James 2:18 WHo is the mysterious Mr. Tis?

Mike A Porter (nikeo@juno.com)
Fri, 18 Apr 1997 01:17:08 PST

There is an old mystery I remember trying to figure out during my 2nd
year greek a few years back. We had many debates theologically and
grammatically, as to who is TIS referring to in James 2:18. We all
agreed, for the sake of debate, to call him Mr. Tis.

There are several theories out there as to who he is. My opinion is that
many are not grammatically balanced. That is, they have seemingly solid
grammatical arguments that eventually collapse.

Some argue that ALLA must be a strong adversative, and therefore, negate
TIS as an ally. Others soften ALLA to a rare confirmatory, and
establish TIS as an ally. Still others offer an awkward use of "James
meant this and recast TIS in his own words" .

I seem to have landed on the TIS as ally, since, if ALLA can be softened,
would do justice to the pronouns, TIS, and the wording of the verses.

Have you folks any thoughts?