Texts in Conversation
James uses language similar to 4 Maccabees that says endurance in hard times shapes good character. Both draw on Hebrew Bible themes about exile and suffering and apply them to personal growth and the work of remaining faithful.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
4 Maccabees 9:8
Pseudepigrapha, Wisdom and Poetry
5 You try to frighten us by threatening us with death by torture, as though you had learned nothing from Eleazar a short time ago. 6 If the old man of the Hebrews died piously for the sake of piety after enduring torture, it would be even more right for us young men to die despising the tortures you force on us, which our aged teacher also defeated. 7 So make your attempt, tyrant. If you put us to death for the sake of piety, don’t think that you harm us by torturing us. 8 For through this suffering and endurance we will have the prize of virtue, and we will be with God, for whose sake we suffer. 9 But for your bloody murder of us, you will suffer from divine justice the eternal torment by fire that you deserve.”
Date: 19–100 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
James 1:3
New Testament
2 My brothers and sisters, consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect effect, so that you will be perfect and complete, not deficient in anything. 5 But if anyone is deficient in wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without reprimand, and it will be given to him. 6 But he must ask in faith without doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed around by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, 8 since he is a double-minded individual, unstable in all his ways.
Date: 80–90 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... it is clear that James means: 'an example of suffering with patience' (or: 'patience in hardship,'). The term makrothymia ("long-suffering/patience") was discussed in the note on 5:7. James' presentation of the model rounds off the exhortation that began with that verse. The noun kakopothia (or kakopatheia) is found only here in the New Testament. It means literally distress or misery (Aristotle, Politics 1278B; Thucydides, Peloponnesian War VII, 77, I; Ep. Arist. 208; Philo, On Joseph 223). It is used sometimes actively for expending a strenuous effort (see 2 Maccabees 2:26), but the meaning here is clearly that of passive suffering accompanied by endurance (compare 4 Maccabees 9:8: dia tesde kakopatheias kai hypomones), as the use of kakopothein in 5:13 also shows (compare 2 Timothy 2:9; 4:5) ..."
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Letter of James: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 318.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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