The Messiah Jesus in the Mythic World of James

Abstract

I It often been observed, sometimes with consternation, that there is little in Letter of James that could not have been written by a non-Christian Jew. Beyond its spare references to Jesus, concepts that form central pillars in mythic thought of other early Christian are not obviously important in James. Most notably, James lacks any reference to Jesus' death and resurrection (let formers atoning significance), while allusions to closely related ideas of Holy Spirit1 and new creation or rebirth2 are controversial at best. Especially when seen alongside its infamous insistence on importance of works as opposed to faith alone attaining righteousness (2:14-26), these omissions raise fundamental questions about James's thought and particularly about nature of letter's interest in figure twice referred to as the Lord Jesus (1:1; 2:1). Interpreters have generally explained these perceived lacunae in various ways. Several interpreters from late nineteenth through mid-twentieth century found in this silence sufficient cause to posit that James was not originally a Christian composition at all and thus to excise its two references to Jesus as work of a later, Christian hand.3 When text is approached in this way, problem simply evaporates: figure of Jesus Christ plays integral role in thought of work as originally composed. With textual support such excisions and ample evidence, on contrary, of letter s composition within a Christian milieu, this position found few advocates.4 A second approach to perceived problem is to deny that any coherent mythic or theological system informs text at all. This approach is associated particularly with Martin Dibelius, whose influential commentary on James presents a running argument that James is simply a collection of savings, admonitions, and treatises of diverse origin.5 Dibelius contends that one cannot legitimately combine various isolated texts that are assembled here for purpose of constructing a theology. The Letter of James, Dibelius states flatly, has 'theology,' let a consistent and developed conception of significance of Jesus. Since presence or absence of this or that concept may only be accidental in such a collection, lack of reference to any given idea does not justify assertion that it no value author. Dibelius thus concluded that, while author himself likely a of some sort, we cannot determine with certainty how much [he] presupposes given composite and eclectic nature of text he produced.6 Though Dibelius's commentary enjoyed enormous influence,7 this explanation, too, been largely abandoned in recent decades. The initial indications of a significant paradigm shift came as several scholars began reading James as a wisdom writing-a model that allowed interpreters to posit an integral wisdom theology even while accepting essential features of Dibelius's literary analysis.8 More fundamentally important in this respect, however, have been two broader trends in NT studies. With general shift, since 1960s, toward reading strategies that emphasize coherence and connections in texts-redaction criticism, rhetorical criticism, and, more recently, literary and structuralist approaches-has come a steady erosion in hegemony of Dibelius's atomistic, form-critical approach to James.9 At same time, intensive study of Synoptic sayings source that John S. Kloppenborg's pioneering Formation of Q inspired raised important questions regarding possibility of early Christian kerygmata that were not centered on Jesus' death and resurrection.10 Whatever precise reasons, prospect of delineating basic features of James's religious thought is being taken with increasing seriousness in ever-expanding literature on letter. …