ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Passage

James 3.9

Book: James · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV

7. For every kind of beasts and birds, of creeping things and things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed by mankind. 8. But the tongue can no man tame; it is a restless evil, it is full of deadly poison.

9. Therewith bless we the Lord and Father; and therewith curse we men, who are made after the likeness of God:

  1. out of the same mouth cometh forth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. 11. Doth the fountain send forth from the same opening sweet water and bitter? (James 3:7-11, ASV)
WEB

7. For every kind of animal, bird, creeping thing, and sea creature, is tamed, and has been tamed by mankind; 8. but nobody can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

9. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the image of God.

  1. Out of the same mouth comes blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. 11. Does a spring send out from the same opening fresh and bitter water? (James 3:7-11, WEB)
KJV

7. For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: kind: Gr. nature mankind: Gr. nature of man 8. But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

9. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.

  1. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. 11. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? place: or, hole (James 3:7-11, KJV)
YLT

7. For every nature, both of beasts and of fowls, both of creeping things and things of the sea, is subdued, and hath been subdued, by the human nature, 8. and the tongue no one of men is able to subdue, [it is] an unruly evil, full of deadly poison,

9. with it we do bless the God and Father, and with it we do curse the men made according to the similitude of God;

  1. out of the same mouth doth come forth blessing and cursing; it doth not need, my brethren, these things so to happen; 11. doth the fountain out of the same opening pour forth the sweet and the bitter? (James 3:7-11, YLT)

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Setting

  • Speaker: James (Iakōbos), identified by the great majority of interpreters as the brother of Jesus (Galatians 1:19; Mark 6:3), leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15:13; Acts 21:18). He introduces himself simply as "a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ" (James 1:1), never as a relative.
  • Audience: Jewish believers outside Palestine, addressed as "the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad" (James 1:1). The congregations meet in a synagōgē (James 2:2) and include both poor members and wealthy visitors.
  • Location: Jerusalem, from which James led the mother church.
  • Time period: Date disputed. An early date (c. AD 44-49) would make this the earliest surviving Christian writing; a later one places it before James's death, which Josephus dates to AD 62 (Antiquities 20.200). The letter shows no awareness of the Gentile-circumcision controversy settled in Acts 15, which many take as evidence for the early date.

Theological reading

"With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God."

The argument is from the image, and it is doing real work. James grounds the prohibition on cursing people in the fact that human beings are made kath' homoiōsin theou, according to the likeness of God, which is the Septuagint's wording at Genesis 1:26. The reasoning is that an insult aimed at a person lands on the one whose likeness the person bears.

Present tense, not past. Gegonotas, a perfect participle: humans have been made and remain in that likeness. James wrote after the fall and applies the image-language to fallen people without qualification, which is a significant datum in the debate over whether the imago Dei was lost or defaced by the fall. Compare Genesis 9:6, which grounds the prohibition on murder in the image, also after the fall. See Imago Dei.

The inconsistency is the point. "From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way." James follows with three impossibilities from nature: a spring producing both fresh and bitter water, a fig tree bearing olives, salt water yielding fresh (verses 11-12). The natural world does not do this; only human speech does.

Why the verse carries apologetic weight. It is one of the clearest New Testament statements that human dignity is grounded in the image of God rather than in capacity, status, or usefulness, and it is regularly cited in Christian arguments about human worth. See Biblical Dignity.

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:

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.