Diaspora Letter
January 24, 2012
Have you ever read the Epistle of James and wondered just what kind of a writing it is? Is it similar to Proverbs, offering miscellaneous wisdom sayings? Is it like one of Paul’s letters, helping a church work through a particular issue? I recently finished writing a thesis on the Epistle of James in which I concluded that James belongs to the genre “diaspora letter.” A diaspora letter is basically a type of ancient letter that: (1) is written by an authoritative leader, (2) the leader writes from Jerusalem, (3) the leader writes to those in the diaspora — who have been scattered outside of Jerusalem, and (4) the leader writes in order to help his audience address sin and live in a God-pleasing way despite their marginalized situation.
I have just finished reading through Karen Jobes’s Letters to the Church. Jobes devotes several chapters in her book to James. In her discussion of genre, she concludes that James should be read as a diaspora letter: “The prophets identified diaspora as the place of divine judgment for covenantal disobedience. For this reason they called God’s people to repentance while also offering the promise of divine deliverance from judgment” (Jobes, 165).
Jobes’s book is an excellent introduction to the general Epistles and will be very useful for students encountering these letters for the first time. And, while we’re on the topic of James, I thought I’d mention that in the next few days I hope to write a brief post explaining my views on James 5:13-18 — the passage that promises unconditional healing. The question is, what type of healing did James have in mind?
