This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Myllykoski, M. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

James the Just in History and Tradition: Perspectives of Past and Present Scholarship (Part I)

Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, Finland matti.myllykoski{at}helsinki.fi

James the Just, the brother of Jesus, is known from the New Testament as the chief apostle of the Torah-obedient Christians. Up to the last quarter of the twentieth century, Jewish Christianity was regarded as an unimportant branch of the early Christian movement. Correspondingly, there was remarkably little interest in James. However, in the past two decades, while early Christianity has been studied as a form of Judaism, the literature on James has grown considerably. Now some scholars tend to assume that James was a loyal follower of his brother right from the beginning, and that his leadership in the church was stronger than traditionally has been assumed. Fresh studies on Acts 15 and Galatians 2 have opened new questions about the Christian Judaism of James and social formation of the community which he led. Part II of this article, to be published in a later issue of Currents, will treat the rest of the James tradition—James's ritual purity, martyrdom and succession, and his role in the Gnostic writings and later Christian evidence. It will conclude with reflections concerning James and earliest Jewish-Christian theology.

Key Words: Acts of the Apostles • Church fathers • Gnosticism • Gospels • history of research • James the just • Jewish Christianity

Currents in Biblical Research, Vol. 5, No. 1, 73-122 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1476993X06068700


CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?