The Brother of Jesus: James the Just and His Mission [Paperback]

Bruce Chilton (Editor), Jacob Neusner (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2001

James the Just was, in the time between Jesus' resurrection and James's death, the most prominent and widely respected leader in Christendom. These essays by eight renowned scholars address such issues as the Jewish context of the early church, the person of James, his literary message and mission, and James in relation to Peter and Paul.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Bruce Chilton is Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion, Chaplain of the College and Executive Director of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

Jacob Neusner is Distinguished Service Professor of the History and Theology of Judaism and Bard Center Fellow at the Bard College Institute of Advanced Theology in Annondale-on-Hudson, New York. He is the author of several books, including Judaism When Christianity Began, The Emergence of Judaism, and the popular textbook World Religions in America, all of which are available from WJK.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press; 1 edition (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0664222994
• ISBN-13: 978-0664222994
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,113,955 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The historical James, July 6, 2002

By 

Timotheus Josephus - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Brother of Jesus: James the Just and His Mission (Paperback)

Like many books with multiple contributors, this one finds a mixed bag of results. This publication attempts to provide a synopsis of the work of the Consultation on James, a group of scholars who have been meeting on a periodic basis to discuss various facets of James, the alleged "brother" of Jesus.

Jacob Neusner opens with a discussion of the different types of 1st century Judaisms. His findings lead him to conclude that there are four traits foundational to all types of Judaism: the privileged status of ancient Israelite Scripture, an identification with the "Israel" of which Scripture speaks, an insistence upon the priority of that system over all competing accounts of an "Israel" in context, and the certainty that all who live by that system constitute "Israelites".

John Painter provides the longest chapter of the book and he gives an overview of the primary historical questions surrounding James. These include: the meaning of the title "brother of the Lord", the question of whether he was an "unbeliever" during the ministry of Jesus, his alleged conversion following the resurrection of Jesus, his status as leader of the Jerusalem church, his martyrdom, and his view of the Law.

Peter Davids discusses the message of the letter of James, but leaves the question of authorship open. Wiard Popkes follows with a closely related piece on the mission of the author of James, again leaving unanswered the question of authorship.

Richard Bauckham does argue for James, the brother of Jesus, as the actual author of the letter. He then proceeds to compare and contrast the wisdom sayings of Jesus with those found in James. He argues that both saw themselves as following in the tradition of Jewish wisdom teachers such as Ben Sira, etc.

Bruce Chilton addresses the question of James' relationship to Peter and Paul. His methodology is curious at times, as he seems inconsistent in his handling of issues of historicity. For example, he often treats Acts as being historically reliable, but then he will dismiss evidence from it when it does not suit his thesis. This would be understandable if he were to provide reasons for rejecting these items, but he does not do so.

Craig Evans closes with a chapter in which he compares Qumranic, Rabbinic, and Jacobean (that of James) Judaisms. He uses Chilton's four distinguishing traits as the framework for his discussion.

The appendix consists of a review of Robert Eisenman's, "James, the Brother of Jesus" written by Robert Price. This review seemed out of place in this work due to the fact that both Eisenman and Price are on the fringe of NT scholarship and prone to highly speculative theses. Needless to say, Price raves about Eisenman's work with comments like, "Eisenman is like the Renaissance scientists who had to handcraft all the intricate parts of a planned invention." What is most ironic is that nearly the entire scholarly community views Eisenman's work as just that: a handcrafted fabrication lacking a basis in historical reality. Unfortunately, neither Price nor Eisenman recognize it as such.

Buy this book if you want to learn more about James and early Christianity. The scholars are not monolithic in their views, which means you'll find some with whom you'll agree and others who will challenge you.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars About Scholars, March 23, 2006

By 

David E. Blair (Columbia, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Brother of Jesus: James the Just and His Mission (Paperback)

The previous reviewer's remarks regarding this book are to the point and informative. However, lots of water has run under the bridge since his review was written. Church History and all analogous issues, such as theology, Christology, archeaology, commentary, etc., that swirl around it make for a opaque discipline. Or, some would say a complete lack of discipline. Every student of the Bible and Early Church History owes it to themsleves to read this book. Both for its content which is important in the extreme if you are interested in James and the Jacobean movement, and for what it says about the academics that produced it. The Neusner and Chilton partnership has been productive for twenty years at least, and this book might be its culmination. It is a remarkable achievement delivering an immense quantity of valuable information in a small number of pages.

The first thing I will note in the book is the disconcertingly different readings of the text of the Epistle of James. Peter H. David's work can be harmonized with the work of Wiard Popkes. Neither of them can be reconciled with the conclusions of the reading by Richard Bauckham. Popkes is a German scholar and reads everything in English as well as what is in German. There is a mass of relevant scholarship that is available only in German. And, what are the French writing about these matters? There is an English language centered bias in the United States and especially Britain that is long running. That it still exists is apparent in this volume. Therefore, we, monolingual English readers, miss an entirely different scholarly tradition in large measure. It would appear that British scholars in the main are content to read their fellow countrymen with an occassional nod to other English language works much to the detriment of readers and students.

Then there is the problem of the close of the book. Robert M. Price reviews Robert N. Eisenman's, "James the Brother of Jesus...," after all the other essays and Chilton's epilogue. The previous reviewer referred to Price and Eisenman as "fringe" scholars. Price is now a full blown "Jesus denier." He is a favorite of the atheist crowd and has turned himself into a locus for the "denier" community which has seemingly lost him all academic credibility. Eisenman safely tenured in the University of California system in Middle Eastern studies has absolutely no professional credibility when it comes to matters of the Early Church, Qumranic Studies, or much of anything else relevant to James the relative of Jesus.

Also, it would appear that Chilton himself has gone off on a tangent in his latest books. What is one to think of all this? In a a small package, this book epitomizes the problems of the discipline. When you have scholars starting from personal positions of evangelical fundamentalism, orthodox Roman Catholism, Jesus denial and atheism all unable to overcome their foundational biases, often objectivity is ill served. Far too much scholarship in this area is well varnished polemic. This is a disgrace as it does little other than misinform and confuse the lay reader. This book is a must read for its very valuable content on James the relative of Jesus. However, it is also a valuable contribution to the elucidation of a discipline at war within itself based on a lack historiographic objectivity.