Just James: The Brother of Jesus in History and Tradition (Studies on Personalities of the New Testament) - Hardcover

Painter, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1570031746 ISBN 13: 9781570031748

Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Pr, 1997

Synopsis

Why have the contributions of James the Just been obscured from Christian consciousness? Theologian John Painter reviews the legends surrounding a towering figure in the early Christian church. Painter explores the many legends associated with James, examines the New Testament epistle attributed to him and the Church's obvious embarrassment at James's influence .

About this title

About the Author:

John Painter is Professor of Theology at St. Mark's National Theological Centre, Charles Stuart University, Canberra, Australia.

From Library Journal:

Painter (theology, St. Mark's Theological Centre, Canberra, Australia) has taken on the same task here as Robert Eisenman in his James, the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls (LJ 1/97): to rescue James the Just from the obscurity that history forced on him. For both authors, the stream of early Christianity that became orthodoxy suppressed the true importance of James. Painter sees traditions outside of and later than the New Testament (Eusebius and Gnostic and apocryphal writings) as providing a corrective and thus reads the gospels, Acts, and epistles in light of them. However, he does not appeal to the Dead Sea Scrolls. In fact, he takes issue with Eisenman's identification of James with the scrolls' Teacher of Righteousness (and Paul the Apostle with "the spouter of lies"). Painter may find more readers agreeing with him than does Eisenman, because he doesn't stretch the imagination quite so far, but not all will want to stretch even this far. Lacking the passion of Eisenman's, this work is more appropriate for acadmic collections.?Craig W. Beard, Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham Lib.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Pr
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1570031746
• ISBN 13: 9781570031748
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 326