NT102

Introduction

Little can be said with certainty about the origins of the Letter of James. Although there has been widespread agreement for associating the letter with James the Just, the brother of Jesus and a leader of the early church in Jerusalem (Matt. 13:55; Acts 15:13; Gal. 1:19; 2:9), there has been just as widespread disagreement over the centuries as to whether the letter was actually written by him or by someone else using his name. The argument that the literary quality of its Greek surpasses the likely ability of a Galilean laborer is just as strong as the argument that the book lacks specific biographical references such as are usually found in pseudonymous writings that establish the connection with the person named as the author. Since the name James (Greek, Iakōbos, from the Hebrew name Jacob; James 1:1) was common among Jews of the first century, it is as likely that the association with James the Just is a result of misidentification as it is of authentic authorship or even pseudepigraphy.

Beyond the name James/Jacob, other characteristics of the letter associate it with what has been called “early Jewish Christianity,” although some of this evidence is more ambiguous than sometimes asserted. Imagery linking gentile Christians with Israel as now people of God, such as the description of this letter’s recipients as the “twelve tribes in the Dispersion” (1:1), was not uncommon (see, e.g., 1 Pet. 1:1). Similarly the use of the Greek word synagōgē (“synagogue”) to refer to the recipients’ Christian “assembly” (James 2:2) is also found in such non-Jewish writers as Hermas, Justin, Origen, and Eusebius, who use synagōgē and ekklēsia (“church”) interchangeably for gentile Christian communities. While the letter clearly has a positive view of “the law” (nomos, corresponding to Hebrew tôrâ; see 1:25; 2:8–12; 4:11), it does not address controversies between “Jewish Christians” and “gentile Christians” over circumcision or other aspects of Torah observance.

Evidence from literary dependence suggests the letter was written in the 60s or 70s CE. It seems likely that the assertion people are “not [justified] by faith alone” (2:24) is indirectly related to Paul’s statement, “a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed in the law” (Rom. 3:28), which would set the late 50s or early 60s as an earliest possible date. Sections of 1 Clement are likely reliant on material in this letter (cf. 1 Clem. 29.1; 30.1–5; 31.2 with James 2:14–26; 4:1–10), which would establish the early to mid–90s as a latest possible date. This general time period, which encompasses the run-up to and aftermath of the first Jewish War with Rome (66–73 CE), also provides a fitting historical setting to the letter’s imagery of social dislocation and expectation of an imminent “coming of the Lord” (5:1–8). The economic and cultural disruption of the war might also have prompted the letter’s strong interest in social justice concerns (see, e.g., 1:27; 2:5; 5:1–5). If indeed the first Jewish War provides some of its historical background, this would preclude the current form of the letter from being an authentic writing of James the Just, who was executed by the high priest Ananus II in 62 CE (Josephus, Ant. 20.9.1).

There has been a tendency, particularly since the Protestant Reformation, to read the Letter of James as in direct conflict with the apostle Paul’s understanding of the relationship between faith and works in establishing a person’s relationship with God (that is, one’s “justification”). The likely literary dependence of James 2:24 on Rom. 3:28 has already been noted, and there is also the striking similarity in how the two letters employ Abraham as an example in their discussions of this issue—albeit to opposite conclusions (cf. Rom. 4:1–25 with James 2:20–24). More recently, however, many interpreters have moved toward seeing libertine Pauline enthusiasts as the more likely catalysts for James’s statements about the necessity of both faith and works. Both Paul and James understand faith in terms of trust in God (rather than, say, holding certain beliefs about God; cf. Rom. 4:5 with James 1:5–6). Additionally, Paul himself had both anticipated and argued against those who might conclude that, having been justified by faithful trust in God, their actions did not matter (Rom. 2:13; 3:31; 6:1–2; Phil. 2:12–13; and cf. James 2:18). Even more beneficial has been the trend to see the doctrine of justification as an important but not all-consuming concern within the Letter of James. Read as a whole, James’s primary interest centers on encouraging consistency in living out “the implanted word” (1:21) both individually (1:19–21, 26; 3:13–18) and communally (2:2–4; 4:11–12), particularly as it gives rise to the social justice themes already mentioned.

THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT

James describes himself as “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” (1:1a). The word “servant” might also be translated as “slave.” Surprising as it may seem today, to describe oneself as a “slave of God” could actually be a claim of status and authority in the letter’s Greco-Roman context, where slaves could be used as their masters’ personal representatives and so receive a kind of ancillary authority. This social reality led to Israel’s prophets also being referred to as “God’s servants.” Nevertheless, slaves did lose all independence to the will of their masters—and the idea that God’s will should supplant our own desires and will is a recurring theme within the letter that will be firmly established in this opening section.

Before turning to that, we need to consider how James characterizes the audience to whom he is writing. He addresses the “twelve tribes in the Dispersion” (1:1b). Clearly the language is metaphorical because Israel had lost any real twelve-tribe structure since at least the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom in 722 BCE. The question is, then, how far does the metaphorical aspect extend? The metaphor may simply identify ethnic Jews (“the twelve tribes”) living outside Roman Palestine (“in the Dispersion”). However, the fact that the author closes the letter by suggesting some “among you” have “wander[ed] from the truth” and so need to be brought back (5:19–20) opens a broader possible meaning: the recipients are people of God (“the twelve tribes”) who have departed from (“in the Dispersion”) a proper understanding of their relationship with God (“wandered from the truth”) and so need James’s correction.

Following a pattern often used in letters of this period, James lays out this purpose in a twofold introduction. This relationship between the key ideas can be illustrated by presenting the two subsections of 1:2–12 and 1:13–16 in parallel columns.

1:2–4: “trials” (peirasmoi) and tests

1:5–8: God’s gift is “wisdom”

1:9–12: culminates with a “crown of life”

1:13–16: temptation (perirazein)

1:17–19a: God’s “perfect gift” is the “word of truth”

1:19b–21: culminates with the salvation of the soul

Thus James identifies what he believes is the problem in the recipients’ current understanding (how they view “trials” and being “tempted”), offers a correction (God’s “perfect gift” of “wisdom”/“the word of truth”), and concludes with the benefit it promises (“life” for the “soul”).

In order to see the corrective aspect of his opening paragraph (1:2–4), it is necessary to challenge the customary translation of the word “consider” (hēgēsasthe) in verse 2. Most Greek verbs have quite distinct forms and spellings when they are used as simple statements (the indicative mood) as compared to being used as commands (imperative mood). Some, however, have exactly the same forms, and the verb hēgesthai is one of them. Since the Letter of James has more than fifty imperative verbs in its 108 verses, most translations take it as an imperative here in 1:2; thus James is encouraging the recipients to respond to “trials of any kind” as an occasion for “nothing but joy” because “the testing of … faith produces endurance,” which in the end will make them “mature and complete, lacking in nothing” (1:3–4). This idea that trials make one’s faith stronger was common in the first century (and even today).

But notice that James immediately says that if one “is lacking in wisdom,” it can only be received as a gift from God (1:5); thus, at least for James, “endurance” cannot cure every “lack” because being “lacking in wisdom” is only resolved by God’s gift. This point suggests that James makes an observation in the previous paragraph about how they have been thinking about “trials” (thus “you consider,” in the indicative mood) that is in fact different from how he wants them to think about trials. That James is indeed trying to correct their views is reinforced by the parallel subsection in 1:13–18. Whereas some believe they are being “tempted by God” (using the cognate verb for the noun translated as “trials” in 1:2)—perhaps identifying these temptations as “trials” meant to strengthen faith through “endurance”—James emphatically insists God can neither be tempted nor tempts anyone else. Rather, God is the unvarying source of “every generous act of giving” and “every perfect gift” (1:17).

Trusting in God’s unvarying goodness is the essence of “faith,” as distinct from “doubt,” which is tossed back and forth between trust and uncertainty (1:7–8) since it can never be sure whether God will provide a “perfect gift” or “trials” and temptations. It is the “implanted word” (1:21) that unifies God’s wisdom and will within the individual that “has the power to save [one’s] soul” (1:21) and bestow “life” (1:12), so that one is no longer “double-minded” (1:7–8) and “lured and enticed” by one’s own improper “desire” (1:14).

THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION

James’s insistence that “God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one” (1:13) serves his rhetorical and theological purposes well. It clearly establishes a reason why someone could ask God for whatever they need without doubting either God’s generosity or the goodness of God’s response (cf. Matt. 7:9–11). But the assertion is not without its difficulties in light of the broader scriptural tradition, as James himself must have known. After all, he will later refer to one of the most important stories about God’s testing someone when he says, “Abraham [was] justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar” (James 2:21; notice how James avoids using the word test in this passage, even though it opens the story in Gen. 22:1–19). He also will allude to “the endurance of Job” (James 5:11b), a story often seen as God’s testing of Job even if at the instigation of the Satan (Job 1:1–2:10). And in Exodus, Moses persuades God to take a different course of action lest the Egyptians accuse God of having acted with “evil intent” (Exod. 32:11–13). The narrator’s summary comment in Exod. 32:14 goes so far as to flatly state that God not only can be but also has been tempted to do evil, leading God to repent, where (the Hebrew behind the NRSV’s “the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned” can be translated more bluntly, “the LORD repented of the evil”).

But in a post-Holocaust world, the challenge to James’s assertion goes beyond just conflicting Bible stories. Theodicy—how an all-good and all-powerful God can allow evil to exist—may well be the preeminent theological issue of our age. True, James is not engaging in a philosophical discussion of theodicy; but it is an issue that moderns cannot avoid when confronted with assurances about God’s unvarying goodness. At the risk of gross oversimplification, process theologians (such as Charles Hartshorne, John Cobb, and Marjorie Suchocki, who hold that God is changed by and develops though relationship with creation) might say that God is striving to become a God worthy of James’s trust/faith, but the evidence suggests that neither God nor the world has yet arrived at that point.

THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT

Two concepts, one theological and the other sociological, provide the foundations for this section of the Letter of James. The “piety of the poor” was a conviction within Judaism and early Christianity, that God had “chosen the poor in the world” (2:5b)—not because they were more religiously or spiritually pious, but because “the rich” and powerful have “oppressed” and defrauded them (see 2:6b; 5:1, 4). This theological concept stood in marked contrast to the Greco-Roman cultural system rooted in honor and shame. Those cultural values provided the sociological framework for an extensive patronage system through which the rich and powerful received honor, in part, from the beneficence they showed to others. By showing honor to upper classes, the lower classes hoped to become beneficiaries of the patronage from the rich.

Having in the opening section of the letter focused on the need to receive God’s “wisdom” expressed within the “word of truth” (1:5, 18, 21), James now emphasizes that his readers must become “doers of the word, and not merely hearers” (1:22). To be a “doer of the word” is to be a person who brings to reality God’s will for the world. For that reason he defines “religion” not merely in holiness language (“pure and undefiled,” “unstained by the world”) but also in terms of acting on the basis of God’s choice in favor of the poor by “car[ing] for orphans and widows in their distress” (1:27).

But to the degree that his readers had chosen anyone for special attention, James charges they have shown “favoritism” toward those “with gold rings and in fine clothes” (2:1–2). Beyond even the demands for displays of honor required by the patronage system, they have come to identify with the rich against the poor whom God has chosen. Notice how he alleges the readers would direct those “wearing the fine clothes … [to] ‘Have a seat here, please’ ” (that is, here among us), whereas “to the one who is poor [they] say, ‘Stand there,’ or, ‘Sit at my feet’ ” (that is, away from us or in a place that illustrates your subordination to us, 2:3). In a string of rhetorical questions, James expresses his amazement at their choice because their actions have not brought them the patronage they might have expected but rather further abuse (2:6b–7).

In James’s view, such “partiality” is the very antithesis of the “royal law” (2:9), the “law of liberty” (2:12). And that “law” must be understood as a unified whole; a person can no more violate only one of its provisions than one can break only the stem of a crystal goblet.

THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION

Because the Letter of James has been associated with “early Jewish Christianity,” there has been a particular interest in its use of the phrase “the law of liberty” (2:12). Some have suggested that it draws on the Stoic ideal of life in accord with the rule of reason (the Logos), others with Jewish descriptions of the Torah as providing joy and freedom, and still others with Christian conceptions of Jesus’ ethical teachings as a “new law” that either replaces or “fulfills” the mandates of Torah (cf. Matt. 5:17–48). But given the way James links the images of “law” and “word” in 1:22–25, and the image of the “implanted word” in 1:21, it may be that the best antecedent is to be found in Jeremiah’s “new covenant,” whereby God promises to “put my law within them, and … write it on their hearts” (Jer. 31:31–34). As Leonard Goppelt (2:206) described it, “For James, the Law was not an objectively prescribed norm … but the will of God that was written in the heart.”

Keeping this “perfect law, the law of liberty” (1:25) for James required a consistency between one’s speech and actions (“bridle their tongues,” 1:26), and attention to what later Christian moral tradition would refer to as “sins of commission” (improper actions) and “sins of omission” (failure to do those things that God desires). Often Christian communities have tended to emphasize one or the other. James’s admonition “to keep oneself unstained by the world” has been emphasized within certain holiness movements as the core of the religious life. His charge to “care for orphans and widows in their distress” has been emphasized by social gospel movements. But James calls for a “both … and” rather than an “either … or.” Just as God’s will/law is characterized by a unifying wholeness, James calls for “keep[ing] the whole law” (2:10) even as he also reminds his readers that “mercy triumphs over judgment” (2:13).

THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT

A repetition of keywords establishes the concern and the limits of this section of the letter: For “faith” to be any “good” in the sense of “sav[ing] you” it must “have works,” because “without works” faith is “dead” (2:14, 26). But James structures the argument in a way that makes clear that the “good” (or “benefit”) that comes from being “save[d]” will respond to material needs as well as spiritual ones.

Just as the discussion of “favoritism” (2:1), in the previous section, was rooted in values of honor and shame and the Greco-Roman patronage system, so also the discussion throughout this section presupposes cultural expectations regarding hospitality (2:15, 25). The idea that someone might refuse to assist a “brother or sister” in need of material assistance would have been shocking to everyone in that society; when almost everyone struggles at subsistence for themselves, they know in the most pragmatic ways why providing for others is a communal responsibility. But for James, hospitality is more than a social obligation. The invocation of blessing (“Go in peace”) especially when joined with what are in Greek passive imperative verbs—more literally, “Be warm and be well fed” (2:16)—are indications that the speaker recognizes that it is God’s will that these material needs be met (see 1:27). Jews often used passive voice verbs to avoid naming God directly. To use such constructions to tell another to “keep warm and eat your fill” was to invoke God to keep them warm and fed. Such knowledge of God’s goodness (“faith”), if it produces only words (“has no works”), accomplishes no “good” and is in fact “dead” (2:16–17).

That one’s knowledge about God should determine one’s actions is the central point of the diatribe (a literary device involving an imagined exchange with a person holding a different view) in 2:18–26. Given a text that originally had no punctuation at all and certainly no quotation marks, it has proven difficult definitively to assign certain words to James and others to his rhetorical partner. What is clear, however, is that James insists not only that heroes of the “faith” like Abraham (2:21–23) and Rahab (2:24) act on what they believe about God, but so do “even the demons,” who “shudder” (2:19). He is astounded that any sensible person (2:20), then, could think “faith” and “works” are separable in any way.

Close attention needs to be given to the word order in James’s summarizing analogy: “just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead” (2:26). Notice the “body” correlates to “faith,” and the “spirit” to “works”—not “body” to “works” and “faith” to “spirit.” As the “spirit” animates the “body,” so “works” animate (that is, “bring to life” or “live out”) “faith” (2:26).

THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION

During the great debates of the Protestant Reformation about the means by which people are “justified” by God (see 2:21, 24–25) and “save[d]” (2:14; see also 1:21; 5:19–20), considerable attention was given to the fact that Gen. 15:6, “[Abraham] believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness,” is employed as a proof text by both James (2:23) and Paul (Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6). Whereas Paul uses the Abraham example in support of the view “that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law” (Rom. 3:28), James uses Abraham to show “that faith apart from works is barren” (2:20).

In the view of many interpreters, Paul and James held contradictory views. More traditional theologians argued that James demonstrated that both faith and works contribute to justification. Martin Luther and some other Reformers agreed that James contradicted Paul, but held that Paul was correct in insisting that works contribute nothing to justification. Luther went so far as to state that James’s letter had “nothing of the nature of the Gospel about it” (Luther, 362).

John Calvin, however, was not convinced that James and Paul truly contradicted one another. He argued Paul was concerned exclusively with “the ground on which our hope of salvation ought to rest,” whereas James was concerned only with “the manifestation of righteousness by conduct” that follows from having been “justified” by God. For Calvin, this distinction was seen clearly in James’s statement, “faith was brought to completion by the works” (2:22), about which he commented, “the question here is not respecting the cause of our salvation, but whether works necessarily accompany faith” (Calvin, 314–15).

THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION

The common tendency among interpreters to construe Abraham and Rahab as examples for us to follow can create problems. If Abraham is said to epitomize faith in “offer[ing] his son Isaac on the altar” (perhaps, as Heb. 11:19 suggests, trusting “God could even raise him from the dead”) and “Rahab the prostitute” to embody hospitality that spares others from destruction (see also Heb. 11:31), then emphasizing Abraham’s faith and Rahab’s work of hospitality serves to reinscribe her primarily as “the prostitute.” Too easily, Abraham and Rahab come to exemplify two extremes: God justifies not only the venerated Abraham but also the lowest of sinners, the prostitute Rahab.

It is possible to read this letter, however, in a way that resists debasing Rahab. James states she not only “welcomed the messengers” but also “sent them out by another road” or “way” (the word used in 1:6–8 and in 5:20 of one’s manner of life [the NRSV’s “wandering” is more literally “error of one’s way”]). Her story in Joshua 2 relates how she encouraged the spies and, through them, all the Israelites to adopt a manner of life that ended their wilderness wanderings by believing in God’s promises (especially Josh. 2:8–11). As distinguished from the so-called hospitality of a harlot, Rahab can exemplify those whom James describes as “bringing back” others who “wander from the truth” and so “will save” them “from death” (5:19–20).

THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT

The central theme of this third section in the letter is expressed through the contrast between the readers’ desire to obtain for themselves power and high social standing—the reason for James’s warning, “Not many of you should become teachers” (3:1; see the earlier discussion of 1:22–2:13)—and what is for James a proper attitude of humility: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, [so that] he will exalt you” (4:10). Such humility is required because of the coming judgment, which is again explicitly mentioned at the beginning and end of the section—teachers “will be judged with greater strictness” (3:1) by the “one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy” (4:12a).

James believes that his readers perceive the role of teachers as being to exercise authority over errant members of the community (possibly punitively: “So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor?” 4:12b). Rather than being dispensers of punitive “judgment,” he argues, “teachers” will be the recipients of “stricter judgment.” Within the overall context of the letter, James considers teachers “servant[s] of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” (1:1) who “save the sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (5:19–20), thereby sparing errant members of the community from harsh judgment rather than inflicting judgment on them.

The question of proper and improper speech plays an important role in the development of this section. In 3:2, James describes the “perfect” person as one who “makes no mistakes in speaking”; such a person stands in stark contrast to one who “speaks evil against or judges another” and so “speaks evil against the law” (4:11). But improper speech is only a symptom, one of “many” ways in which people sin (3:2). The origins of evil behavior and speech, James argues, reside in the “cravings that are at war within you” (4:1; cf. 1:14–15). The true problem, in his view, is desire for social status (3:1), “envy and selfish ambition” (3:16), and arrogance (4:6).

James contrasts the fact that “all of us make many mistakes” (3:2; see 3:14–16 for some of his examples) with the many things that should typify one “who is wise and understanding” (3:13) in terms of “the wisdom from above [that] is pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (3:17). True “wisdom” is demonstrated not by what one says but by “works” that display “gentleness born of wisdom” (3:13).

What is true of individuals is also true of communities. “Conflicts and disputes” arise between members of the community because of their covetous “cravings” that James alleges have even led to “murder” (4:1–3). While some argue James is alluding here to Jesus’ saying that links anger with “murder” (see Matt. 5:21–22), it is possible James uses the word in a more literal sense. If a failure “to care for orphans and widows” (James 1:27) and other indigent members of the community (2:15–16) results in unnecessary deaths, then the evil desire to “spend what you get on your pleasures” (4:3) would be a kind of murder.

The promise in the proverb that God “gives grace to the humble” (4:6; see Prov. 3:34) provides the basis for James’s call to “submit yourselves … to God” (James 4:7) and to “humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (4:10; cf. 1:9–10). The “laughter” and “joy” that come from “friendship with the world” must be replaced with the grief, mourning, and gloom of realizing that one has “become an enemy of God” (4:4, 9). Genuine humility and repentance—both turning away from evil and turning to God—is the only way to prepare oneself to come before the “one lawgiver and judge” (4:12).

THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION

Some commentators have argued that James uses his metaphors about bridles and ship rudders (3:2b–4) to illustrate the influence of teachers over the “body” of the community. Ralph Martin (103–7) went so far as to argue that not just these particular metaphors but all of 3:1–12 presents “a discussion where (i) ‘the body’ [see 3:2b] in question is the ecclesial one, not the anatomical one, and (ii) the tongue is used in a setting of the congregation at worship” where “ ‘praising God’ is the chief component” (see 3:9–10). This communal reading seeks to resolve the difficulty that the human tongue does not actually control human actions in the way that a bit does a horse or a rudder does a ship. Others argue that the allegorical relationship is more general, perhaps even alluding to Jesus’ statement, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34; Luke 6:45). One’s speech is a clear indicator of the internal desires that control all one’s actions (notice James explicitly mentions that “ships … are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs” [3:4]).

THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION

How does one square the view of God as “the one lawgiver and judge,” able both to “save” or “exalt” (4:10) and to “destroy” (4:12), with James’s conviction that God is the source of “every perfect gift” and nothing bad or evil (1:17)? Could recognizing God as such a “judge” lead to “doubt” and “double-mindedness” (1:7–8), since one does not know whether to expect salvation or destruction from God? It seems likely that James would respond that while “judgment” is clearly a bad thing for those who will be destroyed, that does not mean God’s destructive judgment is a bad thing in itself. Moreover, no one should have any “doubt” about what awaits them (even the demons “shudder” in their certain knowledge of God’s judgment, 2:19). Those who have asked for, received, and lived out God’s gift of wisdom can trust they will be saved (see 1:21–22).

But theologies—whether Christian or of another tradition—that depend on the destruction not only of evil but also of those caught under its control and who do its bidding have had terrible effects in the world. Those who are sure they know whom God will ultimately “destroy” in judgment often have little regard for James’s admonition that they should not judge their neighbors (cf. 4:12). James will himself later advise patience while God’s harvest is reaped (5:7; cf. Matt. 9:37–38; 13:24–30), but if God were to show a bit more patience—tending the fields for as long as it might take—could it be possible to “save” the whole crop? Perhaps James, like Moses, should have worked harder at persuading God to turn aside from any “evil intent” to destroy as an act of judgment (see discussion of James 1:1–21 in “The Text in Contemporary Discussion” above).

THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT

James concluded the previous section of the letter by calling his readers to repentance (4:7–10). As he draws the letter itself to a close, he challenges them to follow his example by bringing back others within their community who may be “wander[ing] from the truth” (5:19–20). He again reminds them that the standard of judgment will be whether they have accepted the divine will as their own (see especially 4:13–17), and creates a sense of urgency by asserting, “the Judge is standing at the doors!” (5:9b). He insists that they cannot restore others by “grumbl[ing] against one another” (5:9a); rather, they must encourage “patience” and “endurance” (5:10–11) by directing the attention of those who are “suffering” to God’s goodness and provision through communal prayer, praise, and confession (5:13–18).

In the midst of this summons to his readers to bring back anyone who “wanders from the truth,” James once more calls “the rich” to account (5:1–6) and encourages “patience” on the part of those who suffer at their hands (5:7–11). The unmistakable harshness of the imagery he employs against the rich (the corrosion that consumes their hoarded goods will likewise “eat [their] flesh like fire,” 5:3) may on the one hand seem justified since their abuse of others (5:4) is once again said to have resulted in deaths (5:6) but on the other hand seems overly strident from one who advises against judging others (4:11–12). Notice, however, that James calls on the rich to “weep and wail for the miseries that are coming” (5:1). James has earlier associated weeping with repentance (4:9), and the decay of their possessions calls to mind the demise of their way of life in 1:11. It is likely that rather than taking joy in their “miseries,” James hopes these events will awaken the rich to their dependence on God and lead them to repent of their past sins. The prospect that they too might yet be “brought back” is the only reason to counsel patience.

Although we have seen that 5:19–20 provides a key insight into how James understands his purpose for writing the letter, there is an ambiguity that lies at the heart of these verses. The NRSV flags the issue with its textual note in 5:20 that the word translated as “sinner’s” is in Greek simply “his” (autou). The problem resides in identifying the antecedent of “his.” Is it the “sinner’s soul” that is saved (as the NRSV has it), or is it the soul of “whoever brings back a sinner”? Perhaps James intends the ambiguity because it is in doing such things consistent with God’s will that people are “blessed” (1:22–25) and that their “faith” is able to save them from spiritual death (2:14, 26).

THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION

James 5:14–16 has been a key passage in the development of the Catholic “sacrament of the sick,” commonly referred to as “the last rites.” While the “call[ing] for the elders of the church,” prayer, “anointing … with oil,” and confession and forgiveness of sins mentioned in those verses are widely recognized aspects of that liturgical practice, some may be surprised that a ritual so closely associated with death (at least in the popular imagination) is rooted in a passage that holds out the hope of healing.

A deeper insight into this relationship between the “last rites” and “healing” can be found by carefully considering the specific words James uses for God’s response to the act of anointing the sick with oil: “The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up” (5:15). While the Greek verbs sōzein and egeirein were commonly used to refer to healing and restoration to wholeness, they also have specialized uses within Christian theology. All the other uses of “save” (sōzein) in the Letter of James (1:21; 2:14; 4:12; 5:20) have the sense of salvation and eternal life. Although “raise” (egeirein) is not used elsewhere in this letter, it is widely used in reference to resurrection, and specifically of Jesus being “raised” from the dead (see, e.g., 1 Cor. 15:12–14). Thus the “sacrament of the sick” holds out the hope that even if physical healing does not come, there remains God’s promise of wholeness in the life to come.

THE TEXT IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSION

Two aspects of James’s discussion of prayers for healing open possibilities for abuse. First, relating healing and forgiveness reflects a traditional view that connected sin and sickness (cf. John 9:1–2) and leads some to conclude that every disease is a result of sin, either as a natural consequence or even as an act of divine judgment (but see John 9:3). Second, James’s assertion, “The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective” (James 5:16), leads some to affix blame for unanswered prayers by impugning the righteousness either of the sick person or of those who pray on her or his behalf.

To the degree that James offers any explanation as to why some prayers for healing do not result in physical restoration, it is that the elders are to pray “in the name of the Lord” (5:14). The invocation of “the name of the Lord” is both an appeal to the power and authority of God, and a recognition that our desires—even in prayer—must be conformed to God’s will (cf. 4:3). But once again it seems that James is sidestepping the problem of theodicy that we in the twenty-first century cannot so easily avoid (see the discussion on 1:1–21). Therein may lie the single greatest theological challenge for the Letter of James in contemporary discussion.