Talk:Epistle of James
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
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
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 woul dhave no knowledge of Jesus..! Therefore James was writing this Epistle to his own followers.
The Epistle of James was written during the earthly ministry of Jesus. James, the disciple is writing to Jews who accepted Jesus as their Messiah, and returned to their respective homes. The book of James is therefore a "real-time" snap shot of Jesus before his glorification. The doctrines covered in James are doctrines that were being articulated during the time Jesus was reaching out to Israel, not after his crucifixion and resurrection. Anything you could do to correct the errors in the main article would be appreciated.
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)
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)