Review in: The Journal
of Religion
Gevonden op: http://www.academicroom.com/bookreview/letter-james-new-translation-introduction-and-commentary
LUKE TIMOTHY. JOHNSON, Letter of James: A New Translation
with Introduction
and Commentary. The Anchor Bible 37a. New York: Doubleday,
1995.
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The publication of this second Anchor Bible commentary on
James is intended on one hand to standardize the series, which has become more
scholarly in character since the publication of Bo Reicke's The Epistles of
James, Peter and Jude (Garden City, N.Y., 1964) and on the other to devote more
singular attention to James than Reicke's more broadly conceived contribution
permitted (pp.???).
An introduction aimed at elucidating various aspects of the
"voice" of the letter constitutes nearly half the volume. Luke Timothy
Johnson views James as a 'Jewish Christian" work "of the first
Palestinian generation," an authentic composition of James the brother of
Jesus (p. 159; cf, pp. 89-123). Literarily, it is "a form of protreptic
discourse in epistolary form" (p. 159; cf. pp. 16-26). No elaborate account
of its structure is offered, though James 1 is viewed "as something of an epitome
of the work as a whole" (pp. 174-75, emphasis his) which anticipates the themes
addressed in the series of "essays" which make up the remainder of
the letter (see pp. 11-16). At the same time, M. Dibelius's more atomistic
approach to James's content is rejected in favor of a reading which assumes
"a surface and syntactically discernible connection between
statements" and larger sections until "rigorous analysis" fails
to yield one (p. 14).
The commentary proper contains little that is new beyond
what Johnson has previously published in his series of essays on James. The
details of his generally judicious exposition cannot in any case be dealt with
in this short review. Given this practical consideration, and the importance of
the James-Paul problem in the history of the interpretation of the letter, the
remainder of this review will focus on one remarkable-if not wholly
unprecedented-position forwarded in the book: namely, "There is absolutely
no reason to read . . . [2:14-26] as particularly responsive to Paul" (p.
249).
This strong claim rests on two shaky propositions. First,
Johnson holds that, despite appearances, James and Paul are not treating the
same topic (p. 250): he is emphatic, that is, that unlike Paul, "James
never connects erga to the term 'law"' (p. 60, emphasis his; cf. pp. 30,
63, 242). Note in the first place that, even if this were true, the historical
conclusion that James is not in some way interacting with Paul does not follow;
in fact, perhaps the most popular view of 2:14-26 sees its author as
interacting with a misunderstood Paul. Moreover, such a distinction between the
"works" of James and those of Paul, while common, is problematic, and
Johnson's view that 2: 14-26 is not a "special topic" disconnected
from the rest of the letter (p. 249) and, in particular, his recognition of
both the thematic link between 2:14-26 and 1:22-25 (p. 246) and the fact that
"a single argument" concerning "faith and its deeds" is
developed over 2:l-13 and 2:14-26 (p. 219) only make it more so. What of the
fact that according to James 1:25 it is precisely (s)he who "looks into
the perfect law which is of freedom and remains" who becomes ??? ? And what of the fact that the
climactic argument against the practice of partiality in 2: 1-13 is its
proscription by that law which will form the standard ofjudgment (23-13)?
Despite his laudable view that the interpreter of 2: 14-26 should first and
foremost "keep focus on James' text on its own literary terms" rather
than on comparison with Paul (p. 246), Johnson's insistence on the complete
separation of the themes of law and ???
in James-as already, incidentally, for Erasmus (see p. 141)-would appear to owe
more to his interest in the James-Paul problem than James's own logic.
Second, Johnson feels that "the remarkable points of
resemblance" in the language of the two authors (p. 64) are better explained
by "the simple fact that both James and Paul were first generation members
of a messianic movement that defined itself in terms of 'faith in Jesus"'
and that both were Jews who "interacted primarily with Palestinian
Judaism" than by some "hypothetical power struggle" or
"subtle literary polemic" (p. 250). Curiously, such an appeal to a
general shared milieu to explain the "unusual concentration" of
shared elements in James and Paul (p. 250) is rather reminiscent of "the
appeals to a vague 'common property of primitive Christianity"' made by
Dibelius and others to explain the similarities between James and later works
like 1 Clement and Hermas, which Johnson pointedly critiques (pp. 66-67). In
any case, even granting both the early dating of James and Paul's primary
interaction with "Palestinian Judaism," it is noteworthy that, while
a "necessary unity between attitude and action" is indeed characteristic
of ancient exhortation generally (p. 247), the couching of this theme specifically
in terms of "faith" and "deedsn-let alone a discussion of the
efficacy of "faith apartfrom deeds" (cf.James 2: 18,20,26 with Rom.
3:28; 4:4-6)-is scarcely typical. In fairness to Johnson, he concedes that a
"convincing" explanation of his position cannot be offered in the
"limited space" of his commentary (p. 250). But it is suggestive
that, of the passages to which he does refer in this connection (see p. 238),
only two actually pair "faith" and "deeds" (4 Ezra 9:7;
13:23); only one of these arguably envisions a theoretical separation of the
two (4 Ezra 9:7); and none address the issue of the efficacy of faith apart
from deeds (though see 1 Clem. 32.4).
If Johnson's exposition thus seems at times to be guided by
a concern to eliminate the problem which the presence of James alongside
Galatians and Romans in the canon has historically posed for Christians, his
constant attention to the letter's points of contact with Greco-Roman
exhortation, as well as his perceptive grasp of the relation of its
exhortations to its religious thought, make this a valuable contribution to the
study of James. An engaged and engaging commentary, this is a fine addition to
the Anchor Bible series.
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