Joseph G. Allen, “God’s λόγος in James and Early Judaism,” NovT 67 (2025), 368.
[I]t is difficult to read James 1:18 independently of its allusions to God’s creation of the world. James’s allusions to Genesis 1 in chapter 3 indicate that he is familiar with this portion of Scripture, and James has a penchant for grounding his ethical exhortation in the nature of the created order and humanity’s responsibility as creatures. It is not surprising, then, that James 1:18 uses creation language. There are several indications of this: (1) the use of the phrase “Father of Lights” to evoke God’s creation of the stars; (2) the use of the verb ἀποκυέω, which is used by Philo (Ebr. 30, ἀπεκύησε) and Poimandres 9 (ἀπεκύησε λόγῳ), with the latter using this term to describe God’s creative speech; (3) the use of the noun κτίσμα, which describes what has been created by God; (4) the use of the phrase “creation-face” (τὸ πρόσωπον τῆς γενέσεως) in 1:23, in what appears to be a reference back to these verses; and (5) the use of the instrumental dative, which configures the λόγος as a means of God’s creative action. The creational overtones in this chapter, then, are strong, and warrant reading the λόγος ἀληθείας as an allusion to God’s creation by his word.
The Amateur Exegete 