Customer Reviews

The Letter of James (Pillar New Testament Commentary)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is my favorite commentary on James, and I have read many (see some of my other reviews). Moo has the most accessible, thorough, and easy-to-use commentary that I have read. This Pillar commentary is longer than the same author's commentary written for Tyndale's New Testament Commentary Series. You would do well to buy either one of these.

Moo works very hard to be exegetical. He hesitates--no, he refrains--from saying anything that he cannot demonstrate exegetically from the text. He humbly alerts the reader when his view is in the minority or contested and even humbly admits when his view is not the only defendable one (see, specifically James 4:5). To a degree matched by few, Moo not only seeks to technically (without belaboring issues so as to make them inaccessibly technical) defend his points exposing salient points of interest in the text, but he also is a carefully writes his sentences, not wasting words.

The student of the Letter of James would be amiss not to invest in the Pillar Commentary by Moo. For those who would like it a little shorter and a little easier to digest, his Tyndale Commentary on James will suffice as well. Two other James commentaries that I would highly recommend are Kistemaker's and MacArthur's.

Doug Moo has written two seperate commentaries on the book of James. One is for the Tyndale New Testment series, while the other is for the Pillar New Testament Commentary.

The Tyndale one is much simpler, shorter, and most accessable for the average layperson. The Pillar (a blue cover) has much more depth, including usage of the original greek.

Some of the reviewers below are talking about the TYNDALE commentary and not the PILLAR commentary.

Capiche?

This is the only commentary I have read on James, so I can't fairly compare it to others. But I can't imagine reading a more lucid, informed, intriguing, and just all around Godly understanding of what can be one of the most difficult books of the NT to understand. Moo handles each passage with clarity, being fair to different views and presenting his own conclusions. The book also has a well articulated introduction and discussion of time, place, and authorship.

I would have wished Moo had included Greek words in their original letters as well as their transliteration. I also wish he had interacted a bit more with the Greek text. Moo, however, was only staying true to the general format of the Pillar series, which assumes no previous Greek study on the part of the reader.

Both the hard cover as well as its dusk jacket are well manufactured and good looking. The pages are nice and the small size of the book makes it fairly easy to handle.

Overall, one of the best commentaries on any book that I have read.

This is Moo's second commentary on the epistle of James. He wrote his first one in 1985 as part of the Tyndale series. This commentary is the result of fifteen years of reflection on that work. The content of this commentary makes it evident that this is the mature thought of a noted scholar on the letter of James. Those fifteen years left him more convinced "that the heart of the letter is a call to wholehearted commitment to Christ" (x).
Moo provides a lengthy introduction to this epistle (46 pages worth). This introduction includes the history of James in the church, nature and genre, authorship, theology, occasion and date, and structure of James. Concerning authorship, Moo holds that James, the bother of Christ, is the author. He presents arguments against this traditional view and then answers them. The section on the theology of the book is a feature more commentaries would do well to include. He dates the writing of the letter around the middle of the 40s AD. This is important because the date of writing has great implication on the relationship of the letter to Paul's teachings. Moo does not place a ridge structure on the letter. Instead, he finds "several key motifs" which "are often mixed together with other themes in paragraphs that cannot be labeled as neatly as we might like" (45). Denying the assertion of some commentators that the letter has no unifying purpose, Moo argues that the central concern of the letter is spiritual wholeness of the readers (47).
Moo's analysis of the text is insightful. His word studies are well done. He presents a wide range of possible meanings but uses the context to determine which meaning is James's meaning. Moo also does a good job in showing James's relationship with Paul. James is not writing against Paul. James means something different by faith than does Paul. They are addressing different problems.
The format of the commentary is user friendly for the most part. One helpful aspect is that Moo's introductory notes precede the verse by verse exposition of major points and most sub-points. Moo transliterates Greek words making the commentary usable to those who do not have the advantage of knowing Greek. One slight critique concerns the chapter divisions. The chapter divisions of the commentary are based on the chapters of James. This is fine, but the table of contents is broken down by his outline. One would whish the editors would choose a method of division and stay with it. The only other criticism is that Moo's writing style can be difficult at times. These two minor criticisms in no way change the fact that this is a masterpiece. It is short at only 251 pages not counting indexes. Anyone from a layperson to a scholar will benefit from this commentary. This reviewer would recommend it without hesitation (something he does not do often).

Basically I use this book as my resource of the Sunday school
class. The more I read it, the more I like it. Moo is very careful in tracing the meaning of the texts by examining the
Old Testament, extra-biblical literatures and the context. If some texts are controversial, he is very even-handed in handling different solutions and comes up with a reasonable conclusion.

The even more important thing is he does not only render good
exegesis but also provide some good applications in christian life. I feel very impressed by his insightful prospectives.

Great book!!

`The Epistle of James' by James B. Adamson, 1976, 227 pages in the series The New International Commentary on the New Testament; `The Letter of James' by Douglas J. Moo, 2000, 271 pages, a volume in the series The Pillar New Testament Commentary; and `James' by Ralph P. Martin, 1988, 240 pages, A volume in the series Word Biblical Commentary are all `full featured' and recent commentaries on the first of the short `catholic' epistles in the New Testament.

I find it amazing how different the material is in these three volumes. After 1800 years of commentary, one would expect a fair amount of uniformity in thinking about this short letter, but there is a remarkable range of differences in emphasis among the three.

Those of you who are familiar with the world of biblical commentary will recognize that all three are part of major series of commentaries. Adamson and Moo belong to series dedicated to the New Testament, while Martin's volume is an offering of a larger series on both Old and New Testaments. And, each volume is organized in a way to match the editorial style of their series. This is most clearly seen in Martin's volume, as his work is organized in virtually the same way as the much larger work on Paul's Epistle to the Romans by the distinguished scholar, James D. G. Dunn. This is no surprise, as Martin is the New Testament editor for his series, the Word Biblical Commentary.

Ranked by scholarly detail, Martin has the most and Adamson has the least, with Moo somewhere in between; but don't take from this that Martin is heavy on the Greek and Adamson has no original Greek. All three are specifically written for the scholar and assume that the reader either knows classical Greek or is willing to slog through all the Greek words and expressions. The irony here is that while Martin is the most heavily scholarly, it may also be the most accessible to the lay or strictly pastoral user, since this series divides scholarly observations into the `Comments' on each paragraph, while more general thoughts are spelled out in straight English in the `Form/Structure/Setting' section and later in the `Explanation' section following the `Comments'. Adamson organizes all his `special' or more technical topics in `Excursus' sections following his main commentary. I found this just a tad distracting, especially when I discovered some mistakes in references to these Excursus sections in the main text.

All three authors give us their own translations of the text, and all three agree on where the difficult phrases are to be found. If I were to pick a volume purely on the basis of their translation, I would prefer Adamson, as he seems to give translations that best resolve these difficult sections. But, in all three cases, the authors agree on where the difficulties lie and, in general, the nature of the difficulties.

In the three authors' introductory chapter on the author, themes, and canonical status of the letter, all three agree on the major points. They uniformly agree, for example on the belief that the letter does, in fact, represent the thoughts or writings of James, the brother of Jesus, who was head of the Christian Jews in Jerusalem up to about 62 CE. They also agree that the final form of the letter was rewritten and polished sometime in the early 2nd century, CE. The authors are also uniform in their citing Martin Luther's misunderstanding of James; however, I would give Luther credit for seeing scriptural support of many Roman Catholic doctrines, even if any sound reading of `James' shows that this support is probably stretching James points just a little too far.

On the major themes of the letter, I generally prefer Martin's emphasis on the three topics of `Wisdom', `Perfection', and `The Piety of the Poor' to the other authors' interest in theology and the law. James is clearly spending less times on these typically Pauline topics than he is on lessons for a Christian life.

Among all the other differences, it is most remarkable to see all the differences between how the three authors structure an outline of the short letter. If you didn't know better, you may think they were talking about two different writings. This is just a symptom of the fact that `James' is much less a theological argument a la `Romans' and much more a collection of lessons on prayer, right Christian behavior, and the implications of faith. This is consistent with the fact that the letter has much in common with the Gospels, especially the Gospel of Matthew (See Martin).

One last difference I detect between the three is the fact that Martin makes more connections to modern theology of, for example Dietrich Bonhoffer, while Moo and Adamson have more citations to the great reformers, Calvin and Luther.

If I had to pick only one of these, I would go with Martin's volume in the Word Biblical Commentary series. If I were interested only in pastoral interpretation, I would go with Moo or the article `The Letter of James' by Luke Timothy Johnson in `The New Interpreter's Bible', since both refer heavily to the standard NIV and NRSV translations. If your interest is in a scholarly study of the letter, you will probably want all three.

I recently purchased the commentary on James by Moo (Pillar series). Overall, I really like this commentary. It is very readable work, but is filled with a lot of relevant, useful information not readily apparent to the casual reader of James.

One thing that I really liked about the Moo commentary on James is that the information contained in the introduction is invaluable. You will find yourself pleasantly surprised by how good of a foundation he lays down on your basic understanding of the history and controversy concerning James before he goes into the verse by verse detail in the regular section of the book. In short, I would have paid the purchase price for the introduction alone. I also liked the fact that this commentary fairly presents opposing viewpoints about verses where the meaning is not absolutely crystal clear. Moo also makes no bones about which translation conveys the essence of each verse best in places where the translations present the verses a little bit differently. In short, whether a translation, interpretation, or textual issue, Moo never leaves you guessing as to what side he takes. Never though, do you see Moo using the "straw man" technique when critiquing theories that he disagrees with. Again and again, I found Moo to be a clear, honest, and fair guide while navigating the book of James and discussing the issues surrounding it. The book also seems to be constructed well unlike some other commentaries that I have purchased.

On the supposed conflict between the writings of James and those of the Apostle Paul Moo does a wonderful job. Anyone who is confused by the faith / works statements made by James would do well to read this commentary. Afterward, you will understand James 2:14-26 much better.

On the negative side, I did find a few instances where I was wanting a little more. Not that it happened frequently, but it did happen. That is why I could only give 4 stars. (I really wish that we could give 1/2 stars as this book is almost a 5).

In summation, the Moo commentary on James is a wonderful commentary. It's readable, succinct, and informative. If you are in the habit of skipping the preface or introduction when reading a book, make sure that you read the introduction to this one. Having read this very well written commentary on James, I have to say that it was well worth the money spent. Moo's commentary on Romans is every bit as good, check it out.

I affirm the previous reviewer's comment that Moo has written the best commentary on James. Having compared the earlier Tyndale edition with the Pillar edition (prior to my purchasing a copy of one of them for myself), I want to add that I found the Tyndale/IVP edition only slightly shorter (it has smaller font!), and actually preferable in terms of the greater clarity with which Moo deals with significant issues (e.g., the relationship of faith & works). Thus, there was for me no compelling reason to purchase the (more expensive) Pillar edition.

This is my favorite commentary on James. Moo has the most accessible, thorough, and easy-to-use commentary that I have read. This Tyndale commentary is shorter than the same author's commentary written for Pillar. You would do well to buy either one of these. This one is shorter and easier to digest, but the Pillar commentary is a little longer and more thorough, particularly on passages which are often topics of debate (2:14-26 especially).

Moo works very hard to be exegetical. He hesitates--no, he refrains--from saying anything that he cannot demonstrate exegetically from the text. He humbly alerts the reader when his view is in the minority or contested and even humbly admits when his view is not the only defendable one (see, specifically James 4:5). To a degree matched by few, Moo not only seeks to technically (without belaboring issues so as to make them inaccessibly technical) defend his points exposing salient points of interest in the text, but he also is a carefully writes his sentences, not wasting words.

The student of the Letter of James would be amiss not to invest in the Pillar Commentary by Moo. For those who would like it a little shorter and a little easier to digest, this Tyndale Commentary on James will suffice as well. Two other James commentaries that I would highly recommend are Kistemaker's and MacArthur's.

I have five critical commentaries on James (Lenski, Bruce, Woods, Martin, and now Moo). This one will more than likely be the primary source for me when I study the book in a critical fashion. He is thorough and that is what I want. If you are a preacher looking for something quick and in summary form, a smaller work might be more useful. For me, as a preacher, if I am in the circumstance where I need something quick I am already in trouble. I like the Pillar Series. Not long ago I read of one's review that was overly critical of the work on the epistles of John - I do not subscribe to that sentiment at all. It is a good series!