Good stuff – those who claim to be Christian and do not show fruit are not. And I think we need more Romans 6 in any discussion of faith and “works.” This isn’t Paul and James in opposition … they say the same or compatible things.

Strong stuff. I’m wondering why this series has so few posts. Do people not want to face the implicatioins of James. Do they find the newer, trendier topics more interesting than stuffy old James? I can’t quite figure it out. I have to admit that it takes discipline for me to read A Brother’s Wisdom when I’m tired and I really want to read about the New Perspective on Paul or the Power of With.

peelingdragonskin.wordpress.com
John M.-
I agree. I would love to see more discussion here. Some questions were asked at A Brother’s Wisdom 45. I tried to answer one and asked another about the translation of v. 14 and the omission of the Greek negative “mh” by all translations. I would still like to see others’ thoughts, especially since punctuation (such as question marks) was not in the Greek text.
Does the syntax require that it be translated as a question?
Here is my question from that comment:
In looking at verse 14, the translators seem to leave out the “me (mh)” negative. Seems like the following translation might also work: “Such faith cannot save him.”

A straight forward statement “Such faith cannot save him” is more direct and unequivocal than the (rhetorical) question “Can such faith save him?”
I am not a Greek scholar – so I don’t know the answer – but it is a great question. Perhaps someone will answer.

RJS-
It also raises the related question of whether students and pastors and even scholars are too dependent on the punctuation in the Nestle-Aland Greek text.
By the way, as many here know, the Greek text at zhubert.com had to be removed for copyright reasons. This screams for the creation of an open source, copyright restriction free, online text for people to use, like the folks who set up the zhubert site.
If anyone wants to work on a project like this, leave a comment here:
http://peelingdragonskin.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/who-wants-to-create-an-open-source-online-greek-new-testament/
If every Greek class took a chapter, we could have an excellent text up in a few months, and then it would only get better over time.

http://peelingdragonskin.wordpress.com/
I looked up the answer to my own question: the negative “me” introduces a question that expects a negative answer. Mounce thinks that this should be clearly indicated in the translation. So applying that here, he would suggest something like, “Such a faith cannot save him, can it?”
Seems like another way to put it is that in the Greek, the question is more strongly rhetorical than English can convey.