This book gives attention to the language and style of the letter of James with a hypothesis
about its rhetorical purpose in mind. It focuses on what we can learn about the author of James
by reading the text in light of a guiding research question: How does the author establish and
assert authority? The letter builds literary authority for a number of purposes one of which
is to address socioeconomic disparity a major concern for the author. The author of James
presents a speech-in-character in the shape of a letter to establish his ethos (Ch. 2)
employing vocabulary and style to signal his education implicitly (Ch. 3 & 4) and includes
himself in the categories of sage teacher and exegete explicitly (Ch. 5). From this standpoint
the author can address the rich as equals rebuke them and admonish both rich and poor to
receive God's wisdom (Ch. 6). The comparison with ancient literary criticism shows that the
categories at play are the same. The insight that language and ethos are inseparable categories
in antiquity provides us with renewed ways to interpret the literary production of early
Christianity. Both James and 'the Classicists' present a competing epic in the context of the
early imperium the former with an Israelite piety that is superior to contemporary economic
and moral categories and the latter with the supremacy of Greek culture as a foundation for
Rome. The letter of James emerges as a document that builds educational ethos as a balance
against the rich and powerful a strategy that calls for a revision of both its rhetoric and
socio-economic situation.
