Matt Jackson-McCabe argues in the current issue of JBL that the epistle of James presents a version of Messiahship different from much of the NT. Instead of a Messianic idea centering on the death and resurrection of the Messiah, James describes a “national restoration” in which the 12 tribes (dispersed abroad) will be restored by an “avenger Messiah.” It would be wrong to pit these two Messianic ideals against each other; indeed, from the perspective of Ezek 37, a “national-restoration” Messiah and a “death-resurrection” Messiah are describing the same thing in different terms. But it is certainly important to explore how far a “national restoration” ideal does have an explicit place in the NT epistles.
