Friday, September 13, 2024

Samuel Zinner on the Apocryphon of James

  

Although James the brother of Jesus did not write the Apocryphon of James, it is always possible that some of its contents preserve echoes of the historical James’ teachings as passed down in a community that reversed his memory and authority. It is also possible that this text’s portrait of Jesus as a seditious-minded Jew who paid for it by being buried in a shallow ditch by the Romans is at times more historically colored than are the canonical gospel portraits in some cases.

 

But then again, even the gospels have Jesus insisting, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). On the other hand, this wouldn’t have to mean Jesus was a warmonger. A seeker after justice, which is the other side of a coin that is at once both love and peace, is not necessarily a warmonger. In the same gospel we read that Jesus taught “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt 5:9).

 

In agreement with the great Jewish sages Hillel and Akiba, the gospels portray Jesus as teaching that the Torah’s essence is for one to treat people the way one would want to be treated. The only way to love victims of injustice is somehow to try to end the injustice perpetrated against them. (Samuel Zinner, The Apocryphon of James (NHC I, 2): A Commentary with Complete Facsimiles, Transcription, and Translation [Luminescence Academic Series 1; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Luminescence, L.L.C., Publisher, 2024], ii)

 

 

 

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