James & the Jesus tradition

Here’s a question I wrote to a commentator on James, followed by his reply:

Dear Dr. McCartney,

Today I was reading through your new commentary on James. Thanks for your contribution to the church.

I had a question. On a section documenting various points of commonality between James and the Jesus tradition, you say: “A few correspondences are found only with the Lukan Sermon on the Plain and not in Matthew…” (51).

As you know, liberals treat the dominical speeches in the Synoptic Gospels as fictional set-pieces which redactors put in the mouth of Jesus.

Does the fact that James has close parallels with both the Matthean and Lukan editions of this dominical material indicate that this material goes back to a well-entrenched, preexisting Jesus tradition, rather than something a redactor fabricated on the spot? Otherwise, how would James independently hit upon such similar formulations?

Steve Hays

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Steve,

That is indeed one of several indications. James doesn't appear to be getting his material from the extant Gospels, but it does have an uncanny resemblance to the peculiarities of the Jesus tradition, esp. what is sometimes called Q. Either James is dependent on a strong tradition (either a written Q or an oral tradition) or else he has personal knowledge of the material -- either way it suggests both an early date for James and the antiquity of the Jesus tradition, at least in terms of Jesus's teaching.

If you haven't seen it yet, Bauckham's little book on James (Routledge, 1999) was very helpful to me in this regard. A book by P. Hartin on James and Q in the JSNTSupp series is also helpful but not so convincing. (I have my doubts whether Q was ever a document)

Blessings
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Dan McCartney
Professor of New Testament Interpretation
Redeemer Theological Seminary, Dallas