James, the Lord's Brother
Stephen Terry
Commentary for the October 4, 2014
Sabbath School Lesson
“But you are a chosen people, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the
praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once
you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not
received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” 1 Peter 2:9-10, NIV
The
authorship of the Epistle of James is not entirely clear. The author of the
lesson study has asserted that it is James, the brother of Jesus who wrote the
missive. However, the reasoning may be flawed.
There are four
James’s mentioned by the author as possible candidates: James, the father of
Judas; James, the son of Zebedee and brother of John; James, son of Alphaeus
and possibly the brother of Matthew; and James, the brother or cousin of Jesus.
The first one we can probably discount as not being any more likely than
Zebedee or Alphaeus, two other apostolic fathers, to be authors of epistles.
The author
discounts the next two based on the supposed earliness of their martyrdom.
However, we have an approximate date only for the demise of James, John’s
brother. For James, the son of Alphaeus, I know of only the tradition that he
was slain in Lower Egypt at Ostrakine with no date to tell us when.[i]
Although we might wish to credit the lesson author’s veracity, without citation
there is no way to evaluate the source of the assertion that this James died too
early to write to the churches.
There is a
much stronger case to be made for James, the Lord’s brother as author based on
his position as the first “bishop” of Jerusalem. The Bible makes no mention of
his being granted this title, but it is often assumed based on his position of
prominence at the First Jerusalem Council.[ii]
Such a position, as well as the influence of the elders at Jerusalem over the
affairs of the church as evidenced by that same council, could argue strongly
for this James to be accustomed to writing to the church that had dispersed
from Jerusalem after the stoning of Stephen.[iii]
Further evidence, though not conclusive, may be found in the similar greeting
used in the decree of that first council[iv]
and in the later epistle.[v]
Contrary to
the emphasis on sola fide or “faith
only” approach to salvation found especially in Paul’s epistles to the Romans
and the Galatians, James’ epistle appears to focus on a stewpot of faith plus
works. Some today may see this as James’ attempt to deal with what might be
considered a heretical extremism that challenged the true faith by advocating that
no matter what one did, they could still be saved by faith and just keep on
wallowing in sin and law-breaking without worry. There is no evidence to
support this interpretation of the reason for James writing this epistle. This
may simply be a fiction manufactured out of whole cloth based on modern
conservative attitudes toward the idea of sola
fide.
Interestingly,
the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church have historically held a
similar anti-faith-alone position. This was in large part the impetus of the Protestant
reformation against the teachings of these churches, a revolt against the idea
that we are save in any part by our works. For all the theses nailed on church
doors and religious wars fought, perhaps some have now come full circle to believe
once again that faith alone is not enough. But these struggles were far in the
future at the time this epistle was written. It may be that they played no
significant role in the reasons for the letter.
A far more
likely reason may be found in the historical context of the early church of the
First Century. At that time, Christians may not have seen themselves as
anything but Jews. Jesus was a Jew. The Apostles were all Jews. The sect was
headquartered in Jerusalem, the capitol of the Jews. The leaders of the church
even continued to participate in the sacrificial system at the temple, post
crucifixion.[vi]
They apparently did not see anything in Jesus’ death and resurrection that obviated
the need for those temple services. This was a system that was very much
predicated on the suzerainty of the Law and therefore obedience driven.
However, a
new apostle, Paul, a relative latecomer to the message, had been presenting the
Law in a new light. He saw the Law as only having a role in bringing us to
Christ,[vii]
and that once someone came to Christ, any condemnation under the Law was set
aside.[viii]
The Jews, who used to gather annually to have their sins cleansed, could now do
so at any time through Jesus. Since the entire Jewish economy was based on the
necessity of the temple and its sacrifices, this may have been seen as a threat
to all that was Judaism. Some saw this threat early on and perhaps this is what
precipitated the crisis over the issue of circumcision that created the
necessity for that First Jerusalem Council. Thanks to Peter’s earlier vision at
Joppa,[ix]
the council was swayed to Paul’s position. The vision apparently served to
convince the council that this was God’s intent and not simply Paul being Paul.
As time went
on, other issues arose. While the Christians may have continued to worship at
the temple, Paul and those with him continued to be expelled from synagogue
after synagogue and as this schism between what was becoming a primarily
Gentile Christianity and the Jewish diaspora grew, the seeds of conflict may
have filtered back to Jerusalem. Perhaps this epistle grew out of a desire to
somehow bring back together the two disparate theologies by acknowledging the
idea of sola fide in one sense but
somehow tying it to obedience to the Law as being equally necessary for salvation,
thereby placating the more legalistic Jewish elements within the growing faith
community. Ultimately, any need for such reconciliation was eliminated with the
revolt of 70 CE and later in the early Second Century. In the first, the temple
was destroyed, eliminating the sacrificial system. In the second, Jews were
expelled from Jerusalem, leaving the Gentile Christians in charge of the Jerusalem
church, although much of the influence within the church had already passed to
Antioch.[x]
The church that remained in Jerusalem was relatively small and ineffectual[xi]
until the Roman emperors began to subsidize its influence in later centuries.
If this is
the reasoning behind the writing of the Epistle of James, it could explain why
the early church, which had become somewhat anti-Semitic because of these
controversies and others of a more political nature (The Christians typically
refused to support the Jews in their revolts against Rome.[xii]),
rejected the canonicity of James until a relatively late date. Gaius Marius
Victorinus, a Roman scholar who converted to Christianity questioned whether or
not the Epistle of James was heretical as late as the middle of the 4th
Century.[xiii]
Some today still question whether or not the Epistle is a genuine letter
written by James or simply a compendium of various wisdom pieces brought
together in one document and then ascribed to the Apostle to give them enough
authority that people would read them. This was not an uncommon practice at the
time. Several works that have had such questions raised would include the “Acts
of Paul,” the “Shepherd of Hermas,” the “Epistle of Barnabas” and the “Didache,”
all of which were excluded from the canon.[xiv]
Whatever the
original intent of the book, today it has evolved into a manifesto for those
who wish to promote obedience over faith and is often seen as being in
opposition to the grace epistles of Romans and Galatians. Since it is difficult
to keep harmony in the church in the face of such divisions, many attempts have
been made to reconcile the two perspectives. One camp will reinterpret the two
Pauline epistles in order to make them harmonize more closely with James. The
other camp will do the same in reverse, reinterpreting James in order to make
it harmonize with Paul’s writings. This is done perhaps from a perception that
God will never do anything that produces a contradiction, but He apparently needs
us to explain it all because He didn’t do a very good job when it was written
down. How fortunate God is to have us.
Seriously
though, the Bible has many contradictions ranging from the numbers of people
and items mentioned in comparable texts to acquiescence and even orders to violate
commandments, both from the Decalogue and the Levitical Code. Those who wish to
harmonize everything feel there are no contradictions and go to great lengths
to reinterpret plain statements to make God fit neatly and logically into an anthropocentric
universe, as though He were a being hovering above our planet and waiting to
prove Himself consistent to us that we might worship Him. Whether this is hubris,
ignorance, or something else entirely, it can greatly impact our ability to
look at the Bible objectively with all of its warts and blemishes and come away
enhanced in our spirituality instead of simply being turned into a bunch of
petty spies and judges more concerned with the preservation of that
anthropocentric orthodoxy than with the wonder that is God. If two biblical
writers can write theology that doesn’t quite mesh, perhaps God can still be
God, and those differences can define the inimitable and enhance our wonder
rather than destroy it.
