Wisdom in James: An Argument for the Discourse Theme

Abstract

There are many debates in the field of interpreting the book of James and there is no consensus among scholars. Some propose that this book is a paraenesis, whereas others argue for its inner coherence. On the basis of these disagreements, however, different scholars propose diverse themes for this book. This work attempts to view the book of Jams has a linguistic approach to identify its cohesion and its discourse theme. After providing a brief introduction to the understanding of cohesion based on the model of Systemic Functional Linguistics, this thesis represents a model of discourse analysis, seeking for the cohesion in this book and arguing that wisdom is the discourse theme of James through an analysis of the cohesive ties between James 3:13-18 and the rest of the discourses.