Are the Catholic Epistles a canonically significant collection?: a status quaestionis

Should the Catholic Epistles be read in isolation from each other, taking their individual historical situations as the guiding principle for their interpretation, or rather, do their literary and theological character as a discrete canonical collection constitute the context within which they should be read and interpreted? Though the modern era has been dominated by the historical-critical approach to biblical interpretation that considers these texts in isolation from one another, a vibrant discussion arguing that the Catholic Epistles should be read as a discrete canonical collection has been developing. This article offers a status quaestionis by outlining recent proposals for reading the Catholic Epistles as a collection, specifically considering the work of Peter Davids, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, Carey Newman, David Nienhuis and Robert Wall, and Brevard Childs