James B. Adamson (1924–2000)

The least well written of the bunch so far: awkward phrases, at times unclear connections, and for me dances around a little too much. Go ahead and give a firm opinion. But when he does give a firm opinion, like his insistence that an emendation is in store in 1:14 without any textual support or without any theological warrant, Adamson comes across as nit-picky, if not a little arrogant. This tone appears off and on throughout the commentary. He does offer, at times, more defense of positions than Davis, but overall, I liked this less.… (mehr)

The least well written of the bunch so far: awkward phrases, at times unclear connections, and for me dances around a little too much. Go ahead and give a firm opinion. But when he does give a firm opinion, like his insistence that an emendation is in store in 1:14 without any textual support or without any theological warrant, Adamson comes across as nit-picky, if not a little arrogant. This tone appears off and on throughout the commentary. He does offer, at times, more defense of positions than Davis, but overall, I liked this less.… (mehr)

The best thing about Adamson is the number of excurses he has that discuss matters in significant detail that others simply give a passing reference (e.g. a few pages on the word "all" in "all joy" in 1:2). Other than these, I did not find the commentary very valuable, except at times.

Other than that, Adamson shows himself willing and ready to emend the text without any textual variant support. I think this is an unwarranted practice and it makes me skeptical of him. Second, he refers a little too often to comparisons between James and Judaism--something James was saved out of.

Compared w/ Martin, Blomberg and Davids, this gets rank 4.… (mehr)