Getting Jesus Right: How Muslims Get Jesus and Islam Wrong. James A Beverley
and Diversity in the Early Church
In the previous chapter, it is argued that the belief that Jesus was divine originated in what Jesus said and did. His resurrection provided confirmation. The Jesus movement concurred on this vital point, but the movement did disagree over some matters, especially when it came to aspects of Jewish Law and custom, and expectations with regard to Gentile converts.1 Some differences of opinion had the potential of being very divisive. Other differences may largely reside in the imagination of modern writers.
Some critics have claimed that James and Paul did not see eye to eye, that in fact they held to two very different understandings of the Christian message, the gospel (or “good news”). For this reason, some even go so far as to claim that Paul is the true founder of the Christian Church, since his theology was markedly different from the theology of Jesus and that of his brother James.2 This idea comes to vivid expression in Reza Aslan’s recent book, when he asserts that “Paul’s Christ had long obliterated any last trace of the Jewish Messiah in Jesus…[Paul’s] conception of Jesus as Christ would have been shocking and plainly heretical, which is why…James and the apostles demand that Paul come to Jerusalem to answer for his deviant teachings.”3 Contrary to this remarkable assertion, we shall see that when their respective arguments are fully understood, Paul and James are not at odds with one another in any significant way.
The Message of James: “Without Works, Faith Is Dead”
Tradition holds that the New Testament letter of James was penned by James the brother of Jesus (see Mark 6:3, where the names of the brothers of Jesus are mentioned). The letter doesn’t actually make this claim explicitly; it simply begins, “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” (James 1:1). Not all Church Fathers believed the letter was written by James, but in the end most did, and so it was included in the canon of Scripture. Today a number of scholars, including some who have written major commentaries on James, have concluded that the letter probably was written by the brother of Jesus.4 One reason for concluding this is the letter’s rather modest claim to be written by “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” In apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings, claims of prominent authorship typically are more explicit. In this case, if the author is claiming to be the brother of Jesus, then why not say so? Why not make more of such a distinguished connection? The failure to exploit fully this potential is in favor of the traditional identification of the author.
James first appears in the book of Acts in the context of King Agrippa I’s violence against the leaders of the Church. In Acts 12:1–5 we have an account of these actions:
About that time Herod the king laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword; and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. So Peter was kept in prison; but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.
Agrippa I was the son of Aristobulus IV and Bernice I and the brother of Herodias (cf. Mark 6:15–28). Only the New Testament refers to Agrippa I as “Herod,” a name that more or less functioned as a dynastic name since the time of Agrippa’s famous grandfather Herod the Great. (Agrippa I is called Herod several more times, in Acts 12:6, 11, 19–21.)
In the passage cited from the book of Acts we are not told specifically why Agrippa arrested some of the Christians. Whatever his motive, he executed James son of Zebedee, the brother of John, and then, seeing that it pleased certain people, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. The church prayed for Peter, Peter then enjoyed a miraculous escape and safely reached the house of a woman named Mary, the mother of John Mark (Acts 12:6–16), who later accompanied Paul on his first missionary journey. It is in the conclusion of this remarkable story that James the brother of Jesus is mentioned.
After Peter describes his escape (Acts 12:17), he says, “Tell this to James and to the brethren” (12:17). The narrator then remarks abruptly and with little detail, “Then he departed and went to another place” (12:17). From this cryptic remark it is assumed that Peter has quit Jerusalem and that James the brother of Jesus has assumed the leadership. Not long after leaving Jerusalem, Peter visits Antioch and eventually takes up residence in Rome.
Peter’s instructions “Tell this to James and to the brethren” implies that James is “second in command,” as it were. But it also implies that James was not expected to quit Jerusalem, as Peter and others found it necessary. Why is this? Judging by the advice that James will later give (in Acts 15) and by the tradition of his piety and devotion in the precincts of the Jerusalem temple, along with no evidence that James either condemned the temple priesthood or threatened the temple with its destruction (at least not until shortly before his martyrdom), we may infer that James’s commitment to Jewish faith and practice was such that the religious and political authorities saw no reason to take action against him. Evidently, the religious devotion of James was such that temple authorities saw no reason to persecute this particular leader of the Jesus movement.
What we learn from Acts 12:17, which records Peter’s abrupt words “Tell this to James and to the brethren,” is that, in the absence of Peter, James has become the leader of the Jesus movement. When the Church grapples with the vexatious question of whether Gentiles who become believers must also become Jewish proselytes and then turns to James (and not to Peter or Paul) for guidance, we begin to appreciate the gravity of his leadership and the respect with which James is treated by the Church.
If the author of the letter of James was in fact the brother of Jesus, which is the position taken here, then a disagreement with Paul would be a serious matter indeed. But was there really a disagreement? Some think so. Many will recall Martin Luther’s famous dismissal of James as a “strawy epistle” whose character lacked the marks of the gospel. Luther said this because his critics claimed that James contradicted the great reformer’s emphasis on Paul’s doctrine of salvation by God’s grace, received through faith alone, not by works.
James was held to be at odds with Paul because of the letter’s declaration that “faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:17) and that a person “is justified by works and not by faith alone” (2:24). These categorical statements are not isolated; they reflect the tenor of the letter’s thought throughout. James exhorts his readers to accept trials and testing with joy and to let it have its “perfect work [ergon teleion]” (1:3–4, NKJV). He urges his readers to become “doers of the word [poiētai logou], and not hearers only” (1:22). He speaks of the “perfect law [nomon teleion]” (1:25). He urges his readers not to be forgetful hearers but to be “a doer of the work [poiētēs ergou]” (NKJV), who “shall be blessed” (1:25).
The spirit of this teaching, as well as some of the vocabulary, brings to mind the teaching of Jesus, especially as we find it assembled in the Sermon on the Mount. According to Jesus, the person who “does them and teaches [poiēsē kai didaxē] them [the commandments] shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:19). The righteousness (dikaiosynē) of the disciples must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. How this can be accomplished is spelled out in the five antitheses that follow (5:21–47). At the conclusion of the antitheses, Jesus sums up his teaching: “You, therefore, must be perfect [teleioi], as your heavenly Father is perfect [teleios]” (5:48).5 Perfection cannot be achieved without doing the commandments, as Jesus has taught. The conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount drives home this point (emphasis added):
“Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (7:21)
“Every one then who hears these words [tous logous] of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock.” (7:24)
“And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand.” (7:26)
Elsewhere in Jesus’ sayings