John S. Kloppenborg. <i>James</i>

This series of “NT Guides,” to which this slender volume belongs, targets the undergraduate classroom where the letter of James is taught as an example of an early Christian writing. Its author, John Kloppenborg (JK), who is professor of religion at the University of Toronto, provides a fluent, clear-headed, and nicely written introduction to James that is “guided” by the primary interests of modern biblical criticism. These interests are gathered around the biblical text’s moment of composition and its earliest reception history that tracks its transmission (i.e., manuscripts, canon lists, early citations, common sources) and use as a Christian writing. “Context matters,” JK asserts in his prefatory sentence, and in this case the context that matters most is one that forges a pristine reading of James as James—something he regards as unlikely for those who still view James through Protestantism’s Luther-lens that reads James as agonistic to Paul’s sola fides/gratia gospel (pp. 1–10).The best implied readers (i.e., those attentive undergraduate students who learn to read James as James) learn to plot the story of James from composition to its earliest attestation in both East and West reaches of the church catholic (pp. 11–38). Due to lack of solid or expected evidence of a historian’s kind, however, the identities of the letter’s “real” author and his first auditors/readers, and the probable date of its composition are indeterminate and so the probable location of James is difficult to map with precision. In any case, JK does not think it probable that James was written or even sourced by Jesus’s brother; and even the prospect of the letter’s pre-third century attestation (a deficit more clearly noted in the West than East) or inclusion of James in the manuscripts of various ecclesial locations with related canon lists remains difficult to pin down. JK readily admits the difficulty of constructing a careful narrative of the origins of James and its earliest reception history; however, the practice of students considering the wide range of historical and lexical/linguistic evidence to make this unsettled determination is part of a serious student’s critical catechesis.JK next locates James in its ancient literary context (pp. 39–60). I found this an especially probing and interesting chapter. He makes a persuasive, if somewhat clipped, case for James as a carefully crafted well-written paraenetic letter but without a theological bone to pick. Various proposals are neatly summarized of both ancient and more recent attempts to organize James into a coherent literary architecture (against Dibelius’s influential opinion) by standard rhetorical templates and moral platitudes. The fourfold structure he subscribes to, similar to other recent interpreters of James, follows the standard outline of persuasive or purposeful arguments in antiquity sandwiched between hortatory materials that encourage the perfection of the Christian moral life—although JK offers nothing about how this rhetorical sandwich (roughly the first and last chapters of James) works with the letter’s persuasive argument found between.The introduction to James as a fine example of paraenesis that shares its design and purpose with other Hellenistic writings is necessarily extended to what JK calls “The Fabric of James” that is woven with threads from the author’s Jewish Bible and his reception of Jesus tradition (pp. 61–81). This chapter summarizes material for which JK is rightly well known. While he regards the letter as only superficially “Christian” in appearance (perhaps as he will argue because it is bifocaled imagining both a Jewish readership and a Christian one), he demonstrates how—in conversation with the diaspora synagogue’s Greek Bible (texts and tropes) and STJ writings (esp. wisdom)—James is a kind of “comparative midrash” (my words) that adapts sacred materials in ways that interpret the author’s social world (Christian, not Jewish, urban and Roman, not rural and Palestinian). As one would anticipate from JK, he also considers the question of the author’s use of Jesus tradition (Matthew, Q) but here again introduces how this material is transformed to fit the author’s new setting (in ways similar to Bauckham’s analysis of 2 Peter/Jude).JK waits until chapter 5 to discuss the letter’s “addressees and purpose” (pp. 82–111). His reconstruction of the intended audience of James considers what the letter says and what it does not say about its first readers/auditors and concludes they are fluent in Jewish and contemporary Hellenistic ways of thinking about the inner life, especially as it relates to an individual’s moral performances. The letter doubtless reflects an awareness of similar ideas found in the Pauline corpus but without its attentiveness to questions about the church’s Jewish identity. The recent work of Kavin Rowe, however, is unmentioned. Rowe argues that any implicit comparison between Stoicism and Christian faith is always agonistic in favor of the truth of the gospel. K.-W. Niebuhr’s work is mentioned only in passing but not his argument that James presumes the identity of its intended audience as an Easter people and so presents a vision of the moral life as a resurrection practice.The book concludes with a brief “epilogue” that considers the contemporary use of James, especially in issues into which its moral teachings have continuing influence (pp. 112–15). Each chapter includes a bibliography, mostly of works that support or elaborate JK’s summaries, and the book concludes with appropriate indexes that aid the student in locating subjects and texts of interest.Overall, this “guide” is well done. It introduces students to the current terrain of James criticism in helpful, hospitable ways, naturally accented by JK’s own interests and careful study of James. But I do have a couple of concerns to register. The first is more practical. I do not think this book will prove useful for most undergraduate students—the target audience claimed for this series. Its tenor and purpose seem better suited for graduate students/seminarians whose introduction to scripture should include their baptism into the research questions of modern criticism. This book also provides an excellent primer for scholars in need of a James update.My second concern is more decisive. JK’s guide to James lacks an interest in the letter’s contribution to a constructive pursuit of theological understanding, which not only is a vital interest of current James criticism but also of the church, which not only remains the principal residence of this letter but also where the vast majority of its readers is found. Moreover, the students who gather around this ancient text in undergraduate classrooms (or even seminaries) where they might learn to read “James as James”—and thus make good use of JK’s guide—are most likely found at church-affiliated universities (and seminaries) where their reading of James as James cannot be detached from a faith-infused search for theological understanding. My overall recommendation of this book, then, is qualified by these cautionary notes.

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