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by Darian R. Lockett (Author)
Rather than reading the Catholic Epistles in isolation from each other--understanding their individual historical situations as the single, determinative context for their interpretation--this study argues that a proper understanding of these seven letters must equally attend to their collection and placement within the New Testament canon. Resisting the judgment of much of historical-critical analysis of the New Testament, namely, that the concept of canon actually obscures the meaning of these texts, it is the canonical process by which the texts were composed, redacted, collected, arranged, and fixed in a final canonical form that constitutes a necessary interpretive context for these seven letters. This study argues that through reception history and paratextual and compositional evidence one can discern a collection consciousness within the Catholic Epistles such that they should be read and interpreted as an intentional, discrete canonical sub-collection set within the New Testament. Furthermore, the work argues that such collection consciousness, though not necessarily in the preview of the original authors (being perhaps unforeseen, yet not unintended), is neither anachronistic to the meaning of the letters nor antagonistic to their composition.
Author Biography
Darian Lockett (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is Associate Professor of New Testament at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. He is author of Purity and Worldview in the Epistle of James (2008), An Introduction to the Catholic Epistles (2011), Understanding Biblical Theology (2012), and Letters from the Pillar Apostles: The Formation of the Catholic Epistles as a Canonical Collection (Pickwick, 2017). He regularly teaches in the areas of biblical theology, Greek exegesis, and the Catholic epistles.
