Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,” James 1:2  NASB

Joy – What is joy?  According to the ancient Greeks, joy is the unbridled experience of self-being, the manifestation of the fullness of who we are as the culmination of our existence.  It is that feeling that arises when we no longer are constrained by any outside or inside inhibiting force, when we are truly and completely ourselves. Greek philosophy taught that this experience was the opposite of desire because desire imposes itself upon us as a demand for something we presently lack.  Joy fills.  Desire yearns.

It’s not difficult to see how this basic idea is extended to words like “rejoice” and “make merry.”  The idea of joy is manifested in many emotional expressions including the experience of renouncing or giving up something.  Even tears can be associated with joy.

Greek philosophy connected joy with mental reflection.  In many cases, Plato uses chará  (joy) and hēdonḗ (pleasure) as virtually interchangeable, associating the reflective life with the highest pleasure.  By the time of Aristotle, chará is replaced by hēdonḗ.  This should not lead us to conclude that the Greeks viewed joy solely in terms of sensual pleasures, as the word hēdonḗmight suggest (e.g., hedonism).  Greek philosophy was overwhelmingly a philosophy of rationality and cognition.  The highest pleasure was the contemplation of the Good and the highest experience (joy) was an intellectual apprehension of the Beautiful. While later schools of thought regarded all emotional experiences as suspect, the connection between ultimate unity of Being and human joy remained, even though stripped of its emotional expression.  This bifurcation is important.   Usually, the religious expression and experience of joy is anchored in emotion.  For example, even in the Greek religions, joy is directly connected with religious festivals, especially those religious experiences that anticipate a world-savior, eschatological end to human suffering.  This Greek idea was in circulation when Yeshua was born.  But the Greek philosophical idea of joy is not primarily emotional. It is pure contemplation, freed from any emotional impingement.  Joy is the completion of reason.

What this means is that the typical religious expressions of joy, found in festival and ecstatic experience, are rationally philosophically defective.  A chasm is created.  On one side is pure reason, complete in itself, without emotional expression.  On the other side is the human involvement in religion, its rites and rituals and its appeal to emotional connection.  This dichotomy affects all Western development so that, centuries after Plato, Kant can pen a thesis entitled, “Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone.”

The Hebrew idea of joy has a different foundation.[1]  First, the Hebrew words associated with joy are primarily associated with personal expression in festival community.  That is to say, joy involves the whole person, not simply the cognitive function.  “Joy is not just inward. It has a cause and finds expression. It thus aims at sharing, especially as festal joy. It is a disposition of the whole man.”^[2]The whole person is intimately connected to the community so that the experience of joy overflows from community to person and from person to community.  One does not fully exist without the other.  In addition, joy is associated with life within the community.  For example:

The law is an object in Ps. 119:14, the word of God in Jer. 15:16. Joy is a reward for faithfulness to the law in Is. 65:13–14. There is joy at weddings (Jer. 25:10) and at harvest (Is. 9:2). God himself rejoices (Is. 65:19), and thanksgiving demands joy (Dt. 16:13ff.). Feasts offer occasions for joy before God (Dt. 2:7). Hymnal jubilation expresses devotion to God (Joel 2:21). In accordance with its inner intention, OT joy culminates in eschatology.^[3]

What this means is that the socio/political connection to joy is never lost in Hebrew thought.  While the Greek idea of chará leads to reflective self-actualization, the Hebrew view leads to kingdom.  Ultimate joy, experienced personally and communally, can only occur when the right socio/political environment is established, namely, the supremacy of Israel and its God.  Every other experience of joy, no matter how inspiring, is deficient because it has not yet concluded in the Kingdom.  The fullest expression of joy will only be a reality in the ‘olam ha’ba.  Until then, all joy is laced with longing.  Consider the sayings of the rabbis: “Joy in this world is not perfect; but in the future our joy will be perfect,” Pesikta de Rab Kahana, 29 (189a b)^[4]

This introductory lesson in the difference between Greek joy and Hebrew joy should cause us to reconsider how we read texts like James 1:2.  Perhaps our assumptions about joy as mental bliss or emotional fulfillment aren’t quite in line with the socio-political thinking of the first century Jews.  Perhaps we need to realize that the text wasn’t written to us and wasn’t written for us, and we are the ones who need to make adjustments.

Note:  In a few days I will be lecturing on the topic in much greater detail at the Virginia Beach conference.  All are welcome to come joyfully.

Topical Index: chará, hēdonḗ, joy, James 1:2

[1]The usual Hebrew equivalent is שׂמח, שִׂמְחָה , cf. חדהand terms for the expression of joy רנן, גיל , שׂושׂ , עלץ , etc. In the Ps. שׂמחis translated by εὐφραίνομαι.  See Vol. 9: Theological dictionary of the New Testament. 1964- (G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley & G. Friedrich, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (362–363). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

^[2]Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament(363). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.

^[3]Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament(1299). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.

^[4]Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament(365). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.