Sermon Tone Analysis

Overall tone of the sermon

This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.2UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.12UNLIKELY
Fear
0.12UNLIKELY
Joy
0.19UNLIKELY
Sadness
0.52LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.65LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.11UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.93LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.64LIKELY
Extraversion
0.24UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.54LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.61LIKELY

Tone of specific sentences

Tones
Emotion
Anger
Disgust
Fear
Joy
Sadness
Language
Analytical
Confident
Tentative
Social Tendencies
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Emotional Range
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Andrew Hodge                                                                                                  17th August 2007
 
 
New Testament Survey NTES 111
 
 
Seminar 17
 
 
The Epistle of James
Part 1
 
 
/James/
Irving L. Jensen /Jensen//’s Survey of the New Testament /1981, Moody Press, Chicago Ch 20
/Libronix DLS/
Guthrie, Donald  /New Testament Introduction  /Apollos, Leicester, England 4th Ed  1990 Ch 20
John MacArthur, /James/,  (Chicago, Ill.: Moody Press, 1998).
/Summarise the various arguments on authorship of the epistle:/
/            /This discussion centres around which of the up to five James’ mentioned in scripture is the responsible writer of this book.
Jensen notes that the OT Jacob (Hebrew /Iakob/), translated into Greek as /Iakobos /(LXX?) is the OT form of the NT James (p 422).
Barker1a suggests the possibility of 5 James’:
#.
The son of Zebedee and brother of John, one of the twelve disciples.
Mother (Salome) possibly sister to Mary, Jesus’ mother (compare Matt 27:56, Mark 15:40, John 19:25) which would have made Jesus and this James cousins.
One of the ‘inner circle’ of disciples, always listed in the first four names.
Not afraid to speak his mind, was an effective witness to the Gospel and was one of the first of the Apostles to be executed (by Herod Agrippa ~~44AD, Acts 12:2).
This date of death puts this James at the upper limit of age to have written this book, making him most unlikely to be the writer.
Matt 4:21, Mk 1:19, Lk 5:10
#.
The son of Alphaeus in common with Matthew, therefore Matthew’s brother and also one of the twelve.
Some identify this James as ‘the Less’.
Listed as the first of the third group of disciples’ names.
Matt 10:3, Mk 3:18, 15:40, Lk 6:15, Acts 1:13.
Not considered likely to be the writer.
#. James the Less (or the ‘short’ or the ‘younger’).
Mary was his mother, Cleopas his father and Joseph his brother; this Mary was present at the Cross during the crucifixion along with Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus and Salome the wife of Zebedee.
Jensen does not recognise this James, probably identifying him with (2) the son of Alphaeus.
Barker lists him as being in Matt 27:56, Mk 15:40, Lk 24:10.
Also not considered to be the writer.
#.
Barker (p 162) lists a James as the father of the apostle Thaddeus (or Judas, not Iscariot) Luke 6:15-16.
He also says “nothing whatsoever is known of him”.
1a Barker, William P.  /Everyone in the Bible  /Fleming H. Revell Company, Westwood, New Jersey 1966  pp 161-2
#.
One of Jesus’ four half-brothers.
This James is the ‘traditional’ writer and is supported by Jensen (p 422), Barker (p 162), Macarthur (p 4) and Guthrie (p 746).
Matt 13:55, Mk 6:3, Gal 1:19.
Apart from Jesus, this James’ other named brothers - natural children of Mary and Joseph - are Joseph, Simon and Jude, plus unnamed sisters (Matt 13:55).
This James, having grown up with Jesus, was unconvinced of His ministry (Jn 7:2-8) until after the resurrection.
He was in the upper room at Pentecost, and therefore had been saved in the intervening fifty days (1 Cor 15:7) between the resurrection and Pentecost.
Within ten years (Barker p 162) he had become the leader of the Church at Jerusalem (Gal 2:9-12), presumably succeeding Peter when Peter became itinerant (Acts 12:17?).
He was influential in presiding over two important early Church conferences (Acts 15 and 21), on both occasions powerfully displaying God’s wisdom.
He was married (as were his other brothers and Peter - 1 Corinthians 9:5).
Josephus relates that Ananus, Sadducean High Priest, during the short hiatus between the death of Festus and the arrival of the next Roman procurator Albinus (governed 61-65 AD), “assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned;”[1] This action was condemned by Herod Agrippa (II, 53-70 AD), and Albinus, who had Ananus removed from office after only 3 months.
This occurred in 61 AD, before the destruction of Jerusalem, and about 6 years before the martyrdom of Paul (see Jensen Chart 12 pp 60-61).
This date in turn implies that if this James wrote the book (in 45 AD Jensen Chart 1  p 20), it was completed about 16 years after his salvation, in his mid to late 40’s, and about 6 years after he assumed the reins of Jerusalem leadership from Peter.
It was also written before James displayed God’s wisdom at the first Jerusalem Council (Acts 15, ~~48~/49 AD).
It should be noted that James was well aware of where and how this wisdom came, before it was evidenced in Acts and in the book of James (James 1:5).
Jensen makes the comment that this James’ character can be ascertained from reading the book.
He gleans (p 425) that he was “a praying man, pure, powerful, practical, plain, persistent, humble, honest, single-minded, upright and just”.
Apparently he developed the sobriquet of “James the Just” ie James the righteous; and more colloquially “old camel knees” on account of the calluses he developed during long hours at prayer.
Jensen also makes the point that “the younger brother James and his elder brother Jesus were so much alike in personality” (p 425).
The role of this James as leader of the first Christian Church of Jerusalem is very important for this Church was the centre of missionary~/evangelical activity until persecution forced a withdrawal to Antioch.
When doctrinal and practical problems were not locally solvable, the Jerusalem leaders were the arbiters.
The book of James proves that they were up to the task.
Clearly there is still some confusion over the precise identification of which ‘James’ is who; perhaps not surprising given that the name was very common; but at present it seems not unreasonable to ascribe the writer of the book of James as Jesus’ half-brother.
Caution is therefore necessary when interpreting the book on passages whose hermeneutic may depend on which James may have penned it.
Jensen addresses this issue by assuming that James #5 is the writer, detailing his biography in Chart 105 p 423. Macarthur has no doubt at all: “Despite the specific inspired identification of James in 1:1 and the persuasive evidence that James the Lord’s half brother wrote this letter, unbelieving pseudoscholars have rejected him as author.
They cite several unconvincing lines of evidence to support that dubious conclusion.
Normally they would not even be helpful to consider, but they do provide a backdrop against which to further demonstrate features of the epistle related to its author.”[2]
He then goes on to demolish poor modern scholarship; Guthrie spends more space at this but eventually arrives at a similar conclusion.
/Discuss the addressees, purpose, date and literary form of the epistle:/
/            /For date see above.
/            /James 1:1 states that the addressees are “the twelve tribes that are scattered abroad”.
If this is taken literally, as it should according to the context and basic exegesis, the letter is written to the Jews of the /diaspora/.
The next verse proves that they are saved - “my brethren”, supported by vv 3-6 and the subject matter of the remainder (which includes a large number of Semitisms).
A possible exception is 5:1-6 which appears to be addressed to unbelievers, returning to believers in 5:7.
This may be James’ way of specifically identifying with the circumstances of his intended readers 3a.
Discuss
            This raises the interesting point that at this earliest of stages of Church growth, there were already sufficient saved Jews scattered around the known world to warrant James writing to them.
Where would he have sent this letter?
Would he have despatched multiple copies in various directions?
How widely would it have circulated?
Why was this letter accepted so late into the canon when it was written so early?
(end of the 4th C AD according to Jensen p 429).
Discuss 
I would like to explore the view that there were relatively few Jewish Christians scattered abroad at the time James wrote.
Chart 106 (Jensen p 426) implies that the church began to be scattered about 33 AD, 12 years before James wrote, and beginning with the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 11:19 “preaching the word to none but the Jews only”).
If this refers to Saul’s persecution and those of like-minded Jews, it did not last long and relatively speaking would not have displaced large numbers from Jerusalem (the Jerusalem Church was still the premier institution at the time of the Acts 15 Council in 49 AD, and was sending out ‘prophets’ in Acts 11:27).
Larger numbers of Jewish Christians moved away from Jerusalem on account of the persecutions late in the reign of Tiberius, Caligula and during the first half of the reign of Claudius (33 to 47 AD Jensen Chart 51 p 208) although this was not a consistent and continuous process.
‘King of the Jews’ Herod Agrippa I (a Roman appointee), presumably in order to ingratiate himself with the Romans and the Jews, began to persecute the local Christians (Acts 12:1-2) and had James the brother of John killed in 44 AD (Jensen Chart 51 p 208).
Perhaps James was aware of where those who had been persecuted had gone (Acts 11:19-20) and sent his letter in the appropriate directions to encourage them, but at this time it seems to me that there was insufficient need to do this.
In a sense, the book is a series of benchmarks which Christians can use to assess whether or not they have saving faith, and whether or not that faith is producing appropriate works (see Macarthur below).
Jensen then alters tack in Chart 51 around 47 AD: instead of the Church being ‘scattered’, he calls it ‘extended’.
I assume that this is about the time when the gospel started taking hold among the Gentiles (see Chart 106 p 426) and the preaching of the scattered Jewish Christians started to win significant numbers of converts (Acts 11:21.
Jerusalem was still the lead Church at this time Acts 11:22).
Peter’s encounter with Cornelius (Acts 11) and Paul’s commencement of his mission to the Gentiles (Acts 13:1-3) occurred well before the council of Acts 15 and James would already have been aware of the inclusion of the Gentiles in the Gospel before he wrote his book (Acts 11:1, 18) specifically to Jews.
[Which makes it difficult to agree with Thiessen: “The question of the admission of the Gentiles (into the church which in the earliest years was Jewish) seems not yet to have come to the fore.”]2a
If this is so then the Jews as addressees of his book become too narrow a readership.
Discuss
Jensen cites “persecution of the Christians, unchristian conduct (e.g., in speech) by many believers, and erroneous views on such doctrines as faith and sin were some of the circumstances that called for this epistle” (p 427).
This view necessarily presupposes that James knew of these problems in the far-away /diaspora.
/How?
Were they not local problems as well?
Discuss
Again Jensen: “The epistle has been called ‘A practical Guide to Christian Conduct’ “(ibid).
As a summary James has been called ‘the apostle of good works’, John ‘the apostle of love’, Paul ‘the apostle of faith’ and Peter ‘the apostle of hope’ (ibid).
That the tone of the book is authoritative as shown by James’ Libronix’ verb rivers:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2a Henry C. Thiessen  /Introduction to the New Testament /p 277 quoted in Irving L. Jensen /Jensen//’s Survey of the New Testament /1981, Moody Press, Chicago p 426 footnote 8
Most of the verbs are in the active voice and indicative mood.
Jensen notes however that there are 54 imperative verbs in the 108 verses (p 428).
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9