Talk:Epistle of James/Archive 1

It's great that we've found a new source of free information here, but these articles are obviously written for a turn-of-the-century Christian audience--and are, hence, of course, totally biased. But Wikipedia articles are supposed to be written from the neutral point of view. I'm not sure what to do here, but if I were you, o anonymous uploader, I would stop uploading these articles and start editing the ones you've uploaded so that they are unbiased (or much less biased). --LMS

The problem with it is that not only is it conservative in content (which is not a bad thing at all - many theories of Biblical authorship have risen and fallen since 1900) but that it is combative in tone! The entry for Matthew starts out with a "without a doubt", which is rhetorically much more defensive than the wikipedia-discouraged-"obviously" -- the author of the Easton Bible Dictionary "obviously" knew that the tide had turned in the late 19th c. against Matthean authorship or early date (by the way, the manuscript evidence since 1985 has turned in a strange way back to a very early date, though it's still too controverted for an encyclopedia entry). --MichaelTinkler

It looks like a lot of these articles still haven't really been edited much. Clearly a lot of work is needed on them. soulpatch

Here's a question. As these articles get edited, can the bottom text citing the Easton Bible dictionary as a source be deleted from the article? soulpatch

Yes. When (in the editor's best judgment, of course) it's been edited significantly, so it's mostly modern rather than Easton, take out that ref.Vicki Rosenzweig

The traditional name for James the brother of the Lord is James the Just. James the Less is the James mentioned in Mark 15:40. In this context, Mark names three women: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and Joseph, and Salome. Matthew 27:56 names three women: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. John 19:25 mentions four women: Mary the mother of Jesus, her sister, Mary wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Thus, it would seem that Mary mother of James the Less is Mary the wife of Clopas. It is also possible that she could be someone else entirely, since Matthew and Mark only claim that the three women there among the women watching. While it is theoretically possible that this Mary could be Mary the mother of Jesus, one would have to explain why she is listed second in Matthew and Mark instead of first. Stephen C. Carlson

A different opinion on James the "Just" as author: The James of Acts 15 and 21, a.k.a. “James the Just” is a very poor candidate for authorship of the book of James. In Acts 15, he interrupts the proceedings to side with the Pharisees in imposing restrictions on the Gentiles which neither Peter or Paul thought necessary. In Acts 21 he is clearly neither leader nor teacher. He is merely one voice in a crowd of many, all of which use popular opinion, not scripture as their guide. Their only concern is placating the crowd, hence the ultimatum to Paul to worry about what the ‘myriad’ want rather than what God wants. Also, in Galatians 2, James' actions can lead one to believe he was less than truthful when he wrote he had nothing to do with the original apperance of the Judaizers in Acts 15. The fact that 'certain from James' appear in Antioch so soon after the Jerusalem Council indicates a very aggressive nature on his part. It is a Biblical truth that family relationships do not guarantee holiness, and that point is proven again with James. He makes a very poor candidate for an inspired work.rem486

It's clear now that there never has been any internal, textual, literal basis for positing James as a post resurrection epistle. It has only been external social or political perspectives that have led to this idea. The early church fathers got the ball rolling, in the wrong direction, with their assumptions that this epistle should be grouped with the others. There was no direct 'chain of evidence' for them to work with so they naturally assumed it was like the others and then crafted an exposition to fit their assumptions. Internally, the book of James is a pre-resurrection epistle. For instance, Jesus states in Matt. 10:6, "But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Which is exactly what James 1:1 desires to accomplish. It also ablsolutely states that works accomplished by the reader are a necessry part of the initiation and continuation of their relationship with God. (The effect of this fact on the vicarious death of Christ is cataclysmic.) James 1 states "be ye doers of the word" (whatever this 'word' was, it was not the message of the Resurrection) and in saying this downsizes the sufficiency of Christ. Hwoever Jesus earthly ministry was about nothing bur demostrating faith by performing miricales. rem486

According to Fox's Book of Martyrs, Chapter 1 [1], James the Less was the brother of Jesus (meaning that this was an alternate name for James the Just). The first century Church fathers, Josephus, John Calvin and others refer to him as Oblias, which means "bulwark" or "protector" or something like that in Greek. According to Smith's Bible Dictionary, however, James the Less is James Alphaeus. I'll get rid of the reference to James the Less altogether, since to whom that refers is a subject of debate, and write that it was traditionally attributed to James the Just, but many scholars suspect that it may be the work of James Alphaeus. kpearce

So one day you happen to look out your window. And you see the mailman putting a letter into your neighbors box. You think to yourself “hmmm I wonder what that letter could be.” So when the mailman is out of sight you sneak across the lawn and rifle open your neighbors mail box. Stealing back into your house your tear open the letter. And immediately you begin to complain “What's that supposed to mean?” “Where’s that at?” “Who’s that supposed to be?” and finally you angrily jam the letter into your shredder. Now is it the Post Office’s fault that the neighbor didn’t get his letter? Is it the authors fault that you don't understand the letter? Well that is exactly the circumstances surrounding the Epistle of James. The “Church” has denied it’s intended recipient from receiving the letter, while totally frustrating itself with the meaning of the letter. Because the letter is addressed to the twelve tribes of Israel. rem486

The Diaspora

The Jews were dispersed during the time of the Babaloynian Captivity. Large Jewish communities continued to exsist outside of Israel during the first century. It is therefore possible for the line "to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations" to have been written prior to the Roman dispersion AD 70. I deleted the line that said James the Just could not have written the book because he died in AD 62. —This unsigned comment was added by Bmal (talk • contribs) .

The "Epsitle" is address to the "12 tribes scattered abroad"...and that was to the Jewish/Christians that fled Jerusalem after Steven was stoned..See Acts 8 and Acts 11.. The fact James mentions that they already know about Jesus proves it wasn't addressed to the Jews of the "diaspora"..who would have no knowledge of Jesus..! Therefore James was writing this Epistle to his own followers.

Justification

I haven't changed anything, but I don't much like the extra fuss about justification. There is a seperate article on both justification, and the protestant doctrine concerning it. This letter ought not to get into the debate, in my view. It should just mention it and then refrence the proper site. Lostcaesar 17:15, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

After reflection I removed much of the additions, added the links to the proper articles where that is to be discussed. I encourage whoever contributed the material to add it in the proper area. I removed the comment that the Letter of James "doesn't contradict Paul's clear teaching" - sounds too interpretive to me without a refrence. Also, I replaced the comments on the word "dikaioo" with the proper Greek verb used by James, and then removed the argument that followed form it. Lostcaesar 15:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Controversial

The very first sentence says it is a controversial book of the New Testament. I agree there may be some difference of opinion on the author and date, but is it any more controversial than any other book of the bible? Is there controversy in the content? Does the content contradict any other portion of the Bible? Please enlighten me. Jameywiki 02:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree (that it is not so controversial as to deserve that mention in the first sentence). I'll change it. Rocksong 06:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Original Research on early date

I am deleting the entire paragraph asserting a very early dating of James. This view is attributed to Richard McLaughin of Altoona Rescue Mission, and the edit was done by User:Rem486, who is... Richard McLaughin of Altoona Rescue Mission. Therefore it is WP:Original Research and must be deleted. It should only be reinstated if other people subscribe to it. Rocksong 06:45, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I refer you to the policy pages Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Verifiability. It seems to me the most pertinent paragraph is this one from the former:

There is no firm definition of "reliable," although most of us have a good intuition about the meaning of the word. In general, the most reliable sources are books and journals published by university presses; mainstream newspapers; and magazines and journals published by known publishing houses. As a rule of thumb, the more people engaged in checking facts, analysing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication. Material that is self-published, whether on paper or online, is generally not regarded as reliable, but see Wikipedia:Verifiability for exceptions.

Rocksong 04:00, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Bible is a primary source: see WP:ATT#Primary_and_secondary_sources.

Primary source material that has been published by a reliable source may be used for the purposes of attribution in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it's easy to misuse primary sources. The Bible cannot be used as a source for the claim that Jesus advocated eye removal (Matthew 18:9, Mark 9:47) for his followers, because theologians differ as to how these passages should be interpreted. Edits that rely on primary sources should only make descriptive claims that can be checked by anyone without specialist knowledge.

In this case, it would be OK to use James 1:1 to say that James begins with a claim to be written by a servant of Jesus Christ named James (a "descriptive claims that can be checked by anyone without specialist knowledge"), although even here it would be far preferable to quote a published scholar who makes this argument. It would not be OK to use it to support the claim that James was written by James the Just, James the Great, or any other historical James without backing from reliable secondary sources. If you wish to get your theories included in Wikipedia, first get them published in a reputable theological journal or a reputable publishing house. That's what Wikipedia's core NO original research policy is all about. Good luck! Grover cleveland 17:34, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'm soon going to edit back in the 'very early date' section into the main article. Based on the 'Consensus' policy of Wikipedia (http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus), the 'very early date' hypothesis has become accepted fact. rem486 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.255.86.240 (talk) 21:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Of course the epistle was only gradually accepted into the Cannon": I guess you allude to the Biblical canon?Dampinograaf (talk) 18:58, 2 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi rem486. All your theories are interesting: however I don't think they are appropriate to this talk page (or to the main article) since they violate No original research. You may want to check out the talk page guidelines, especially "Wikipedia's verification, neutral point of view and no original research policies all apply to talk pages, although not as strictly as in an article page; there is reasonable allowance for speculation, suggestion and personal knowledge with a view to prompting further investigation, but it is usually a misuse of a talk page to continue to argue any point that has not met policy requirements.". If you want to discuss your theological research online, I suggest a newsgroup, blog or other more appropriate forum. Thanks! Grover cleveland 04:22, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

True -- but Wikipedia only concerns itself with theories that have already been published in reliable sources. You may also want to check out Wikipedia's core policies on no original research and verifiability. Grover cleveland 05:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]