Letter of James, The

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Mar 1999 by Baker, William R

The Letter of James. By Luke Timothy Johnson. AB 37a. New York: Doubleday, 1995, 412 pp., $35.00.

The year prior to his launch into the limelight, commanded by his scathing denunciation of the Jesus Seminar in The Real Jesus, Luke Timothy Johnson, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, published this carefully researched, engaging and at times insightful commentary on the Epistle of James. As in The Real Jesus, JETS readers will find the Johnson who interprets James to be a comrade in his view of Scripture, a gifted teacher in his exposition, and, for the most part, one who states his positions strongly.

As always in the Anchor Bible series, the commentary abounds with relevant bibliography, listed at the end of each section. It also boasts separate indexes for Scriptural references, ancient sources, pre-modern authors (2nd-17th centuries) and modern authors (17th-20th centuries), 64 pages total. Frustrating, though, is the fact that this volume, unlike most Anchor commentaries, provides no reference headers.

In the preface (p. ix), Johnson notes the changing character of the Anchor commentaries since Bo Reicke's The Epistle of James, Peter, and Jude, which launched the series in 1964, as justification for his commentary on James. Whereas Reicke was restricted to providing brief notes and commentary (only 62 pages total), Johnson has free reign. Fortunately, unlike some in this series, he does not abuse the privilege. Thankfully, he supplies some information and analysis unavailable in other commentaries on James, particularly regarding the history of interpretation of James, to which he devotes a fourth of his 160-page introduction.

Johnson believes that only by reviewing the history of James' interpretation can he right the grievous wrong done by Luther's defamation of it as anti-Pauline, which was followed in due course by the historical-critical school branding James "early catholic." Evidence for an early dating of James has always been available, particularly its quotation by 1 Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas, but has been continually clouded over by other issues.

Johnson divides his substantial introduction into four main sections, organized around the concept of "voice," of which the "History of Interpretation" or "How was the Voice Heard?" is the third. First, he covers "The Character of the Writing: the Voice." Here, he argues that the text is "stable," the language is "clear and correct koine with some ambitions toward rhetorical flourish," and the style includes Septuagintal influences, as well as Greek diatribe. In terms of James' structure, he believes that the epistle contains thematic and literary coherence, with the aphorisms of 1:1-27 reappearing as essays in 2:1-5:18. The thematic heart of James is 3:13-4:10, the most perfect expression of James' voice, 4:4. In terms of genre, he pushes aside Dibelius' disconnection of James' paraenesis from social circumstances to call James "a form of protreptic discourse," because it advocates a form of behavior consistent with those of a community defined by "friendship with God," among other things.

"The Voice" also includes a probing 40-page examination of the immense variety of "Literary Relationships" James has, thankfully not driven by the concern to find sources. Rather, comparisons and contrasts are drawn between material in James and, for instance, Greco-Roman moralists, OT prophecy, Jewish literature like Pirke Aboth, the Letter of Aristeas and the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs (which Johnson believes provides "the most complex and compelling set of comparisons to James). He also includes analysis of James' relationship to noncanonical Christian literature, including the Shepherd of Hermas, which Johnson concludes shows literary dependence on James.

It is within the section on "New Testament Relationships" that Johnson deals most extensively with the relationship between James and Pauline writings. Here, breaking with many commentaries, he accents their commonalities, noting that they diverge only when Paul, as in Rom 3:20 and Gal 2:16, connects erga to the term "law." James shares his use of ergon in the moral sense of deed/effort with every other use of ergon in the NT and with Paul himself in at least 50 occurrences. Johnson believes there is no basis for concluding that James and Paul are "talking to each other" on this subject in their respective books. Each operates out of his own sphere of particular concerns.

In the second introductory section, "Circumstances of Composition: Whose Voice?" Johnson carefully lays out solid evidence for concluding not only that the voice in the epistle is James, the Lord's brother, but that the date for the writing is early. The latter conclusion Johnson himself considers "a distinctive contribution" of his commentary (p. xii). I agree heartily. The key to Johnson's analysis involves "loosening" James from the Pauline entanglements in which it has become unjustifiably ensnared due to the influence of F. C. Bauer and the Tubingen School. Freeing James to be "read in terms of 108 verses rather than 12 verses" has been long overdue.