purposes is that those are exactly the precepts that Paul also insists the Romans keep:
The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” . . . are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
If the main battle lines between Paul and the author of James were over whether Christians had to keep all the ceremonial precepts (dietary laws, circumcision, etc), wouldn’t James have written something more like,
“For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” said also, “ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin” If you do not commit adultery but refuse to be circumcised, you have become a transgressor of the law.”
It just seems really strange for the precise precepts that were actually at the center of the dispute not to be mentioned in such a polemical work, and for the only precepts mentioned to be ones that were explicitly not disputed.
I don’t think this is a problem for your dating of James. What it shows is that the author of James (assuming he was addressing Paul) didn’t know Paul’s position as developed in his letter to the Romans. He may have know a less mature version of Paul’s theology or perhaps he knew Paul’s theology only through unreliable 3rd hand exaggerations (it’t not at all uncommon for a person’s words to be twisted beyond recognition with only one or two retellings).
In fact, I will go further than I did in my last line: not only is this not a problem for your thesis, it gives some support to it.
Here we have Paul and aJames addressing the same issue: the relation of the law of charity to the decalogue. And they substantially agree: you need to both follow the law of charity and keep the decalogue.
It would make perfect sense to have the following sequence: verbal, unrecorded Pauline theology stressing the primacy of the commandment to love -> ep. James’s insistence that love of neighbor is not enough, one must actually follow the 10 commandments -> Paul in Rom, “yes, that is absolutely, right, you can’t actually fulfill the commandment to love if you are committing murder and adultery.”
What makes less sense is thinking ep. James was meant as a response to Paul, if the author knew of the moral theology articulated in Romans, because in Romans Paul explicitly makes the point that the commandment of love includes following the 10 commandments, which renders the argument of ep. James totally moot.
In short it makes little sense to think that the ep. James was responding to Romans. It makes perfect sense for Romans to be a reply to ep. James.
I would also go a step further and say that the Jewish Christians did have something to say concerning Romans 2.
Paul: “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly (because he has been circumcised), nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart (mind), in the Spirit, not in the letter (of the Mosaic Law)” (Romans 2:28)
John: “the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews but are not, but are a synagogue of Satan” (Revelations 2:9)
It doesn’t look like the Jewish Christians accepted Paul’s Gentile followers as Jews even though Paul argued that “Gentiles, who do not have the Law, by nature do the things in the Law, these, although not having the Law are a Law onto themselves” (Romans 2:14), nor did they swallow Paul’s argument that “if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision. And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the Law, judge you who, with your written (Torah) and circumcision, are a transgressor of the Law” (Romans 2:26-27).
When read in English, Revelations 1:3 – “Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.” (NKJV) – appears to foreshadow a future event. However, “In Hebrew, “to come near” means “to be at.””[1] See Isaiah 8:3 where the Prophet Isaiah “came near (qarab) the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son.” Revelations also uses other Hebraic idiomatic phases like “living water” (Revelations 22:1) which means moving water, so there’s a decent likelihood that it was originally written in Hebrew prior to translation into grammatically poor Koine Greek.
[1] Bivin, David. Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus: Insights from a Hebraic Perspective. Destiny Image Publishers: 1994. Pg. 62.
Concerning why there isn’t more clearly defined references to circumcision within the epistle of James, well he’s writing to the twelve tribes of the diaspora, all of the readers would already be circumcised. Circumcision would be a mute for that particular audience. The hypothetical letter to the Gentiles though would have most likely clearly stated demands for circumcision, thought I doubt proto-orthodox Christianity would have included such a letter in their canon of Scripture.
James 2:8-12 is a classic example of a chiasm – a Hebrew literary technique where the thesis is nestled in the middle of a symmetrical A-B-X-B-A structure. The central point of James’ chiasm is that if you break even one commandment of the Torah, then you are guilty of breaking the entire Torah. Both the sentences above it and below it support that core argument. For James, it was not enough just to follow the ‘Love your neighbor’ commandment, nor is he saying that you only need to worry about the moral commandments, all other commandments are also mandatory. Historically speaking, I’m not finding an early Christianity that only abided by the 10 commandments, the Jewish Christians were keeping the entire Mosaic Law.
“If you really keep the royal law according to the Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself”, you do well. But if you show partiality (if you only partially keep the Torah and not the whole thing), then you commit sin, and are convicted by the Law as Lawbreakers. For whoever shall keep the whole Torah, and yet stumble on one point, he is guilty of violating them all. For He who said, “Do no commit adultery,” also said “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you commit murder, you have become a Lawbreaker of the Law.” (James 2:8-12)
So, first, I think you are misunderstanding what “partiality” means. In the context of the first 7 verses (as well as the following, e.g., vv15-17), he is clearly talking about showing partiality to our neighbors.
The verb is prosopolempteo, from prosopon (face) and lambano (to accept), basically to looks at others’ appearances, we might say, to respect persons.
That’s because I’m defining partiality as it would mean in Hebrew. Look at Malachi 2:8-9:
“You have caused many to stumble at the Law
You have corrupted the covenant of Levi,
Says the LORD of host.
Therefore I also have made you
contemptible and base before all the people,
Because you have not kept My ways
But have shown partiality in the Law.”
Malachi’s not accusing Israel of favoritism towards the Mosaic Law. Ancient Hebrew was a very word poor language (roughly 8,000 words) compared to the 600,000 English words in the Oxford English dictionary today (includes archaic words). The Hebrew word behind partiality has a boatload of interpretations, including partial or in part. In this case, Malachi 2:9 is probably best translated as “but you have partially kept the Law” while corrupting other parts of the Law. By that same logic, I argue that James used the word partiality in the Hebrew sense of the word in James 2:9, much as Paul used the word glory in the Hebrew sense of the word in his epistles to refer to celestial bodies.
I still need to make the case that James is speaking in parables and uses the words poor and rich to refer to true and false prophets, respectively.
Jotham once stood on Mt. Gerizim and shouted the following parable:
“Listen to me, you men of Shechem,
That God may listen to you!
The trees once went forth to anoint a king over them.
And they said to the olive tree,
‘Reign over us!’
But the olive tree said to them,
‘Should I cease giving my oil,
With which they honor God and men,
And go to sway over trees?’
“Then the trees said to the fig tree,
‘You come and reign over us!’
But the fig tree said to them,
‘Should I cease my sweetness and my good fruit,
And go to sway over trees?’
“Then the trees said to the vine,
‘You come and reign over us!’
But the vine said to them,
‘Should I cease my new wine,
Which cheers both God and men,
And go to sway over trees?’
“Then all the trees said to the bramble,
‘You come and reign over us!’
And the bramble said to the trees,
‘If in truth you anoint me as king over you,
Then come and take shelter in my shade;
But if not, let fire come out of the bramble
And devour the cedars of Lebanon!” (Judges 9:7-15)
Jotham was not trying to make the point that he had encountered talking trees, there’s deeper meaning behind it.
Malachi’s not accusing Israel of favoritism towards the Mosaic Law.
Correct.
In this case, Malachi 2:9 is probably best translated as “but you have partially kept the Law” while corrupting other parts of the Law.
No. You are using a word play that only works in English. It doesn’t work in Hebrew and it doesn’t work in Greek, and it doesn’t fit the context of Jas. 2 which is pretty clear about the sort of situation it is countenancing:
For if a man with gold rings and in fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while you say to the poor man, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brethren. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man.
I still need to make the case that James is speaking in parables and uses the words poor and rich to refer to true and false prophets, respectively.
I don’t see that in the text of Jas. 2 and I don’t see such an argument in the post.
I think at some you point you have define what a parable is. The Greek definition of the word is not actually that far off:
“parabolḗ (from pará, “close beside, with” and bállō, “to cast”) – a parable; a teaching aid cast alongside the truth being taught.”
“Son of man, pose a riddle, and speak a parable to the house of Israel” (Ezekiel 17:2)
“Or with what parable shall we picture it?” (Mark 4:30)
“I will open my mouth in a parable,
I will utter dark sayings of old,
which we have heard and known,
and our fathers have told us,
We will not hide them from their children” (Psalms 78:2-4)
“The Old Testament tends to use mashal [parabole] for whatever is “proverb-like”, with hidden or allusive truth, which means that the response of the reader or hearer is essential to the process of creating understanding.”[1]
“The rabbis commonly used parables to deliver sermons in synagogues and study the Torah in the academies. In fact, they became convinced that the parable form itself was created for the studying of the Torah.”[2]
Let’s look at an easy example, James was not talking about actually starving or physically unclothed brothers and sisters when he says “If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what profit? (James 2:15-16). You have to look at the context in which the parable is preached, James starts the passage with “What profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?” (James 2:14), he then formally presents the parable of the naked and destitute brother and sisters to paint the lesson he’s actually trying to teach, and then he concludes with “Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works [of the Law], is dead.” (James 2:17)
James is accusing Paul of not providing his followers the necessary spiritual sustenance needed for their religious health. Hence why he concludes, that faith without works of the Law is fatally insufficient.
When you look at Jesus teaching style, all he does is teach in parables: “All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables, and without a parable He did not speak to them” (Matthew 13:34). It is not surprising that his brother does the same thing.
[1] Gowler, David B. The Contexts of Jesus’ Parables. ** you do not have permission to see this link **. Pg. 12
[2] Gowler, David B. The Contexts of Jesus’ Parables. ** you do not have permission to see this link **. 14.
Mal 2,9 in the Old Greek has λαμβάνετε πρόσωπα ἐν νόμῳ
But that just a literal, word-for-word translation of the Hebrew, and in both case the sense is simply that you have shown respect of persons in [the application of] the laws, no? Hyper-literally: You have accepted faces in the law.
Let’s look at an easy example, James was not talking about actually starving or physically unclothed brothers and sisters when he says “If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food
I don’t see any reason in the text to think he doesn’t mean actually starving or physically unclothed brothers and sisters. True, he is explicitly giving a hypothetical, so there may very well not have been any particular instance of of a starving and naked brother being told to “Go in peace”, but offering a hypothetical doesn’t mean he doesn’t mean the words he says or place us in the realm of allegory.
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