Journal for the Study of the

New Testament
http://jnt.sagepub.com

S. LAWS : A Commentary on the Epistle of James (A. and C.

Black, 1980) 273 pp., 5.95 (paperback)
David Hill
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 1981; 4; 123
DOI: 10.1177/0142064X8100401308
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123

S.

(A.

LAWS : A Commentary on the Epistle of James

and C. Black, 1980) 273 pp., £5.95 (paperback)

David Hill,

Department of Biblical Studies,

The

University

of Sheffield.

Since there has not been a major exegetical treatment of

Epistle of James by an English-speaking scholar for many
decades, considerable interest attaches to the appearance of
Sophie Laws work: it is good to be able to say that the
commentary not only maintains the high standards of the Blacks
Series but also fares well in a comparison with recent scholarly
studies in French and German, including that of Dibelius which
the

The book is
translated for the eminent Hermeneia Series.
example of the well-informed and balanced exegesis which
typifies British New Testament scholarship.

was

fine

In a well-structured introduction Mrs. Laws presents the

conclusions she has formed concerning the Sitz im Leben of James
The
letter on the basis of her detailed study of the text.
author, she maintains, belongs firmly in the world of early
Christianity: despite the omission of some central Christian
themes and despite his superficial and undeveloped presentation
of Christianity (when compared with Paul or John), he is
nevertheless Christian. He also shows a clear acquaintance
with the world of Judaism, but Judaism cannot have been the
framework of his life, otherwise he would have known that the
Pauline argument on faith and works involved a radical
reappraisal of Torah: rather, as the quality of his Greek, his
use of rhetorical devices and metaphors found in Greek and
Latin authors and his awareness of catch-phrases from philosophy
all suggest, he belongs to an environment in which Christian,
Jewish and Hellenistic thought met at a popular and
unsophisticated level. The illustrations and allusions (e.g.
to rich and poor) in this epistle of general applicability must
have borne some relation to the experience, situation and
attitudes of the author and his readers, but they do not provide
sufficient evidence to decide on a definite geographical
location.
Nor can an examination of James affinities with

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unauthorized distribution.

124

Resemblances
other docwnents place the epistle in its setting.
to rabbinic literature are of a very general kind: and the
differences between James and Qumran are more striking than any
likenesses.
Similarities between James and the Testaments of
the XII Patriarchs suggest only that each writer is developing
independently a. common and familiar theme. The striking
parallels with Matthew (especially Matt.5:33-37), when closely
examined, show differences in attitude and interest which make
it improbable that the two writers did more than drav upon a
similar tradition of the teaching of Jesus which they then
interpreted differently because Lhey were engaged in different
James argument abouc justification by faith or by
debates.
works must presuppose Pauls, but not as that was expounded by
the apostle in his letters: James had probably heard
(and was
reacting to) Pauls affirmation used as a slogan to dcfend pious
quietism. The remarkable parallels 1n argumentation and
language oetween James aad I Peter will permit only the
assertion that they are drawing on the common stock of Christian
ethical teaching not in the same specific situation but &dquo;as it
was presented in the same area or region of the church&dquo; (p.20).
On the basis of an interesting discussion of external
attestation (Hermas, Origen, etc.) Mrs. Laws puts forward the
&dquo;plausible, if not proveable, hypothesis&dquo; that the letter
originated in some part of the Roman Christian community, that
it fell into disuse because of the general character of its
contents, but that it retained special interest for the
Jerusalem church which, though a gentile church after A.D.13S,
was concerned to affirm its origins in the earliest conmunity
led by James, the brothcr of Jesus.
The letter is pseudonymous
and cannot be dated with any precision between A.D.62 and the
writing of the Shepherd of Hermas.
The chief interest of the letter, in Mrs. Laws view, lies
in the very distinctive type uf Christianity it reveals.
It
represents a form of the gentile mission independent of Pauls
and not involving a radical disjunction from Judaism.
It is not
charismatic, or sacramental. still less a Christianity with
gnostic tendencies. &dquo;Primarily, it is a way of life before
God, a moral code (cf. the definition of true religion in
1:27). Precepts for behaviour are backed by a notion of
salvation associated with conversion and baptism (1:18,21),
and with reclamation from sin (5:19f.), and also by an
expectation of judgement (2:12f., 4:12, 5:9,12)&dquo; (pp.33-4). In
the determining of this way of life the teaching of Jesus plays
a part, being adapted - a~ it preswnably was by the Gospel
writers also - to the authors own special interests. To

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125

describe the letter as Jewish-Christian is misleading

because it does less than justice to its hellenistic elements
and because James scarcely represents a Christianity that
would de professed by &dquo;one who would also call himself a Jew
and retain the practice of Judaism as the framework of his life&dquo;
(p.37): rather, he seems more akin to the gentile God-fearers
on the fringe of the hellenistic synagogue.
James epistle
remains important in that it witnesses to one form - perhaps
more m despread than we now think - in which Christianity made
its initial appeal in the Roman world, and one example of what
conversion might mean in the first century.

Throughout the commentary - which is very detailed and

well-documented - Mrs. Laws sets out clearly alternative
possibilities of interpretation but always makes it quite
plain where her own judgenent - backed by sound argument lies.
The rich man of 1:10 is not a brother: in 2:1 the
relation of tes doxes to our Lord Jesus Christ is one of
apposition and reflects the understanding of Jesus as
theophany. On the faith-works issue she claims that &dquo;attempts
to harmonise James and Paul and thus produce an apostolic
However much one may
consensus are probably fruitless....
modify the superficial contrast, a basic lack of sympathy must
remain&dquo; (pp.132-3).
A fresh effort is made (though with
questionable success) to resolve the problems in 4:5, but no
help is offered on the considerable difficulty raised by the
lack of any final greetings or normal conclusion to a letter
which is adjudged by this commentators to be a literary epistle
which, especially in its last section, seems &dquo;to envisage and
address an actual community in the course of its daily life&dquo;
(p.242): yet there is no word of farewell! While Mrs. Laws
does try to trace connexions of thought throughout the letter,
she does not consider the possibility of there being a single
unifying theme: )et several recent articles suggest that the
testing of faith (1:3) is the clue to the organisation of the
It is disappointing to find no mention whatever of
niaterial.
the suggestion made by VI .H. BennEtt (in the old Century Bible
cormnentary) - and revived by S.C. Agouridcs in 1963 - that the
epistle of James is a translation (with epistolary adaptations)
by a scribe who had a good command of Greek of an address
originally made and written in Aramaic by Jam~s of Jerusalem to
meet a definite historical situation in some Palestinian
Christian communities. That possibility still deserves, in my
opinion, some consideration. Frequent use of material from Philo,
the Shepherd of Hermas and allusions to the wisdom tradition are
_

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1981 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or
unauthorized distribution.

126

The translation
welcome features of this valuable commentary.
provided is excellent and this volume will definitely become
one of the standard works on the intriguing but difficult letter
of James.

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1981 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or
unauthorized distribution.