James, First, Second, and Third John by Kelly Anderson and Daniel Keating (review)

This recent volume from the reputable Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture series joins the expanding ranks of its library of New Testament commentaries. It is coauthored by two faculty of Sacred Heart Major Seminary (Detroit, MI), Kelly Anderson and Daniel Keating. Anderson covers the Epistle of James, while Keating takes up First, Second, and Third John. This volume completes the series's treatment of the catholic epistles, as Keating contributed a previous volume concerning First and Second Peter and Jude.

In keeping with the series format, Anderson's introduction to James manages to be highly informative and well-developed, even for its concision. In just over ten pages, she deals uniformly with the contextual issues pertinent to the epistle's proper interpretation. The discussion of the authorship of the epistle is substantiated by biblical and Patristic data. Anderson discusses a number of possible candidates, including: James son of Zebedee, brother of St. John the Evangelist—that is, James "the Greater"—and James son of Alphaeus, James "the Lesser."

Yet, she quickly dispenses with the two other James's in favor of the unknown "brother" of the Lord. Due to his martyrdom in AD 44, Anderson rightly sets aside James the Greater, given his early death and that much of the epistle's context appears to take place several decades thereafter (2–3). Although St. Jerome identified James the Lesser as author, Anderson persuasively shows that this is too unlikely, despite such an authoritative backing. With the field cleared away, Anderson hones in on a relative of Jesus (the "bother" of the Lord). In a rather compact way, she paints a vivid portrait of "James the Just," who was a witness to the resurrected Jesus (1 Cor 15:7), who became the bishop and "pillar" of the Jerusalem church (Gal 2:9). As she explains, the prayerful James the Just was "put to death in AD 62 under the high priest Ananus II, a Sadducee, whom Josephus describes as arrogant in his judgments" (5).

In a similarly rich way, Anderson then moves through other contextual matters, such as the epistle's audience: "James addresses his letter to the 'twelve tribes in the dispersion' (1:1). 'Twelve tribes' seems to indicate those Jews who had accepted Jesus as the Messiah and were dispersed or scattered away from Palestine, the promised land" (5). After a discussion of the major theological themes of the epistle, Anderson's introduction, like others in the series, wraps up in a pastoral way, with remarks about "the timeliness of James" (10–11). Here, she brings together the two horizons of biblical exegesis—the ancient and the contemporary, noting that James's emphasis on believers' growing in "spiritual maturity" remains a perennial challenge in the Church today.

In the one hundred or so pages that follow, Anderson turns to the text itself. While such length is not excessive when compared with other contemporary commentaries, it is more than adequate. In fact, given that the English translation of James is just over twenty-five hundred words (or about five written pages), each of the epistle's five chapters are dealt with adequately and with appropriate attention to each paragraph.

One of the key strengths of the entire Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture series is its literary equilibrium—that is, presenting just enough but not too much in the way of technical data. One senses a great deal of thought and masterful editing throughout this volume, in order to inform but not unduly overwhelm the average Catholic adult reader. Anderson (and Keating) judiciously balance that which is brought forward and that which may reasonably remain in the background. This is no small feat, as many contemporary commentaries fail in precisely this way, overwhelming the reader and rendering themselves unusable except for technical use or as a reference work. Anderson's skill is evident in providing at once a highly competent and highly readable commentary on this...