You get the point. Nobody was literally wondering how electing either Obama or McCain was going to help Joe the Plumber as an individual. The target was always: working class people like Joe the Plumber. This man was being treated as a surrogate or a representative of an entire class.
What I am wondering is whether James the Just might not be a surrogate or a representative for an entire class of people, as well, in his brief but shining appearance in the gospel of Thomas:
As a statement about James, the last clause comes off as somewhat absurd. I admit, my default way of reading this text has long been to assume that James himself is the topic of discussion; but now I have a different idea, because this sort of thing was a trope that I have managed to stumble upon a time or two before finally taking it seriously and seeking it out deliberately, consulting some commentaries and the like (of which Gathercole's proved the most useful in this respect):
2 Baruch 15.7: 7 And as regards what you said regarding the just, that on account of them has this world come, so also again that which is to come shall come on their account.
4 Esdras 6.55-59: 55 “All this I have spoken before you, O Lord, because you have said that it was for us that you created this world. 56 As for the other nations which have descended from Adam, you have said that they are nothing, and that they are like spittle, and you have compared their abundance to a drop from a bucket. 57 And now, O Lord, behold, these nations, which are reputed as nothing, domineer over us and devour us. 58 But we, you people whom you have called your firstborn, only begotten, zealous for you, and most dear, have been given into their hands. 59 If the world has indeed been created for us, why do we not possess our world as an inheritance? How long will this be so?” / 55 Haec autem omnia dixi coram te, Domine, quoniam dixisti quia propter nos creasti primogenitum saeculum. 56 residuas autem gentes ab Adam natas dixisti eas nihil esse, et quoniam salivae adsimilatae sunt, et sicut stillicidium de vaso similasti abundantiam eorum. 57 et nunc, Domine, ecce istae gentes quae in nihilum deputatae sunt dominari nostri et devorare nos. 58 nos autem populus tuus quem vocasti primogenitum, unigenitum, aemulatorem, carissimum, traditi sumus in manibus eorum. 59 et si propter nos creatum est saeculum, quare non hereditatem possidemus nostrum saeculum? usquequo haec?
4 Esdras 7.11: 11 “For I made the world for their sake, and when Adam transgressed my statutes what had been made was judged.”
Talmud, Sanhedrin 98b: 98b .... Rav says, “The world was created only for the sake of David, by virtue of his merit.” And Shmuel says, “It was created by virtue of the merit of Moses.” And Rabbi Yoḥanan says, “It was created by virtue of the merit of the Messiah.” ....
Sifre Deuteronomy 47.7 (on Deuteronomy 11.21): 7 Variantly, “as the days of the heavens upon the earth.” [The just] will live and endure forever and ever. And thus is it written, “For as the new heavens and the new earth that I will make will remain before Me, says the L-rd,” and the rest (= Isaiah 66.22). Now does this not follow a fortiori, namely, if the heavens and the earth, which were created only for the honor of the righteous, will live and endure forever, how much more so the righteous themselves, for whose sake the world was created?
Sifre Deuteronomy 47.9a (on Deuteronomy 11.21): 9a R. Yehoshua b. Karchah says, “‘A generation goes and a generation comes, and the earth stands forever’ (= Ecclesiastes 1.4). What was created for what? The earth for the generation. It should be written, thus, ‘The earth goes and the earth comes, and the generation stands forever!’”
Sometimes it is explicitly "the just" (or "the righteous") for whom the world was created; at other times it is the people of God, which can often amount to the same thing, since "the just" are those who have followed God's precepts and will get to inhabit the new heaven and new earth in the age to come. The rabbis playfully nominated individual figures (David, Moses, the Messiah), and this little game strikes me less as a way of suggesting that the individual so named was literally the reason for the creation of the world than as a way of suggesting that the individual so named was simply the best representative, in the mind of the rabbi proposing him, of the class of people known as "the just," or the best surrogate for the people of Israel as a whole. I could be wrong about that, and maybe it is Moses or David who are specifically in view, but, even if so, it remains the case that "the just" as a collective group are often put forward as the reason for the earth having been created.
So perhaps James the Just is not being nominated in the gospel of Thomas because he is James, any more than Joe the Plumber rose to prominence because he is Joe. Perhaps, rather, James is being nominated because he is so righteous that he can even be called "the Just," and is thus perceived to be a good representative for just people as a class, much in the same way that Joe became famous because he was a plumber (who happened to be in the right place at the right time, of course), and was thus considered a good representative of working Americans.
If this reading is correct, then the sense would be that the world was created for the sort of person for whom James the Just makes a very good surrogate. It would not make him a Messiah figure or a demigod or an archangel or something; it would just make him a good example of a particular class of people.
What do you think? Is that possible? (I almost hope that there is a fatal flaw in this reasoning, since I have had some ideas percolating which are helped along, at the very least, by James the Just being considered in some circles to be almost a divine figure; if those ideas have to be put to rest, though, so be it.)
Ben.