52 Introduction It has long been recognized that James has, among the New Testament books, a special relationship to Jewish wisdom literature. A quick glance at the margins of a Nestle-Aland text turns up more than thirty cross-references to Jewish wis- dom literature of the Old Testament or intertestamental period, versus ten to the Pentateuch, eighteen to Prophets, and seventeen to Psalms (some of which are “wisdom” psalms). While Jewish wisdom literature clearly influenced James, schol- ars still debate the nature and extent of that influence. Almost all scholars who have studied James agree that there is some kind of relevant background in Jewish wisdom literature. However, while some would go so far as to call James the “wisdom” book of the NT, 1 and a few even suggest that it was originally a strictly Jewish wisdom text that was only later Christianized, 2 others such as Ropes and Dibelius argue that, though James seems to be influenced in some way by Jewish wisdom materials, the essential nature of the book is hellenistic. 3 Most interpreters in the last few decades have landed somewhere in between, recogniz- ing the influences of both Greek rhetori- cal devices and language, and Jewish material content and forms. Further, the Jewish influence is not restricted to wis- dom. The margins of Nestle-Aland 27 also reveal that of the eight actual quotations in James, only two are wisdom texts, most citations being from the Pentateuch. More- over, the fierce invective of 5:1-6 certainly sounds more like Israel’s prophets than her sages. The object of this study is two-fold: first, to identify more precisely the rela- tion of James to the genres of Jewish wisdom literature, and second, to describe the character of James’s particular “wis- dom” content. That is to say, we will ask, first, “Can James be called ‘wisdom litera- ture’ in any sense,” and, second, “What is the nature of the wisdom that James urges believers to ask for?” James and Jewish Wisdom Literature Before we can address the first ques- tion, we must ask, “what is Jewish wisdom literature?” This is not easy to answer, since those books that are gener- ally identified as wisdom are so diverse, both in form and in content. Though scholars give various answers to this ques- tion, some general distinguishing marks are frequently mentioned. First, we agree with Crenshaw that the term “wisdom” can apply either to cer- tain generic forms that appear in the wis- dom literature (e.g., series of aphorisms, instruction books, nature lists, extended dialogic poetry, self-addressed reflection) or to the themes that wisdom tends to address in various forms (e.g., the mean- ing of life, the problem of suffering, mas- tery of one’s environment, grappling with finitude, and the quest for truth that is assumed to be concealed within the cre- ated order). 4 Wisdom literature can be identified by form or by content. Second, wisdom is a practical matter. It is not a quest for knowledge for its own sake, but knowledge of how to live. Wis- dom “is the reasoned search for specific Dan McCartney is an Associate Pro- fessor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary where he has taught since 1986. His most recent book is titled Why Does It Have to Hurt: The Meaning of Christian Suffering, and he is working on a commentary on James for the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Dr. McCartney has written two other books, as well as numerous articles and book reviews. The Wisdom of James the Just Dan G. McCartney