When we view Ya’acov (James) for who he was: a chief rabbi, a Torah scholar, a Bible commentator, and akin to a high court judge, then we can better understand the purpose of his book.
David Matthew Friedman currently lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He is an award-winning photographer and filmmaker who has turned his attention to novels and stageplays after becoming fed up with the red-tape in the film industry. David has decided to set his focus on developing stories that force us to confront reality.
"The current trend of superhero and fantasy tropes only serves as short-term gratification when it comes to grappling with society's mounting problems. In the past, we looked to writers and philosophers to help ideate, but now all those people are too busy world-building and writing meet-cutes. We are no longer using story as a means to grow and iterate, but more so as a means to escape and distract."
His current series BRAND NEW ADULTS follows twenty-somethings Wave Wattson, Ace Tiernas, and Preston Rothschild IV as they try to survive New York City.
If you see David in the city, you should approach him, he's very animated and has a deep love for scotch, lobster, and clean prose, with an emphasis on lobster.
The Epistle of James has long been a beloved book in the New Testament. Speaking on issues of daily life, this book is treasured for its practical discussion on matters such as the tongue, faith, and living out the Christian walk with a mindset of holiness. With that said, some aspects of this book are challenging, particularly James’ discussion of faith and works and how his exhortation on such matters relates to the Apostle Paul’s own statements on those very topics. Looking at the Epistle of James from a Hebraic perspective, Dr. David Friedman sheds some interesting light on the purpose and message of James in his helpful commentary James the Just.
Dr. Friedman proposes the possibility that the Epistle of James is actually a yalkut, “a collection of highlighted teachings by a rabbi, often collected by his students.” Such a proposal is based on the content of James in comparison to the typical yalkut, specifically the reality that James provides practical points on how to live righteously devoid of philosophical discussion while denoting the need to be obedient to God’s commands provided in His word. Such points of discussion are indeed found in a yalkut thus presenting an interesting departure point for examining James. Interestingly, Dr. Friedman notes “The subjects that are taken up in James are the same ones that are taken up in Leviticus 19-22, which today constitutes a single Sabbath reading that is done each year in late winter.” Thus, to best understand James, one must approach it from the perspective the original hearers/readers would have, namely in the viewpoint that James is elaborating and affirming long held torah centric principles with torah centric meaning the instructions provided by God throughout Scripture for what is defined as righteous living.
The majority of Dr. Friedman’s commentary is centered on outlining what he believes are the torah based concepts found in the Epistle of James, or perhaps better termed the yalkut of James. Dr. Friedman rightly notes “The book of Ya’akov is written in Koine, that is, the Second Tempe era, Greek lingua franca uses across the Mediterranean world.” With that said, the principles James presents are not founded in Hellenistic ideas but rather are firmly rooted in “the first century Jewish world” and as such, must be understood from that perspective.
For example, Dr. Friedman points out that in James 1:17 we find the phrase “the Father of lights” used to describe God the Father. The Greek denotes the biblical view of God rather than “the Hellenist pantheism or philosophy.” In fact, this phrase hearkens back to Psalm 118:2 which states “God is Adonai, and He will shine light for us…” Another example of the Hebraic viewpoint found in James is outlined by Dr. Friedman in James’ admonition to “Not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.” Such a statement is also rooted in the Old Testament as well as within rabbinic teachings, specifically in regards to the action required of God’s people such as visiting the orphan and widow. Dr. Friedman rightly notes such a command is reflected in Exodus 22:22.
After establishing his premise that James is rooted in torah (God’s instructions) and would have been something readily understood by his readers/hearers, Dr. Friedman tackles the often thorny issue of the faith/works dynamic outlined in the Epistle of James. Some scholars aver that James and Paul provide conflicting teaching on the relationship between faith and works. Since Scripture cannot conflict with itself, this demands that the proper understanding of the faith/works dynamic must be something that is perfectly and internally consistent. Dr. Friedman first analyzes the terms of works, action, and deeds by looking at the Septuagint. After a lengthy and informative analysis of these terms, Dr. Friedman aptly comments “to the translators of the Septuagint, ergon/erga (the word translated as works) denotes some type of activity or action. Thus, when James outlines works, it is under the umbrella of actual actions that were to be part of the Christian walk as a demonstration of one’s faith in God and obedience to His word. Furthermore, Dr. Friedman saliently notes “the delineation between faith, as one entity and the carrying out of scriptural commands, as another and opposing entity, is a theologically imposed delineation that does not exist in the Jewish world.” Works are the clear sign of faith in God. Dr. Friedman correctly avers that “Ya’akov believed that fulfilling the instructions given in the Torah were a certain sign of one’s faith in Messiah Yeshua. The faith of this community and their ensuing fulfilling of the Torah were two parts of a whole, intrinsically connected to each other.”
This is a commentary I highly recommend. It is very readable, replete with valuable insight, and focused on drawing the reader into the text and what the text states from the perspective of what the original audience would have understood James to be relaying. For those who are unfamiliar with taking the time to engage the original languages and then understanding how properly defining terms as they are used in their context and within the greater corpus of Scripture, Dr. Friedman’s commentary will challenge you to begin making that approach a regular part of your Bible study. This is a great tool for pastors, seminary students, and all believers who wish to grasp what James was saying to that first century audience and how those truths relate to us today.
I received this book for free from Lederer Books via Cross Focused Reviews for this review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
This book is a one of a kind read. I look forward to reading other books by this author. The premise of this book was too draw a distinct and firm line between the Jewish and Judaistic practices and the first two centuries of the Christian church. Great scholarship was used to present and disseminate these facts and the information was intriguing and compelling. If you want to see the book of James (Ya'akov) through eastern eyes then this is the book for you.
Newly minted from Messianic Jewish Publishers is the book James the Just Presents Applications of Torah: A Messianic Commentary by Dr. David Friedman with B.D. Friedman. The preface states that the books in this series “are not meant to be a verse-by-verse exegetical commentary,” so someone looking for a verse-by-verse exposition of James from a Messianic Jewish point of view will have to look elsewhere. What we have here instead is a series of chapters that correspond more to introductory materials from a full-blown commentary.
Before addressing the content of the book, something should be said about the way that the book is written. For the most part, except when quoting other authors, the author uses a transliteration of the Hebrew equivalent to many common words and names we know from the Bible. The New Testament is B’rit Hadasha, Jesus is Yeshua, James is Ya’akov, and Paul is Sha’ul. At best it is a helpful reminder of the Hebrew roots of our faith. However, since this is not done merely for effect, but is apparently common within Messianic Judaism, I’m afraid it creates an unnecessary us/them division between Jew and Gentile, between those who are inside and those who are outside the movement. The author also tends to present first century Judaism in nothing but a positive light, yet if the activities of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Herodians, and the harassers of Paul on his missionary journeys are any indication, there were a sizeable number of Jews with erroneous views of the law (Torah), obeying the commandments, and how to be right with God.
Regarding content, the author begins with a copy of an anonymous chat room post alleging that the traditional translation of the Greek “Iakobou” as “James” rather than “Jacob” is an attempt to remove the Jewishness of the New Testament from our English Bibles. “This is just another instance where man has intervened to change the truth. This situation is minor, but where else has man changed the truth of the bible [sic]?” The argument is unsupported apart from the anonymous author’s own faulty logic, and I found it a rather unprofessional way to begin a book that is being passed off as an academic work. By the way, for those interested in the reason why it is translated differently, New Testament scholar Robert Mounce has a good article about it at his Teknia.com website.
The rest of the book is much more beneficial. His portrayal of James as “a chief rabbi, a Torah scholar, a Bible commentator, and akin to a high court judge” was helpful, although the way churches were structured and governed in the New Testament didn’t fully correspond to the organization of a synagogue or the Sanhedrin. The most innovative idea was that the book of James was a summary of James’s teaching on Leviticus 19-22—essentially a New Testament exposition of the Old Testament. The link between the two sections of Scripture is clear, and the allegation holds quite a bit of merit. The author’s further supposition that the book corresponds to a Scripture reading plan used by Jews during the first century is worth looking into, but he admitted that he didn’t have any substantial evidence showing this to be the case.
The last section on faith-versus-works argued that Paul and James were not at odds with each other (agreed), but it didn’t really address the question that undergirds the faith-versus-works issue, namely, What is the basis of our salvation?
Ultimately the book offers an interesting and somewhat helpful look at the book of James through culturally Jewish eyes. It also offers some unsupported assertions and unwarranted allegations of intentional efforts to distort the Jewishness of the Bible. Modern commentators are very good at addressing the historical and cultural contexts of the books they are writing about, including the Jewish and/or Gentile background to these books and their authors. For verse-by-verse exposition, those are the books I would recommend consulting first.
Disclosure of material connection: I received this book from the publisher for the purposes of review.
The book of James has often been called the ‘Proverbs’ of the New Testament. This is because of James contains many short sayings similar to the book of Proverbs. Yet too many a times, we read the New Testament totally separated — without any sense of the continuity it brings from the Old Testament.
In this book, David Friedman and B. D. Friedman aims just to show the readers how to read the book of James with an eye on the Old Testament, especially on the book on Leviticus. And this is the clear strength of the book, it helps the reader see the link between the old and new testaments.
The authors start very wisely by giving the readers an overview of what the book will cover, a short introduction to the book of James and the purpose of the book of James. Chapter 1& 2 forms the apologetics and defence of this thesis. The authors propose that the book of James is a ‘yalqut’, “a compilation, collection or compendium of Jewish religious writings.” (p. 10), whilst chapter 2 purposes to the readers that James is actually drawing his materials from Leviticus, and it’s actually a ‘yalqut’ of Leviticus. Within this section, the authors quotes multiple sections where similar ideas are raised both in James and Leviticus to show the connection between the two books.
Chapter 3 introduces the author of James, James the brother of Jesus and talks about how James was a rabbi (teacher) during the earliest church time. And in chapter 4, the authors shows more evidences of how James actually uses the Torah in his letters. Lastly in the last chapter, the authors tackled the issue between faith and works. In it the authors showed that there was actually no such dichotomy in proper Jewish thoughts since even the Torah supported the idea that real faith is never alive without works, which James is simply reiterating it to the readers once more, that true disciples are not without works.
Having read this book, I must say this book can only be fully appreciated if you are familiar with both Greek and Hebrews (or with their transliteration) since the authors used both quite regularly. Secondly, this book would be far too thin as a real help for any exegetical work although it is under the “Messianic Commentary” series. The book at best serves as an excellent introduction to the book of James. But there is one flaw with the strength of this book. Although the book is great in showing the continuity of how the new testament is with the old, it does not do so well showing the dis-continuity of the old to new. This is one area that is sorely missing.
Overall, I can only recommend pastors to read this, if they want to see things from the “Messianic Jewish” perspective, if not, i would recommend that readers seek out other more substantial commentaries that is widely available.
Rating: 3 / 5
Disclaimer: I was given this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
"James the Just Presents Applications of Torah" reads like 5 essays about James and the book of James that were complied together for this book. Some material was repeated in the different chapters, and the chapters had different focuses rather than building from one to the next. I could easily follow his overall points, but he jumped around some even within the chapters.
The author(s) set out to show that James was the chief rabbi of the messianic Jewish community in Jerusalem and what his position meant in terms of what we see recorded in Acts. He then showed how the book of James is likely a collection of James' teachings on certain portions of the Torah. He also explained the Hebrew background that helps clarify what James taught about faith and works.
I appreciate that the author admitted when he couldn't prove something rather than trying to pass it off as fact (as many authors do). I thought he did a good job of showing that these overall points about James and the origin of the book of James were reasonable and likely true. I was never able to fully understand some of his sub-points, though, like why he thought a vow automatically meant a Nazarite vow. His argument seemed to be "because some people where practicing this type of vow at that time." This seems rather random as other types of vows were also done at the time. Overall, I'd recommend this book to those interested in the Jewish background to the New Testament.
I received this book as a review copy from the publisher.
James the Just is a unique bible that will give you an appreciation of digging deeper into the ancient languages of scripture. The book of James is the New Testament version of Leviticus and Deuteronomy of the Old Testament. The Jewish people have a rich history of a love of the word to neglecting the word, much like us Christians today.
Returning to God (teshuvah) is the heart and soul of the Torah and should be the heart and soul of his people. That would also mean turning a sinner from the error of his way and saving him from death. Another word that is significant in the teaching of the Torah is mourning (penthountes)…in doing so, we position our hearts to (teshuvah) returning to God and by that state of mind; we are accepting and practicing His ways.
James (Ya’akov) was a devout follower of the Torah and his book in the New Testament reflects the relationship between faith and deeds. From our speech to our actions, our faith is displayed. Anyone choosing to read this short study will be blessed and I am sure will want to seek more resources on the rich history of God’s chosen people.
complimentary review copy was provided to me by Cross Focused Reviews (A Service of Cross Focused Media, LLC). I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own
I haven't read too many other commentaries on the book of James, but I was very pleased with this one. The Jewish-believer perspective was refreshing and authoritative without being dogmatic. The author laid the groundwork of the book first. His theory of how and why it had been written I find very plausible from the evidences he presented: that it was a sort of commentary on a certain Torah portion. His explanation of who James was in the early community was something I'd learned about before, but for those who haven't, it would be very enlightening. My favorite chapter was on how the book's teachings all came directly from the Torah and other books of the Tanakh (Old Testament). Next the author explained the faith/works question, and at the end of the book were some interesting charts and endnotes. Overall, he kept his commentary brief, and if there was something of interest that he didn't have room to delve into, he referred readers to resources that did.