RT Article
T1 The Urban and the Agrarian in the Letter of James
JF Journal of early Christian history
VO 3
IS 2
SP 4
OP 20
A1 Batten, Alicia J.
LA English
PB Taylor & Francis Group
YR 2013
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1690896310
AB Although the letter of James was written to an urban audience, it incorporates examples from nature and agricultural motifs, such as springs and trees (3:11-12), field labourers and harvesters (5:4), and the patient farmer (5:7) who bears similarity to the steadfast Job (5:11) and prayerful Elijah (5:17-18), into the text. This article argues that this agrarian imagery is a literary trope—sometimes subtle and at other times obvious—that serves as a contrast to negative phenomena associated with the city. The opposition apparent in James coheres with the tendency among Graeco-Roman writers to contrast the rural/natural with the urban/artificial. Such a pattern of images supports some of the letter's moral directives.
K1 Graeco-Roman
K1 James
K1 moral teaching
K1 Rural
K1 Urban
DO 10.1080/2222582X.2013.11877281