The Book Of James

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michael_legna's picture
Submitted by michael_legna on Mon, 2008-06-16 23:13.

This is a completed study. You are welcome to join and peruse the posts.

I think the book of James is particularly well suited to getting a range of opinions on the central issues of Christianity, those of Salvation, Grace, Faith and Works.

Please note that I won't be proceeding in this with any claim to any authority, after almost 2000 years of church history, my thoughts on the book should line up with things that have already been said concerning the book, if you find any thoughts that I may give that you dont fully agree with please feel free to comment, or anything that I miss that you feel would be edifying to the group, please feel free also. We are all learning here including myself.

The commentary that I will be using comes from several sources. The first is the notes found in the Haydock Bible. This is a version of the Catholic translation known as the Douay Rheims, but this version had notes added in the footers of the pages. These notes came from the interpretations of the Early Church Fathers, similar to the efforts of Thomas Aquinas when he wrote the Caten Aurea (Golden Chain) which was a rendition of the 4 Gospels with commentary from the ECF on each verse.

Haydock, a Catholic Priest in the 1800's, decided this was such a good idea that it needed to be extended. It is amazing he did this without the use of computer databases to search. It is even more amazing that Aquinas did his work prior to the printing press! Since that time there is a group on the Internet who is also repeating this process forming the e-catena (electronic Chain? ) and I will be using it as a source as well. Finally I will unavoidably be using some of my own understanding but these glaring errors should be easy to spot from amidst the rest of the commentary and you can feel free to ignore them.

Another source I will rely on heavily is the Daily Bible Study of William Barclay. Barclay was a Presbyterian Minister and Theologian of the Church of Scotland in the 1900's. (Seems funny referring to that century that way already). He was known for his thorough research into the meaning of the underlying Greek and the interconnections between verses. I think anyone who has not read his 17 volume New Testament set would gain much by doing so.

The study will be verse by verse, so please be patient with me as periodically I get very busy, and the other poster as I would like to give everyone ample time to respond with their ideas and views.