James; Hearing the Word

Relating maybe to my post above, more trivia, for some people perhaps, at the same time that I got the Martin Dibelius James commentary, I got two other books, New Testament Theology by Rudolf Bultmann, and the commentary on 1 Corinthians by Hans Conzelmann. (anyone not familiar with those names, should become acquainted with them) Here is part of the Wikipedia article

Conzelmann, along with other post-Bultmannian scholars, challenged the view that Jesus was an apocalyptic figure, but rather focused on the message of Christ as the kingdom of God breaking into the present. This was a challenge to the portrait of Jesus as expecting an imminent eschaton.
Conzelmann contends that Jesus' teaching about eschatology is unconnected to his words about God and ethics. These areas of his teaching are, however, linked by Jesus' understanding of himself "as one who opens up immediacy to God in every relationship"

I did not realize that was the case exactly, about Conzelmann, until I read that last night but it seems appropriate that the editors of the Hermeneia commentary series would use him to do 1 Corinthians, since it would provide him with the perfect opportunity to build on those concepts.
(of course all three of these men are now passed on)
I like that bit I quoted above, of "the message of Christ as the kingdom of God breaking into the present."
I think that generally goes along with the case I was attempting to build in my last post, of combining the soteriological with the cosmological. Eternal life being necessary for enjoying the new cosmos, and the making of the new cosmos dependent on our being there thanks to that eternal life.

reply to post by jmdewey60

One of the keys to my approach is the supposition that the letter has been drawn together by the incorporation of material from the previous teaching of James.
The consequence would be that we can find two meanings in some of the passages- the meanings they would have had while standing alone, and the additional or different meanings which they gain by being incorporated into the letter and given a new context.

On the question of whether v17 leads into v18; I could see v17, v18, v21 working as an independent sequence even before being attached to the preceding verses, and before the sequence was interrupted by the insertion of vv19-20.
It's also possible to break down the sequence further and see v17, for example, as an independent unit.
But I would have to say that NOW, in the overall context of the letter, v17 does lead into v18.

But the units in my analysis would straddle the Dibelius boundary line at the end of v18.
v21 is a natural sequel to v18 ("This is what God has done, and this is how we should respond").
In fact I was finding it natural to carry the argument through from v12 all the way to the end of v21, and was prevented only by the ATS restrictions on the size of opening posts.
I stopped the previous thread at the end of v17 simply because there was no room for any more.
As a result, I was obliged to refer back to v17 in order to set the scene properly for a discussion of vv18-21.

On the relation between vv13-14 and v2; on the one hand, I regarded vv13-15 as an independent unit in James' pastoral teaching, so in that sense, yes, the passage would have been independent of v2. But the "trials" in both cases would have to be the same kind of trials, unless v2 was understood to be a reference to persecution. I take it that Dibelius doesn't understand v2 in terms of "persecution", because if he did he would not be able to relate vv1-4 with the rest of the chapter.
Admittedly, vv2-3 in this chapter and vv6-7 in 1 Peter ch1 are using identical Greek phrases ("various trials" and "the testing of your faith"), and in 1 Peter, at least, they refer to the danger of persecution.
If it is at all possible that the passage in James was inspired by the passage in 1 Peter rather than the other way round, then this would be another version of the two interpretations, the stand-alone interpretation ("persecution", in this case) and the interpretation coming from the overall context of the letter (in this case, "temptation").

reply to post by jmdewey60

I have a copy of Conzellman on 1 Corinthians, thanks to the reading list of an old Theology course. On a recent run-through, I wasn't as impressed as I used to be- I felt that the old Robertson&Plummer was often more reliable about the real sense of Paul's meaning. One thing I have definitely gained from that commentary is the concept that Paul regards the church as a community under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and that this is the real criterion (he uses the word "criterion" a lot) for most of the things that Paul is saying.

reply to post by DISRAELI

I have a copy of Conzellman on 1 Corinthians, thanks to the reading list of an old Theology course.

You are ahead of me when it comes to formal education in theology. I was required to take it when I was going to a Christian school for one year, in the 11th grade, and it was a "religion as dogma" type approach.
That commentary was published in the 70's, but not as old as the one you mentioned, which is available to read online at Internet Archive .
The idea I have is to study the "classics" that subsequent commentaries refer to, then to go from there.

reply to post by DISRAELI

I take it that Dibelius doesn't understand v2 in terms of "persecution", because if he did he would not be able to relate vv1-4 with the rest of the chapter.

He says if you look at it without suppositions, then you would naturally take the first instance to mean persecution, and the second as being tempted by desires.
Maybe they just fit the same general category so get put into proximity to each other.

reply to post by jmdewey60

"If you look at it without presuppositions" looks like another version of the way I argue; that a passage has one meaning if you look at it in isolation, and another if you look at it in the overall context of the letter; my explanation being that "isolation" was the original state of the passage, and its place in the overall context of the letter is a later development.

reply to post by DISRAELI

. . . its place in the overall context of the letter is a later development.

As in an edit?
Do you think James made the edit, or someone else?
I'll have to go back to the commentary by Ralph P. Martin to see what he might say about that. I think I did, a bit, but it takes a while with him to understand his points.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
As in an edit?
Do you think James made the edit, or someone else?

If you add up all the times when I make that "incorporating previous teaching" suggestion in these James threads, it amounts to proposing that a very large part of the letter is a compilation of such teaching.
The compilation could have been done by James himself, re-using his own thoughts as a way of composing this tract.
Or somebody else could have been compiling it from the material left by James, a sort of "literary executor", perhaps, putting together a record of what a revered pastor taught and arranging it under a theme.

Now that the series on James is complete, an Index of the various threads can be found at this location;

James; Teacher of Faith and Wisdom