So Much for Straw || A Blog about the Epistle of James

William R. Baker, “Who’s your daddy? Gendered birth images in the soteriology of the Epistle of James (1:14-15, 18, 21),” EQ 79.3 (2007), 195–207.

In this article, Baker claims that the birth images in 1:14–15, 18, 21, provide a framework for understanding soteriology in James. “In salvation the father (God) conceives in his submissive wife (the unsaved person) the newborn child (the saved believer)” 196-97).

Baker first points to 14–15, where the birth allegory presents the opposite of salvation.  Drawing on the seductress of Proverbs 5 and 7, James tells a story of a seductress name Desire (which is, of course, feminine in the Greek) who beds the adulterous man. Their daughter is Sin (also feminine), who will herself beget Death.

These birth images, says Baker, derive from Philo who maintains the Platonic division of rational and irrational facets of the person. Desire and pleasure are both feminine aspects of man, and, like Eve, threaten the person’s ability to make rational decisions. Femininity, then, is evil.

The positive birth image is found in 18 and 21, wherein God implants his DNA into the submissive (feminine) will of the believer. Baker’s distinctions become a bit cloudy on this point when he claims that submission is a feminine act, opposed to masculine and therefore sinful self-assertion.  Femininity in 14–15, however, is portrayed as evil, so one wonders about the validity of masculine/feminine categories as determinants for salvation.

The “word of truth” in verse 18 is the implanted DNA—a metaphor he employs freely—found in every Christian.  Accepting the implanted word (21) is simply living in accordance with the divine DNA bestowed at the moment of conception between God and will.

In conclusion, Baker recommends reading the entire letter in light of the birth allegory of 1:13–14, 18, 21, with particular emphasis on viewing the Word as congenital to the believer and on the importance of continued submission to God’s will.  Applying the notion of gendered soteriology to the entire letter is, in my opinion, strenuous.  Additionally, I wonder about the validity of the DNA metaphor in light of Greco-Roman understandings of self-identity.