James

Allison’s ICC is the most encyclopedic and intellectually wide-ranging commentary on James available. Its command of Jewish, Greco-Roman, early Christian, patristic, and later interpretive material is extraordinary, and Allison repeatedly recovers parallels and interpretive possibilities that are overlooked elsewhere. He is especially valuable on disputed texts such as James 2:14–26, where his detailed treatment of James’s relationship to Pauline language makes simplistic harmonizations or claims of straightforward contradiction equally difficult to sustain. Allison is also commendably cautious about elaborate structural schemes, recognizing recurring themes and local coherence without assuming that one master-outline explains everything. His weakness lies chiefly in some of the larger historical reconstructions: his arguments for pseudepigraphy, a relatively late date, and aspects of the social setting are much more conjectural than his detailed exegesis and will persuade fewer readers. Even where those conclusions are rejected, however, the commentary remains indispensable. Serious work on James should almost always consult Allison because he places more relevant evidence on the table than virtually anyone else.

 

Allison, a liberal scholar best known for his work on Matthew, interprets James as a second-century pseudepigraphal text that was critical of Paul. [Full Review]