Franz Mußner’s Interpretation of the Epistle of James and Its Impact on Jewish-Christian Dialogue

Abstract

One of the protagonists of Jewish-Christian dialogue in Germany was the late Franz Mußner (1916–2016), who, in 1985, was awarded for his contribution to this field with the Buber-Rosenzweig Medal. According to his own self-reflection, he owed his »discovery« of Judaism to his work on the commentary to the Epistle of James (1964, 67.75.81.87). The motto of Mußner’s commentary is a dictum of Pope Pius XII: »We Christians are also Jews.« These programmatic words of the commentary oppose every strict demarcation and confrontation between Jews and Christians and demand a new questioning of Christian identity, which leads us to the question: What makes Mußner’s commentary on James so important for the Jewish-Christian dialogue? This article shows that Mußner discovered a Jewish (as well as a Christian) profile of James on the basis of a theological closeness between the author of James and Jesus of the Gospels (he also drew a physical closeness between the author of the letter and Jesus). According to Mußner, this closeness was reflected in words about poor people, the image of God, faith, and justification of people.

Keywords

• jewish-christian dialogue
• epistle of james
• lord’s brother
• franz mußner
• martin luther
• roots
• jewishness