The Epistle of James has been known to lack certain themes that one would expect to encounter in a Jewish epistle of its type. For example, scholars have noted that topics such as circumcision and the Sabbath are completely absent. In the course of higher biblical criticism, this has made its traditional attribution to James the Just, the leader of the Jewish Church in Jerusalem, unlikely. Technically, this would also exclude James the Lesser, another of Jesus’ apostles, although attribution to this apostle had never reached the type of popularity it had with the former. Along with such notable absences, nowhere in the epistle, unlike Paul’s own recollection during the same period (that is, if one buys the argument that the epistle is older than Paul’s or contemporaneous), is there any mention of the strife that erupted between Jewish and Gentile Christians over purity laws, which becomes rationale for the first doctrinal council ever, referred to as the Council of Jerusalem.
Thinking along these lines, I came across a phrase in James, which appeals to the associatory fallacy used in Roman courts at the time. The author writes in James 2:10:
For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
If James’ Jewish background is questionable, this is at least one place where scholars don’t, but perhaps should, point a finger more frequently. While we cannot be completely confident, the type of logical fallacy presented here is very close to what the Romans knew as falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus (false in one thing, false in all things) and fits the context of Roman thinking at the time. The author goes on to assert that one who is guilty of this infraction is a “lawbreaker,” though this may not necessarily be the same as one accused of covenant-breaking with YHWH in the sense in which a Jew would have understood being a sinner means to be outside the community. The rather generic tenor suggests one more reason for an author who was not in fellowship with the Jewish community at the time and challenges the traditional attribution to Jesus’ apostle.
Interesting argument, Trey, but is it not possible that two different legal systems, or cultures, could have parallel or similar principles? Not to mention the fact that whoever wrote James, and wherever, it was written in the Roman Empire. Without over-contesting for the authorship of James by James, I would suggest that there are so many Jewish elements in James--despite the absence of some (for which good explanations are indeed needed)--that to say that James's Jewish background is/should be in question is a stretch.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dr. Gorman for taking the time to read my blog. I agree that the epistle does feature Jewish elements and perhaps I could have been more clear. I used the conditional word “if” to acknowledge the pagan influence in this epistle by arguing that the phrase (Falsum in Uno, Falsum in Omnibus) goes unnoticed as evidence in this direction if one desires to move in this direction. In its broader form, I think it is curious that the author's understanding of Jewish law gravitates not to an appreciation of the Jewish form of covenant but one that is assimilating an appeal to a foreign legal maxim. I know you had mentioned similar codes and principles in both societies, and I’m not ruling out its possibility. But I'm unaware of anything like this saying in 2nd Temple Judaism or the midrash of the time. I note that a number of commentaries vaguely cite “Huther” who I found as one Jonathan Eduard Huther (an 1800s biblical exegete). He apparently finds a Talmudic parallel in “But if he perform all, but omit one, he is guilty of every single one.” Upon further investigation I find nothing like the phrase mentioned from the citation given to Tractate Shabbat. Huther’s comparison between James and the Tractate Shabbat, which is concerned with the melachot of Moses and how these regulate Sabbath activity is itself a strange parallel, since to quote Scot McKnight, “James fails to mention so many central ideas and institutions of Judaism, such as Israel, the Temple, and Sabbath.”
DeleteI agree with McKnight that this epistle fits in with Christianity the same way Sirach fits into Judaism. Perhaps also, when I said "Jewish background," it would have been better to say something like "Jerusalemite Jew," as some scholars have made the distinction between the kind of Judaism that may be more consistent with 2nd Temple Jewish writing and the kind that is espoused in James? I left it vague because as soon as we talk about a standard interpretative filter for Judaism, one cannot avoid getting in trouble!