Searching for the Holy Spirit in the epistle of James: Is 'wisdom' equivalent?

Abstract

The search for the Holy Spirit in James often stops with Kirk's article 'The Meaning of Wisdom in James: An Examination of a Hypothesis' published in 1969, which contends that the way in which James uses wisdom 'is more or less interchangeable with that in which other writers of the New Testament use the concept of the Holy Spirit.' This paper examines Kirk's position and arguments closely as a window into the question of whether wisdom in James should be read as equivalent to the Holy Spirit elsewhere in the NT. The basic conclusion is that Kirk (followed by Davids) has made the case for the importance of Jewish wisdom theology to James but his tantalising claims have too often not been read in the light of his sobering conclusions. At times, he has overlooked important correspondence to the Jesus tradition and has made too much of correspondences to Pauline writings. James' orientation toward wisdom is without regard to the Holy Spirit as developed in Paul or elsewhere in the New Testament. It should be read as aligning somewhere between Septuagintal wisdom literature and the Jesus tradition.