Gospel Doctrine: James — An “Epistle of Straw”?

James — An “Epistle of Straw”?
By John A. Tvedtnes

[Supplement to Gospel Doctrine New Testament lesson 42]

Latter-day Saints are well aware of the fact that Joseph Smith’s first vision was prompted by the declaration in James 1:5: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” If Martin Luther had had his way, Joseph would never have read this passage.

Luther wrote:

St. John’s Gospel and his first epistle, St. Paul’s epistles, especially Romans, Galatians and Ephesians and St. Peter’s first epistle are the books that show you Christ and teach you all that is good and necessary for you to know.” He went on to call these books the “kernel and marrow of all books,” but declared that “St. James is really an epistle of straw compared to them for it has nothing of the nature of the Gospel about it ... [It is] not the writing of any apostle.” [1]

Protestants generally look to Martin Luther as the one who introduced such concepts as the inerrancy and all-sufficiency of the Bible (sola scriptura, “only scripture”) and salvation by faith alone (sola fide, “only faith”). However, the great reformer would not recognize himself in the dogmatic way in which such ideas are taught today. Among the New Testament books Luther dismissed are Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation.

Luther’s disdain for the epistle of James was because James wrote of the importance of works coupled with faith, as opposed to Paul’s emphasis on faith, and James “does not mention the Passion, the Resurrection, or the Spirit of Christ.” Luther concluded his preface to James:

All of the genuinely sacred books agree in this that all of them preach Christ and deal with Him. That is the test to judge all books, when we see whether they deal with Christ or not, since all the Scriptures show us Christ (Rom. 3) and St. Paul will know nothing but Christ (I Cor. 15).

Then he added, “What does not teach Christ is not apostolic, even though St. Peter or St. Paul taught it; again, what preaches Christ would be apostolic, even though Judas, Annas, Pilate and Herod did it.” [2] By this standard, the Book of Mormon is scripture, for it is “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.”

Luther’s dislike of the epistle of James is best illustrated in these words from his Table Talk:

Let us banish this Epistle from the university, for it is worthless. It has no syllable about Christ, not even naming him except at the beginning. I think it was written by a Jew who had heard of the Christians but not joined them. He had learned that the Christians insisted strongly on faith in Christ, and so he said to himself, “Well, you must take issue with them and speak only of works,” and so he does.

He says not a word of the passion and resurrection of Christ, the text of all the other apostles. Moreover, he has no order nor method. He speaks now of clothes, now of wrath, jumping from one topic to another. He has this simile: “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” Mary, mother of God! He compares faith to the body, when it should be compared to the soul. [3]

In a marginal note to James 2:24 in one of his Bibles, Luther wrote, “This is false.” [4] Luther removed James, Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation from their normal places and relegated them to the end of the New Testament, as not being entitled to the same status as other biblical books. In his New Testament table of contents, he numbered books 1-23, then placed the four rejected ones without numbers. Tyndale followed Luther’s order in his English translation, as did Coverdale in 1535. The Great Bible of 1519 put Hebrews and James back in their original positions, and this is the order kept in the King James version, which was based on the Great Bible.

Joseph Smith described his experience with the book of James in this manner:

Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible. (Joseph Smith History 1:12)

This prompted the young farm lad to ask God for an answer to his question about which church to join. From his first vision, Joseph learned that the source of truth is the Lord himself, not books that quote him. This view is similar to that expressed more recently by Protestant Bible scholar Floyd V. Filson:

It is possible, however, to stress the Bible so much and give it so central a place that the sensitive Christian conscience must rebel. We may illustrate such overstress on the Bible by the often-used (and perhaps misused) quotation from Chillingworth: “The Bible alone is the religion of Protestantism.” Or we may recall how often it has been said that the Bible is the final authority for the Christian.

If it will not seem too facetious, I would like to put in a good word for God. It is God and not the Bible who is the central fact for the Christian. When we speak of “the Word of God” we use a phrase which, properly used, may apply to the Bible, but it has a deeper primary meaning. It is God who speaks to man. But he does not do so only through the Bible. He speaks through prophets and apostles. He speaks through specific events. And while his unique message to the Church finds its central record and written expression in the Bible, this very reference to the Bible reminds us that Christ is the Word of God in a living, personal way which surpasses what we have even in this unique book.

Even the Bible proves to be the Word of God only when the Holy Spirit working within us attests the truth and divine authority of what the Scripture says. Faith must not give to the aids that God provides the reverence and attention that belong only to God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Our hope is in God; our life is in Christ; our power is in the Spirit. The Bible speaks to us of the divine center of all life and help and power, but it is not the center. The Christian teaching about the canon must not deify the Scripture. [5]

[1] C. M. Jacobs, Holman’s Edition of Luther’s Works, 6:444, also cited in William Harrison Bruce Carney, “Luther and the Bible, Its Origin and Content,” 21. All citations are found in Holman’s Edition of Luther’s Works, Vol. VI, “Preface,” translations by Dr. C. M. Jacobs, and this in turn by William Harrison Bruce Carney, “Luther and the Bible, Its Origin and Content,” chapter 2 in O. M. Norlie, ed., The Translated Bible 1534-1934, Commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Translation of the Bible by Martin Luther (Philadelphia: The United Lutheran Publication House, 1934). Luther’s statement regarding the relative value of the New Testament books (calling James “straw”) appeared in the first (September 1522) and second (December 1522) editions, the third edition (1524) and the small octavo edition of 1530. In his Vorrhede to the epistles of James and Jude, Luther gave a further evaluation. In his Vorrhede to Hebrews, he again compared Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelations with the books that preceded them. Luther’s statement is also noted by Floyd V. Filson, Which Books Belong in the Bible? (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1957), 34.

[2] All quotes are from C. M. Jacobs, Holman’s Edition of Luther’s Works, preface, cited by William Harrison Bruce Carney, “Luther and the Bible, Its Origin and Content,” chapter 2 in O. M. Norlie, ed., The Translated Bible 1534-1934, Commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Translation of the Bible by Martin Luther (Philadelphia: The United Lutheran Publication House, 1934).

[3] Preserved Smith, “The Methods of Reformation Interpreters of the Bible,” Biblical World 38/4 (October 1911): 242.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Floyd V. Filson, Which Books Belong in the Bible (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1957), 20-21.