I think James is very "Qumranic" (in the sense of being similar to the DSS and not that James was necessarily associated with the location of Qumran, though I don't think that is out of the question either). But I don't even know where to start with that one at the moment, so let's just say for now that this is my understanding.Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Mon Feb 25, 2019 12:32 pm John, try the mental experiment suggested in this thread for yourself. Assume just for the sake of argument that 1.1 and 2.1 contain Christianizing interpolations. What remains in James that would make it Christian? Criticizing Paul cannot be enough, since sects can criticize each other. Faith is a Jewish concept, too, as well as Christian (although the latter certainly ran with it). Is there anything in James that would be incompatible, say, with at least some of the Dead Sea scrolls? Is there anything in James that would be incompatible with it hailing from the kind of Jewish sect, not itself Christian, from which Christianity sprang?
You do not want to view 1.1 and 2.1 as interpolated, and I sympathize! I get it. But this thread is about the possibility that those verses were tampered with, and also about the possible consequences of that contingency.
And since I regard the DSS (the majority of which are dated to the Herodian era) as being Fourth Philosophic (in the sense of being writings that were written by Fourth Philosophers and older writings that people who joined the Fourth Philosophy brought with them), and because the DSS and Christianity (to me) resemble what Josephus says about the Fourth Philosophy, I thus view Christianity as a faction of the Fourth Philosophy. I would even go as "far" as to say that some of the DSS (particularly the Damascus Document) could actually be (Jewish) Christian. So that is my starting point.
And if we were to remove James 1:1 and 2:1, what would be left would still resemble the DSS to me. And since I can see references in the Damascus Document as possibly pertaining to Jesus even though it doesn't mention Jesus (except perhaps obliquely when it mentions seeing God's "yeshua" in the Last Days), I can still see James in the same light if we remove 1:1 and 2:1, since I regard the reference to "the coming of the Lord" in 5:7 and 5:9 as pertaining to Jesus (like I do 1 Thes. 4:15).
To me what you are doing is like reading the Shepherd of Hermas as a Christianized Jewish writing. Let's say it mentioned Jesus twice like James but there were reasons for suspecting that they were interpolations and you asked me to say what else in it seems Christian to me. I would say, for examples, the references to Clement, the Church and the son of God. And I can imagine you responding that there were lots of people named Clement, that the word for Church could mean a Jewish ecclesia (or "assembly"), since Josephus uses that word for Jewish groups, and that the DSS also use the expression "son of God." I mean, okay, you can do all that if you want, but it seems "easier" (and preferable) to me to take it as being Christian, all things considered. And I acknowledge that this is only a judgement call.
