To think that the influence and importance of James has been all but forgotten by Christians through the ages is cause enough for wonder, but beyond the man is a message. What about the lost Christianity that Jesus, James, and the early followers of Jesus represented?
RECOVERING THE LOST CHRISTIANITY
OF JESUS
Although James has been all but written out of our New Testament records he nonetheless remains our best and most direct link to the historical Jesus. However one evaluates Paul’s “Gospel,” it is nonetheless a fact that what Paul preached was wholly based upon his own visionary experiences, whereas James and the original apostles had spent extensive time with Jesus during his lifetime. Is there a reliable way to recover the Christianity of James and the early Jerusalem church?
The difficulty we face is that Paul’s influence within our New Testament documents is permeating and all pervasive. It includes his thirteen letters, as well as the letter of Hebrews, sometimes even attributed to Paul, but much more. Even though tradition has it that the gospel of Mark was based on the tradition received from Peter, as I have already mentioned, most scholars today are convinced that Mark’s story of Jesus is almost wholly Pauline in its theology, namely Jesus as the suffering Son of God who gave his life as an atonement for the sins of the world (Mark 8:31–36; 10:45; 14:22–25).28 Matthew follows Mark in this regard. Luke-Acts, which comprises the standard story of early Christianity, with an emphasis on Paul, downplays James as we have seen. Even the gospel of John, in theology at least, also reflects Paul’s essential understanding of Jesus. 1 Peter, a document one might expect to reflect an alternative perspective, is an unabashed presentation of Paul’s ideas under the name of Peter. Paul’s view of Christ as the divine, preexistent Son of God who took on human form, died on the cross for the sins of the world, and was resurrected to heavenly glory at God’s right hand becomes the Christian message. In reading the New Testament one might assume this was the only message ever preached and there was no other gospel. But such was not the case. If we listen carefully we can still hear a muted original voice—every bit as “Christian” as that of Paul. It is the voice of James, echoing what he received from his brother Jesus.
The most neglected document in the entire New Testament is the letter written by James. It has become so marginalized that many Christians are not even aware of its existence. And yet it is part of every Christian Bible, tucked away well to the end of the New Testament. It was almost left out entirely. When the Christians began to canonize the New Testament in the fourth century, that is, to authoritatively determine which books would be included and which would not, the status of the letter of James was questioned. It was not included in the Muratorian Fragment, our earliest list of New Testament books that were accepted as scripture in Rome at the end of the second century.29 The third-century A.D. Christian scholars Origen and Eusebius both listed it among the disputed books.30 Even the great Western Christian scholars Jerome and Augustine accepted the letter only reluctantly. It was finally made part of the New Testament canon of sacred scripture not because its content pleased the later church theologians, but on the basis of it bearing the name of James, the brother of Jesus.
These early Christians who questioned the value of the letter of James were troubled that Jesus is mentioned just two times in passing and either reference could easily be removed without affecting the content of the letter or the points James was making (James 1:1; 2:1). In addition, the letter lacks any reference to Paul’s view of Jesus as the divine Son of God, his atoning death on the cross, or his glorified resurrection. How could a New Testament document that lacked such teachings really be considered “Christian”? In fact, James directly disputed Paul’s teaching of “salvation by faith” without deeds of righteousness. He does not mention Paul’s name but the reference is unmistakable, given what we know from Paul’s letters about faith in Christ alone being sufficient to bring salvation. James speaks positively of the enduring validity of the Jewish Torah, or Law of Moses, and insists that all its commandments are to be observed:
What does it profit, my brothers, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? . . . So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. (James 2:14, 17)
For whoever looks into the perfect Torah, the Torah of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in his doing. (James 1:25)
For whoever keeps the whole Torah but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. (James 2:10)
James addressed his letter to the “Twelve Tribes in the Dispersion” (1:1). The term “Dispersion” refers to the notion that large portions of the Israelite or Jewish people had been scattered widely among the nations and were no longer living in the homeland. James refers here directly to the scattered Twelve Tribes of Israel, over which Jesus had promised the twelve apostles would rule. As the presiding head of this newly constituted Israel, expected to emerge fully when the apocalyptic Day of the Lord arrived, James intends his letter to be a call to all Israel to prepare for the imminent Day of Judgment (James 5:7–9). The letter reflects an early Palestinian Jewish cultural context, perhaps in the 40s A.D., before there was a strict separation between the Nazarene followers of Jesus and other Jewish groups. For example, James referred to the local meeting or assembly of proto-Christians as a synagogue, not a church, reflecting his Jewish understanding of the Christian movement (James 2:2). Even though the letter is written in Greek, at least as we have it today, linguistically it reflects numerous Aramaic and Hebrew expressions and recent research has revealed its Palestinian Jewish milieu.31
What is particularly notable about the letter of James is that the ethical content of its teaching is directly parallel to the teachings of Jesus that we know from the Q source. The Q source is the earliest collection of the teachings and sayings of Jesus, which scholars date to around the year 50 A.D. It has not survived as an intact document but both Matthew and Luke use it extensively. By comparing Matthew and Luke and extracting the material they use in common but do not derive from their main source, which is Mark, we are able to come to a reasonable construction of this lost “gospel of Q.” It consists of about 235 verses that are mostly but not entirely the “sayings” of Jesus. The Q source takes us back to the original teachings of Jesus minus much of the theological framework that the gospels subsequently added.32 Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the Q source in terms of reconstructing Christian origins is that it has nothing of Paul’s theology, particularly his Christology or view of Christ.
The most familiar parts of Q to most Bible readers are in Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5–7) and Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain” (Luke 6). If one takes the letter of James, short as it is, there are no fewer than thirty direct references, echoes, and allusions to the teachings of Jesus found in the Q source! A few of the more striking parallels are the following: