The Letter of James

John Paul Heil

Description

This book proposes a new and comprehensive chiastic structure as well as a new unifying theme for the Letter of James. In accord with this structure that organizes its oral performance, the words "worship to live by" express what the letter as a whole is exhorting its audience to adopt. "Worship" includes not only liturgical worship but also the ethical behavior that complements it, so that the result is a holistic way of worshiping God. And the words "to live by" embrace the worshipful conduct by which to live out presently one's birth to a new life as a believer before the final coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, with a view to the future eternal life to be granted at the last judgment as the outcome of such worship. In short, the Letter of James urges its audience to practice the worship to live by now in order to live eternally.

Sujets

• Biblical Studies
• Biblical Commentary
• Epistle of James
• Commentary
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Wipf and Stock Publishers
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781621893721
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Letter of James
Worship to Live By








John Paul Heil
THE LETTER OF JAMES
Worship to Live By

Copyright © 2012 John Paul Heil. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Cascade Books
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401

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isbn 13: 978-1-61097-601-5

Cataloging-in-Publication data:

Heil, John Paul

The Letter of James : worship to live by / John Paul Heil

viii + 228 p. ; 23 cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

isbn 13: 978-1-61097-601-5

1. Bible. N.T. James Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2 . Worship Biblical teaching. I. Title.

bs2785.3 h35 2012

Manufactured in the U.S.A.
Abbreviations
AB Anchor Bible
BECNT Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament
Bib Biblica
BSac Bibliotheca Sacra
BT The Bible Translator
BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin
BZ Biblische Zeitschrift
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CBQMS Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series
CTR Criswell Theological Review
EDNT Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament , ed. H. Balz, G. Schneider (Grand Rapids, 1990–1993)
EvQ Evangelical Quarterly
ExpTim Expository Times
GTJ Grace Theological Journal
HTR Harvard Theological Review
HvTSt Hervormde teologiese studies
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JOTT Journal of Translation and Textlinguistics
JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament
JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Supplement Series
LNTS Library of New Testament Studies
NCBC New Cambridge Bible Commentary
NICNT New International Commentary on the New Testament
NIGTC New International Greek Testament Commentary
NovT Novum Testamentum
NTS New Testament Studies
RevExp Review and Expositor
SP Sacra pagina
SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series
SBLECL Society of Biblical Literature: Early Christianity and Its Literature
SBLSCS Society of Biblical Literature Septuagint and Cognate Studies
STDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah
TGl Theologie und Glaube
TJ Trinity Journal
TynBul Tyndale Bulletin
WBC Word Biblical Commentary
WTJ Westminster Theological Journal
WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
ZKT Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie
ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche
Introduction
T wo closely related aims motivate my writing of this book. First, I intend to demonstrate a completely new structure for the New Testament document commonly known as the letter of James. 1 The discovery of this structure stems from a consideration of James as an epistolary homily or sermon composed of rhetorical strategies meant for an oral performance to be heard by its audience gathered together as a worshiping assembly. 2 This structure consists of a series of eleven microchiastic units arranged in a cohesive and coherent macrochiastic framework embracing the entire letter. 3 These chiastic structures are linguistically rather than conceptually or thematically determined. 4
The chiastic phenomenon seems to have been a very common way in antiquity of organizing material to be delivered orally. I have demonstrated similar chiastic structures for other NT letters. 5 Although the ancient authors and audiences may and need not necessarily have consciously identified these chiastic structures as they composed and listened to them, the identification of them provides a visual aid to guide the interpretation of modern audiences. Based on my identification of the chiastic structures comprising the letter of James, I will provide an interpretation focused on how the implied audience are to respond to the rhetorical strategies presented by the dynamics of these chiastic structures as they hear them. 6
Secondly, I will present a new proposal for the unifying or organizing theme of the letter of James in accord with the comprehensive chiastic structure that is a key to its interpretation. “Worship to live by” best expresses what the whole of James, as an epistolary homily or sermon, is exhorting and persuading its audience to adopt. 7 The word “worship” is to be understood comprehensively as including not only liturgical or cultic worship but also the ethical or moral behavior that complements it, so that the result is a holistic way of worshiping God. And the words “to live by” embrace the worshipful conduct by which to live out presently one’s birth to a new life as a believer before the final coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, with a view to the future eschatological or eternal life to be granted at the last judgment as the outcome of such worship. In other words, the letter of James urges its audience to practice the worship to live by now in order to live eternally. 8
In the rest of this chapter I will introduce and explain the text-centered, linguistically based chiastic structures of the letter of James, and then I will provide a preliminary indication from these structures of its unifying main theme. In the remaining chapters of this book I will present a comprehensive interpretation in accord with the chiastic structures, which illustrate and confirm that the letter of James is exhorting its implied audience to adopt the worship to live by now and for eternity.
Chiastic Structures and the Letter of James
My investigation of the chiastic structures of the letter of James will be guided by the following list of criteria for detecting an extended chiasm: There must be a problem in perceiving the structure of the text in question, which more conventional outlines fail to resolve. There must be clear examples of parallelism between the two “halves” of the hypothesized chiasm, to which commentators call attention even when they propose quite different outlines for the text overall. Linguistic (or grammatical) parallelism as well as conceptual (or structural) parallelism should characterize most if not all of the corresponding pairs of subdivisions. The linguistic parallelism should involve central or dominant imagery or terminology important to the rhetorical strategy of the text. Both linguistic and conceptual parallelism should involve words and ideas not regularly found elsewhere within the proposed chiasm. Multiple sets of correspondences between passages opposite each other in the chiasm as well as multiple members of the chiasm itself are desirable. The outline should divide the text at natural breaks, which would be agreed upon even by those proposing very different structures to account for the whole. The central or pivotal as well as the final or climactic elements normally play key roles in the rhetorical strategy of the chiasm. Ruptures in the outline should be avoided. 9
An important and distinctive feature of this investigation is that all of the proposed chiasms are determined mainly by precise linguistic parallels with an objective basis in the text, rather than on thematic or conceptual parallels, which can often be subjective. Indeed, the main criterion for the establishment of chiasms in this investigation is the demonstration of these linguistic parallels. I will seek to determine how the subsequent occurrence(s) of a paralleled word or phrase develops the first occurrence after a central unparalleled element or central parallel elements serve as a pivot from the first to the second half of the chiasm.
Since they are based strictly on linguistic parallels, some of the proposed chiasms may or may not exhibit a balance in the length of the various parallel elements or units one parallel element or unit may be much longer or much shorter than its corresponding parallel. This may seem odd to a modern audience, but an ancient audience would presumably be attuned to the key linguistic parallels that are heard rather than the balance of length between the elements or units of a given chiasm. The main presupposition of this investigation is that if there are demonstrable linguistic parallels with a pivotal section between them, then a chiasm is operative regardless of a certain lack of balance between various elements or units.
Furthermore, some of the linguistic parallels involve what might be considered by a modern audience as rather ordinary or trivial words, unlikely to be key words in chiastic parallels. But it should be kept in mind that what may seem to be insignificant words or phrases on the surface to a modern audience may have been very significant indeed to the particular rhetorical strategy of the author and the particular situation of the original audience as they listened to the entire oral performance of the letter of James. In some cases the parallels may be between cognates or between synonyms, antonyms, and/or alliterative terms. And in some cases an identical grammatical form of a word determines the chiastic parallel.
Not all of the proposed chiasms have the same number of elements or units. Some chiasms may exhibit a single unparalleled central element, e.g., A-B-C-B´-A´, while others may exhibit dual, parallel central or pivotal elements, e.g., A-B-C-C´-B´-A´. Nevertheless, both of these types operate as chiasms in the ears of the implied audience, since they both involve a pivot from t