ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Passage

James 2.19

Book: James · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV

17. Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. 18. Yea, a man will say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith apart from thy works, and I by my works will show thee my faith.

19. Thou believest that God is one; thou doest well: the demons also believe, and shudder.

  1. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith apart from works is barren? 21. Was not Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar? (James 2:17-21, ASV)
WEB

17. Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself. 18. Yes, a man will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without works, and I by my works will show you my faith.

19. You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe, and shudder.

  1. But do you want to know, vain man, that faith apart from works is dead? 21. Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? (James 2:17-21, WEB)
KJV

17. Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. alone: Gr. by itself 18. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. without: some copies read, by

19. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

  1. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? 21. Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? (James 2:17-21, KJV)
YLT

17. so also the faith, if it may not have works, is dead by itself. 18. But say may some one, Thou hast faith, and I have works, shew me thy faith out of thy works, and I will shew thee out of my works my faith:

19. thou, thou dost believe that God is one; thou dost well, and the demons believe, and they shudder!

  1. And dost thou wish to know, O vain man, that the faith apart from the works is dead? 21. Abraham our father, was not he declared righteous out of works, having brought up Isaac his son upon the altar? (James 2:17-21, YLT)

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Setting

  • Speaker: James
  • Audience: the twelve tribes scattered abroad
  • Location: traditionally Jerusalem
  • Time period: commonly dated to the 40s or early 60s AD; the earliest New Testament document on some reconstructions

Theological reading

Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. The sentence is the sharpest thing in the New Testament on the nature of saving faith, and its force comes from the example chosen.

The proposition named is the Shema, the confession that God is one, which is the central affirmation of Israel's faith and the least controversial thing a first-century Jewish believer could assert. James does not mock it; he says of it that you do well. Then he observes that the demons hold it too, and that their assent is accompanied by an emotional response, phrissousin, they shudder or their hair stands up, which is stronger than anything the complacent reader is offering.

The argument is therefore not that doctrine is unimportant, which would be a strange thing to derive from a verse whose example is a correct doctrinal confession. It is that propositional assent, even correct assent accompanied by real feeling, is not by itself what the New Testament means by faith. The demons are the ideal counterexample precisely because their theology is orthodox and their emotional response is genuine.

This bears on the relationship between James and Paul without settling it. James is contesting a specific notion of faith, described in the immediate context as saying to a hungry person be warmed and filled while giving nothing, and Paul's pistis is nowhere characterised as bare assent. The traditional Protestant framing distinguishes assent, knowledge, and trust, and takes James to be denying that the first two suffice; that framing is later than the text but is not foreign to it.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

People:

Lexicon:

Passages:

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

  • ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
  • WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
  • KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
  • YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.