The Letter of James

I've now uploaded my translation of the letter of James to my website. This is a very interesting letter, quite a contrast to Romans (which it is often used to contrast). While Paul's scribe used a lot of prepositions to help explain the text (usually too much!), James uses practically none. It is very similar to Hebrew in this way, the words are just said, and it's the listener that has to piece together how they go together. Given this though, the truth is that James is not quite as severe as it is usually translated. He does speak very directly, but once couched in the norms of Hebrew speech, you realize he is saying a lot of the same things Paul says, but had a very different scribe. Also, James' letter comes off as a bit hurried. Paul appears to have time to weave the whole letter to the Romans as a single piece, one part weaving into the next. James has more breaks in the ideas, as though he didn't have time to formulate his thoughts, and also, the letter ends abruptly with no greetings or closing remarks. It's as though it was dictated and composed while under some pressure, and was finished abruptly, likely by James' execution. So it forms sort of James' last testament, the few things he thought most important to say before he was the first of the apostles to be martyred. In James last year, he apparently managed to travel to the end of Spain and possibly even to the new world before returning to Jerusalem for the passover, and it was those disciples he made on that journey that became his followers, and arranged for his dictation of this letter, probably the first of the letters to be written and distributed. I think the letter benefits from being considered more as translated Hebrew, both because it's a bit less severe, but also because a lot of what he says makes more sense in this context. Like Chinese, Hebrew has a lot of three or four word phrases that convey a meaning, and if you just write down the words when translating, it's both hard to interpret and somewhat curt. So enjoy this translation as I continue to work on Exodus, may thou all be blessed by God and drawn closer to Him by grace. Glorify God always.