When considering authorship of the New Testament, one
fundamental question is repeatedly asked to those who purport traditional
authorship – could Galilean Jews (and mostly peasants) know enough Greek to
reasonably believe that they wrote the works of the New Testament? This
question is of particular force when considering the authorship of James.
Throughout my examination of this question, there is a considerable number of
authors who use this as an argument challenging the traditional author.
However, the problem with this question is that it thinks of authorship
monothetically. Scholars use Paul’s letters as exemplar and assume all people
had to be able to compose in Greek in the manner he did (quickly and probably
with very few drafts). However, when one looks carefully at the compositional
practices in the Roman world (and particularly among Jews in Palestine) it is
not impossible that the Greek language could have been used by Jews who were of
significant position (whether or not they were born in that position is less
important than the fact that they eventually got there).
Before making the argument concerning this one aspect of
authorship in James, I should note that this paper should not be interpreted as
an apologia for the traditional authorship of the book of James – namely Jesus’
brother. On that particular topic, I remain an agnostic for a very specific
reason – the text never claims that the author is Jesus’ brother. The only self
designation in the text is found in 1:1a “James, a servant of God and of the
Lord Jesus Christ.” One will note that this figure does not claim to be the
brother of Jesus, the head of the Jerusalem church, or one who has a particular
issue with Paul’s message. The only other self designation found in the letter
is that the author – by means of a first person plural – includes himself under
the designation “teacher.”[1]
Therefore, all we know about this person is that it is a member of the Jesus movement
who calls himself a teacher and whose name is Jakobos – a very common name in
Jewish circles. Therefore, this paper is qualified as showing that the issue of
impossibility of authorship due to knowledge of Greek is false – not that all
challenges to traditional authorship are unwarranted.
To illustrate the argument for the traditional author of
James not knowing enough Greek, I will use the argument in Bart Ehrman’s recent
book Forgery and Counterforgery.[2]
Unlike many of Ehrman’s books, this one was not written for a popular audience
and is a sound work of scholarship.[3]
I use his work as a foil due to its being not yet 12 months old and he presents
a relatively standard view. I should point out that his argument is hardly new
and it can be found in a variety of sources considering authorship of a variety
of texts in the New Testament.
Ehrman begins by pointing to the book of James’s very good
Greek. He argues that this style of Greek is beyond merely a passing knowledge
but can work in relatively sophisticated Greek.
Whoever produced this letter was a
highly literate native speaker of Greek, grounding in Hellenistic modes of
discourse and able to use abundant rhetorical devices and flourishes. It is
often noted that the book employs sophisticated use of participles,
infinitives, and subordinate clauses.[4]
Ehrman argues that the text of James is good Greek and uses
rhetorical flourishes. While I think he overestimates the value of James’s
Greek (after all, it is hardly Demosthenes), the Greek of James is certainly
not bad. Further, there are uses of some rhetorical functions in James.
Ehrman uses this argument of relatively good Greek to argue
that one who grew up in the Galilee would not be able to write in Greek. He
argues that it might have been possible (though seemingly unlikely) that the
family of Joseph might have learned Hebrew – but no indication that they would
have known Greek:
It seems unlikely than at
Aramaic-speaking peasant from rural Galilee wrote this.... What applied to the
fisherman Peter applies to the common laborer James as well (an apprentice
carpenter? We don’t know how he earned a living), or even more so. As far into
the backwoods as Capernaum was, the little hamlet of Nazareth was more so;
excavations have turned up no public buildings, let alone signs of literacy.
Even if James’s well-known brother could read – and so was considered highly
exceptional by his townsfolk (Luke 4:16; cf. Mark 6:2) – it would have been
Hebrew; nothing suggest that Jesus could write; if he could do so it would have
been in Hebrew or Aramaic, not Greek. And by all counts he was the star of the
family.[5]
Ehrman therefore argues that even if the family could have
sent someone to school, it would have been for Hebrew school. Further, he
argues that it would have been the eldest who would have received said
schooling.
Ehrman’s hypothesis that a craftsman’s son going to school
at all would have been exceptional. In the ancient world, a “tradesman” was
someone who did not have the stability of managing a farm. It is highly likely
that a family built around this poverty level would not have sent their
children to school. Further, he is also correct that the more common (though I would not say exclusive) schooling would have
been in Hebrew to study Torah rather than in Greek rhetoric.
Ehrman argues that to study Greek rhetoric in a meaningful
way would have been particularly difficult for a family such as this. He
further argues that later education would not have been possible (though the
reasons for such a prohibition are not clearly explained):
All of that would have taken many
years of intensive education, and there is precisely zero indication that
James, the son of a local tekton, would
have had the leisure or money for an education as a youth. Moreover, there were
no adult education classes to makeup the deficit after his brother’s death
years later. One should reason that James could have picked up Greek after
Jesus’ death on some of his travels. If he did learn any Greek, it would have
been of a fumbling kind for simple conversation.[6]
Here, Ehrman, as mentioned above, is probably correct that as a child it would be unlikely for the
family of James to send their children to school. He is also correct that
studying as an adult was not the norm. However, it is not impossible that such
could have happened. It would have been challenging to study a complete
rhetorical education if not starting as a child, but it seems an assumption of
Ehrman’s that the author of James must have been completely conversant in Greek
literature – essentially wanting the author to be someone like Clement of
Alexandria.
Finally, Ehrman makes clear his view by quoting two German
scholars who make explicit the primary issue – that James’s Greek is better
than Paul’s and therefore it must not be written by a Galilean, but rather,
someone who was more Hellenized than Paul was:
The conclusion of Matthias Konradt
is understated at best, ‘it remains questionable…whether one might expect the
rhetorical and linguistic niveau of James from a Galilean craftsman’s son.”
More apt is the statement of Wilhelm Pratscher: ‘Even if one assumes a
widespread dissemination of Greek in first century C.E. Palestine, one will
nevertheless scarcely consider possible the composition of James by the brother
of the Lord, especially when one compares it to the markedly simpler Greek of
the Diaspora-Jew Paul.[7]
Here, Ehrman illustrates the precise problem for the
authorship of James – it is compared to Paul. It is suggested that Paul can be
trusted for writing his own letters (at least the 7 unquestioned ones).
Further, it is suggested that James’ Greek is better than Paul and thus it is
unlikely that a Galilean son of a craftsman could do that.
The first problem with this analysis is practically it is
not completely clear that the Greek is “better” in James than in Paul. Paul
writes in a very different style for different purposes. It is not clear that a
one to one comparison is fair. Paul wrote letters that were being sent to
particular communities that knew him. James – if it is truly a letter at all –
was sent seemingly to all Christians (though some would limit it only to
Christian Jews – something I disagree with, but is not particularly important
for this argument). Further, there is question if Paul really was so
“unfamiliar” with rhetorical strategies.[8]
The more important challenge to this thesis is that Paul had
a particular style of writing with a purpose in mind. Paul did not write
letters that he had time to craft carefully. Rather, Paul wrote very quickly in
order to address practical problems in his churches. It is relatively unlikely
that he did that much editing – after all, he wanted to address the real
situations on the ground. If his meaning could be expressed, he seemed to send
the letter out. This type of composition in Greek would be very difficult for someone who did not a very intimate
grasp of Greek who probably had training in it from an early date. He had to
work on the fly and was able to put together clear enough arguments.
The problem with applying this concept to James is that it
is not at all clear that this work was written in the same manner. It seems
that most critics of authorship on the ground of competency in Greek are stuck
in this monothetic concept of authorship. It had to be one person who wrote the
piece over the course of a very short period of time, created an essential
first draft, and published it in the form we see it today. I completely agree
that if such were the case, then it
would be relatively unlikely that someone who did not have formal training in
Greek could accomplish that feat.
The problem, of course, is that there is no real indication
that such had to be the case. The first note is that it certainly was possible
for people to learn Greek. Ehrman (and again, he is simply a foil for many
people with this type of argument) do not prefer the idea that an adult could
learn; however, he takes the concept of “school” far too officially. Most
people who had leisure (scholia)
hired a tutor who then taught them. There is no particular reason James could
not have hired such a figure to teach him Greek.
The reason adults tended not to do this was due to the fact
that they had jobs. However, James the Just was not someone who necessary
continued in the carpentry business. We know he was the leader of the Jerusalem
church after the death of Jesus.[9]
One might assume that he did not receive wages for this; however, there is no
real reason to consider this. Acts suggests that the community in Jerusalem
lived by sharing of the resources of the community and there is no real
suggestion that they kept on working. It is only Paul who continues to keep a
job while traveling. Therefore, it is once again that scholars put together a
“James” in the light of Paul that causes the problems. There is no reason to
think that James, being the head of the community, would still remain a
“peasant.” He well could have had the means and the time to study as an
adult.
Some have argued that there was not access to Greek in the
Galilee and as such, even if he wanted to, it was not possible to learn Greek
at any time before 70 C.E.[10]
However, it is first key that James did not remain in the Galilee, he resided
in Jerusalem. Secondly, Josephus certainly believed that it was possible to
learn Greek:
I have also taken a great deal of
pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the
Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own
tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness: for our nation
does not encourage those that the learn the languages of many nations, and so
adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods; because they look upon this sort of
accomplishment as common, not only to all sorts of freemen, but to as many of
the servants as please them. But they give him the testimony of being a
wise man who is fully acquainted without laws, and is able to interpret their
meaning; on which account, as there have been many who have done their
endeavors with great patience to obtain this learning, there have yet hardly
been so many as two or three that have succeeded therein, who were immediately
well rewarded for their pains.[11]
Here, Josephus suggests that learning Greek does take pains,
but it is not seen as something outside the realm of possibility – instead, it
is something that is actually seen as quite easy compared to what is actually
valued – study of Torah. This suggests that such teaching was not accepted
merely because it was not seen as important or necessary. This is a far cry
from it being impossible to obtain – it was possible if one had the drive and
the purpose. That one’s leader should create a written book might well give a
community the drive to hire a tutor for him.
The second problem is that Paul must have known Greek well
to produce such texts so quickly; however, there is no reason to think that this
type of speed should transfer to the book of James. There is no clear situation
behind the text that is obviously being addressed. Further, there does not even
seem to be a clear single audience. The addressees as the “twelve tribes in the
diaspora”[12]
is hardly a specific group – indeed scholars disagree on what this precisely
even means. Therefore, serious question should be asked as to how quickly this
would be written. Josephus mentions that it took him quite some time to
complete his Antiquities of the Jews:
But because this work would take up
a great compass, I separated it into a set treatise by itself, with a beginning
of its own, and its own conclusion; but in process of time, as usually happens
to such as undertake great things, I grew weary, and went on slowly, it being a
large subject, and a difficult thing to translate our history into a foreign,
and to us unaccustomed, language.[13]
Josephus, therefore, suggests that writing a piece was not
something that happened quickly, but went on for quite a long time. If the book
of James was not written on a deadline, then it is quite possible for someone
whose Greek is not their first language to refine it and improve it over time.
The objection to this “speed” issue would be that the text
seems to be responding to Paul when discussing “faith and works” in chapter 2.[14]
If this were a response to Paul, the person, then it would be expedient for the
text to have been written relatively quickly. However, most scholars have noted
that James does not precisely understand Paul. Paul never argued for no role
for ethics in the community (which is seemingly what James is responding to by
saying “faith without works is dead). Rather, Paul argued for the works of the
law to be unnecessary in contrast to the trust in Jesus Christ. Therefore, it
does not seem that James is addressing the real Paul – he is instead addressing
the misunderstanding of Paul. It has even been argued that James is arguing not
so much against Galatians as he is trying to unify a theology of Paul. Margaret Mitchell has argued that James
might well have a collection of Paul and is trying to create a median position
that allows for 1 Corinthians: “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand
all mysteries and knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains,
but do not have love (here meaning communal obligation), I am nothing”[15]
and Galatians: “We ourselves are Jews
by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by
the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.”[16]
If either of these cases are taken to be the case (and I happily acknowledge I
find Mitchell’s argument the better one), it does not seem so necessary for
this to be written in any kind of haste – it is possibly a long deliberation to
analyze this puzzle; further, there is no reason it could not be a much later
draft than when the actual controversies were occuring.
Finally, the idea of writing a single draft with minimal
editing probably was the method Paul used – but that seems to be relatively
rare in antiquity. Most authors at this time used their friendship networks to
get advice on how to improve the situation. Raymond Starr describes this
process aptly:
Once a work was drafted, authors commonly sent a copy to a close friend
for comments and criticism. The copy was made in the author's home at his own
expense by his slaves. He tacitly assumed that his friend would not show the
draft to anyone else.[17]
Starr argues that not only were texts sent for ideas and
edits but even after that first round of comments leading to edits, it was
frequent for even further edits to a second round:
Once the author had received his friend's comments and initially revised
the draft, he slightly widened the circle to which his work was accessible.
This could be done by sending draft copies, again made in his home by his
slaves at his expense, to several more friends. He could also invite a few
friends to his home and recite the work to them in order to elicit their
comments and reactions. Such private sessions were always small, since too
large a gathering would obstruct the free flow of give and take between the
author and his friends. Pliny comments, 'Recitaturus
oratiunculam quam publicarecogito, advocavi aliquos ut vererer,paucos ut verum
audirem'. In another letter he explains that the author who recites his
work to his friends can make his decisions 'quasi
ex consilii sententia' Many other authors tested the waters in this way,
including Silius Italicus, Vergil, and Horace.[18]
Starr shows, then, that the idea of writing in haste in the Roman
world was relatively infrequent. Most people who did writing went through
several drafts, received feedback, and then edited it.
If it would be possible for the author to write several
drafts and receive feedback, it is not at all impossible that someone who was
not born speaking Greek could learn it well enough to get feedback and would
change the work in order to clarify it. There is no question that this can take
something that is only decent Greek and change it to be rather good Greek. In
fact, from as soon as we have manuscripts, this is precisely what happened –
scribes would improve the rhetoric of the piece. Why should we assume that this
was the work of terrible later scribes but not original authors? It is far more
likely, given that there probably was not a huge time crunch on the author,
that the texts were carefully drafted and edited.
It seems the only real reason that a “peasant from Galilee”
could not learn Greek well enough to write such a work as the book of James is because
the author of James is expected to work in the same manner as Paul worked. This
is an unnecessary leap and it is only that which demands that the brother of
Jesus could not have known enough Greek to get by.
This essay has, therefore, shown that it was not impossible
for the brother of Jesus to know Greek. This, by no means, exhausts the
discussion of authorship on James. There is much to be discussed and will be
forthcoming. In fact, there are serious issues which need to be addressed
concerning whether the brother of Jesus could be the author. The point here is
simply to remove one of the more noxious elements from the study – this seeming
prohibition that anyone who was not trained in Greek rhetoric as a child could
write well in Greek.
[1] James 3:1.
[2] Bart Ehrman,
Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of
Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (Oxford: OUP, 2013).
[3] See my
review of this book in an earlier blog post.
[4] Ehrman, Forgery and Counterforgery, 285-286.
[5] Ibid., 286.
[6] Ibid., 286.
[7] Ibid., 287
Konradt is found in “Der Jakobusbrief als Brief des Jakobus.” In Pseudepigraphie und Verfasserfiktion in
fruhchristlichen Briefen, ed. Jorg Frey et al., 578 and Pratscher in Der
Herrenbruder Jakobus und die Jakobustradition (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1987), 211.
[8] See Margaret
M. Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of
Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of
1 Corinthians (Louisville & London: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993).
[9] See nearly
any work on James for this, but for an accessible picture of the historical
James see John Painter, Just James: The
Brother of Jesus in History and Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999).
[10] See Mark A.
Chancey, Greco-Roman Culture and the
Galilee of Jesus (Cambridge: CUP, 2005).
[11] A.J.
21.11.2 (263-265) this reference was discussed in J. N. Sevenster Do You Know Greek: How Much Greek Could the
First Jewish Christians Have Known? (Leiden: Brill, 1968) 68-70.
[12] James 1:1b.
[13] A.J.
Preface 2.7.
[14] See James
2:14-26.
[15] 1 Cor.
13:2.
[16] Mitchell,
Margaret “The Letter of James as a Document of Paulinism?” in Reading James with new Eyes: Methodological
Reassessments of the Letter of James, ed. Robert L. Webb and John S.
Kloppenborg (London: T&T Clark, 2007) 75-98.
[17] Raymond J.
Starr “Circulation of Literary texts in the Roman Empire” Classical Quarterly 37(1) 1987, 213.
[18] Ibid.,
217-218.
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