graymouser

I would have thought, as someone with pretensions of being a scholar, that you wouldn't run around on message boards making clumsy attempts at calling people names. (And FWIW, a mouser is a cat, and the Gray Mouser is quite an interesting character.)

Prepositions can be important. For instance, in one of my favorite fantasy stories - "Lean Times in Lankhmar" by Fritz Leiber, one of the classic tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser - the Gods of Lankhmar are starkly different from the Gods in Lankhmar. More importantly, the genitive in Greek is not demonstrated by a preposition, even though you continue to insist that this somehow is relevant. A technically accurate translation would be to use "the Lord's brother" for Gal 1:19 and "brothers in [the] Lord" for Phil 1:14.

But they have nothing to do with each other because the use of τον αδελφον του κυριου of Galatians is to distinguish one James from another, while the εν κυριω of Philippians is to characterize των αδελφων. You don't even address that, you just wave your hands and talk about prepositions as if you didn't know Greek.

I read it when it was called The Jesus Puzzle, and found it interesting but remained agnostic, later deciding that mythicism is a trap. I have Jesus: Neither God Nor Man but haven't given it a solid read. If you insist I'll look at note 28 but I have no intent of flattering you by giving you a full rebuttal.

You seem to be incensed that someone is actually challenging your claims, which are unfortunately as flimsy as they come.

You keep talking about the epistles of James and Jude. James is dated as no earlier than the Gospel of Mark, and quite possibly later. Jude is dated as no earlier than the Gospel of John. Both are pseudonymous, and as such probably tell us less about the Christian church before 70 CE than the Gospel of Mark does. Yet you go after it like a dog after a bone - why?

And you keep using the term "the same phrase" which simply isn't true. No native speaker of Greek would have thought "τον αδελφον του κυριου" and "των αδελφων εν κυριω" are even basically the same phrase.

No. Again, 1 Cor 9:5 is being used to designate a subset of believers who have some special moral authority by calling them "οι αδελφοι του κυριου". Phil 1:14 is not using "εν κυριω" to differentiate a specific subset of believers - thus it is totally unrelated to either Gal 1:19 or 1 Cor 9:5 in sense.

αδελφος is the Greek word for brother, in the sense of sibling. This is not even vaguely controversial, and if you want to make a claim against every Greek lexicon ever published, that in the 1st century it only carried the specialized meaning of a fellow believer, then that's your burden to carry.

No, that was the specialized, secondary sense in which the epistle writers used the term αδελφος. As a computer programmer I use the term "function" to refer to a specific type of subroutine that I write, which returns a typed value. If I say the word "bodily function," I'm not using the specialized sense. Nothing about using a secondary sense of a word precludes someone from using it in the primary, everyday sense.

The whole reason we're having this debate is that it's quite obvious that Paul means something different by his use of the inflectional forms of αδελφος in Gal 1:19 and 1 Cor 9:5, as the sense Paul normally uses doesn't work here. It makes no sense to make "the brothers of the Lord" a special moral authority if "brothers" simply means all fellow-believers.

No, they wouldn't, and for very obvious reasons of context that you ignore while talking about ME bleating.

In the American justice system - at least in theory - one or two anomalies can bring down an otherwise powerful case. It's why we have a standard of "reasonable doubt." I don't like how the system works in practice, but in theory I think this is a very fine standard. For what it's worth, though, your theory is riddled in anomalies, and the base case is interesting but hardly "very powerful." You get even more bogged down in κατα σαρκα than you do in your problem of αδελφοι, but that's probably for a separate topic.

I've been posting here because I'm bothered by how much of a mythicist echo chamber this board can be, and as an atheist who formerly had strong mythicist sympathies (I have your books, after all), I think some of the misconceptions running rampant here are worth challenging.

But it's telling that you think that a theory with known and well-discussed holes in it, with some patchwork explanations, should carry the day. It certainly explains why you don't advance your theories in scholarship, where they'd be ripped to shreds on your handling of problems like Gal 1:19 and κατα σαρκα.

I took mythicism very seriously for a number of years. I never found a mythicist explanation that was fully intellectually satisfying, although I sort of took it "on faith" that the main character of the Gospels didn't exist. Now, on a review of the evidence, I've had to say that the mythicist case is the less probable by a long shot.

Sure, have fun. I have to say I'm a bit disappointed, though. I had thought more highly of you when I read The Jesus Puzzle, and I'd hoped that you'd have something a little better than all this vituperation to offer.

TedM

Thanks for the quote. Gnostic dialogue. It is of little historical value IMO other than to reflect gnostic thinking a century or more after James lived, though some snippets of truth may remain. The 'brother' comment reflects gnostic belief: Jesus was not material so he could not possibly have had biological brothers. It therefore is worthless as far as finding the truth is concerned.


I'm not an expert but last I read no expert would agree with you that Galatians was originally written in the 3rd century. This means you are way out of the box on this. Not saying you are wrong, but the experts seem fairly unanimous in saying that Galatians was the first work written by a real person, Paul, in the very earliest days of Christianity--ie around 40-50 AD.

As far as being reliable historically, the experts conclude that it is highly reliable whereas the gnostic text you quote above is highly unreliable.

I won't get into any more discussion with you on this because I think you have requirements that make progress impossible.

Solo

no problem

no problem

big problem: there is no scriptural tradition of James, the brother of Jesus as a head of the church. While Mark (6:3) and Matthew (13:55) record a brother of Jesus, Luke and John do not ! Luke unfortunately, is the author of Acts - so if Luke did not of a Jesus brother by the name of James, the James who emerges in 12:17 as the head of the church could not have been Jesus' brother.

another big problem: there is no early direct evidence from within patristic and other documents that James the Just was related by blood to Jesus. This tradition was not known to Gospel of Thomas (GT 12), to the author of the epistle of James, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and either of the Clements.

The only churchman in the second century TMK who apparently believed Jesus and James the Just (and Simeon of Jerusalem who succeded him) were related by blood was Hegesippus. Nothing of his work survived but we know of him from Eusebius, who himself described James the Just as 'one of the alleged brothers of Jesus' (H.E. 1.12). Origen knew the tradition but was skeptical that Paul' s brother of the Lord was actually meant to point to physical brotherhood of the two, but says, and this everyone seems to have overlooked in the debate (including myself - just found it in my old notes):

Paul, a genuine disciple of Jesus, says that he regarded this James as a brother of the Lord, not so much on account of their relationship by blood, or their being brought up together, as because of his virtue and doctrine. [Contra Celsum 1.47]

Obviously, Paul does not say that anywhere; this is Origen's interpretation, as the formulaic "brother of the Lord" did not seem to him as possibly having to do with kinship.

At any rate, this piece of evidence should put Ted's (and LOM's) arguments out of business. The idea that Paul would use "brother of the Lord" to denote kinship is not something that seems problematic only to modern "mythicists".

the big question is when the 'family connections' to Jesus started to bubble as monarchcal claims in the church.

this is probably because the "apostles" in the original function disappeared after the Jewish War, and the "brothers of the Lord" became the "apostles" of the gospels and Acts.

What evidence ? I ain't got nothing on the big guy. :wave:

Best,
Jiri

spin

Now tell us all, Teddest of Ms, where do you find Paul using αδελφος to indicate a biological relationship amid the more than 80 exemplars of the word in his letters? What you find is that Paul overburdeningly uses αδελφος to indicate not a biological connection, but a religious one. Your "most logically" has no basis whatsoever.

You're basing this assertion on what?? Paul mentions James as brother of the lord once and never again. We also find a generic plural and no specific names mentioned with it. And you don't know whether John was or was not a brother of the lord. What you do know is that brothers of the lord and apostles had elevated positions within the wider religious community, as per 1 Cor 9:5, enough to elicit some envy from Paul.

The fact that there is no James mentioned in Acts that is a brother of the lord works against the term being biological. It would have been a remarkable thing to qualify this James, yet Acts is silent. In fact, when the gospels mention Jesus' family rejecting him and being rejected by him, there is no knowledge that this James would pick himself up and become the head of the Jerusalem community. We have to wait for Hegesippus to give us the James in Gal. 1:19 as the biological brother of Jesus.

And that assertion is just as empty as when you first made it.

That wouldn't be conclusion driven bias, would it? You talk of Peter as though you know that Paul used Cephas to mean Peter. You can't conceive of the notion that such a term as "brother of the lord" could refer to a group within the Jerusalem church that did not include all the apostles. Given the few times that Paul uses the term, you don't have enough to make any generalizations such as that he wouldn't use it for John.

If there was such a group of elevated status in Jerusalem before the Jewish war as Paul indicates, then the war which had such devastating effects on the society could easily have put an end to the group.

Generalizations such as these of yours here based on obviously insufficient data are bound to get nowhere.

spin

That's how Paul generally uses the term αδελφος, ie as fellow-believers. Any special authority comes from them being αδελφοι του κυριου, ie they aren't ordinary believers but those members of the believing community indicated as του κυριου.

graymouser

Of course, Markan priority means that this was not an insertion. The James brother of the Lord in Gal 1:19 does not need to be James the Just in Acts - but it certainly lines up with James being listed among Jesus's brothers in Mark. We can speculate on why Luke and John are missing these links, but Luke 8:19-21 does refer specifically to the brothers of Jesus (in the sense of "mother and brothers").

It's an interesting question, but the trend seems to be that there was a tendency, as the Church moved toward a particular position in which Mary was exalted, that the Fathers were engaged in some degree of historical revisionism and introduced a good bit of the confusion intentionally. Let's not forget that Origen was a man who thought that sex was so sinful that he castrated himself; his objection seems tendentious. But it does stand in direct opposition to our Gospel texts, and I think we can safely say that if Matthew and Mark were edited after Origen it would have been to remove, not insert, the brothers of Jesus.

aa5874

Your statement is catergorically erroneous. Only in Galatians and ONLY once in the entire Canon is a character called the Lord's brother and that is Galatians 1.19--There is ZERO "attestation" in the Canon of an apostle called James the Lord's brother.

And further, Apologetic sources claimed James the Just is the same character in Galatians 1.19.

De Viris Illustribus 2 It is most astonishing that you DISCREDIT Apologetic sources, the very sources up on which you rely for your "history".

Again, once you introduce Origen as evidence that Jesus was human then Origen's statement about Jesus MUST, MUST be examined.

In "Against Celsus" 1, Origen claimed that Jesus was born of the Holy Ghost and that It was expected that people would make INVENTIONS because they did NOT believe the miraculous birth of Jesus.

Against Celsus 1.32 The HJ argument is just invalid. There was NO source to support an historical Jesus from the start.

HJers are using sources of a WELL-KNOWN character described as the Lord, Messiah, Savior and Son of God.

There is NO little known preacher in Galatians or the Gospels.

TedM

Ok spin. At the risk of getting caught up again with time consuming exchanges, I'll respond to your message..

My 'most logically' had nothing to do with how Paul uses the word in his other writings, though that is a worthy point to discuss, and I will. My 'most logically' had with what I said following using the term:

The above addresses the question of why Paul might have applied the phrase to James and not John or Cephas.

Ok, onto Paul's use elsewhere: First, the usage of the same word to mean a spiritual brother in Christ does not increase the likelihood that the word means a spiritual brother of the Lord. Are you suggesting that there is another word Paul would have used had he been referring to a biological relationship? The same word is used throughout the NT to mean a biological relationship. So, it is of no value to point out that Paul uses the same word to only mean a spiritual relationship.

What you are not pointing out is the difference in the phrase. In ALL of the other cases where Paul uses the term he is clearly referring to a spiritual relationship between fellow believers in Christ--that is the relationship they have to each other: 'our brethren', 'my brethren', or just 'brethren'. As far as the relationship to God, believers are not 'brothers', they are sons. God is father. So, the term 'brother of the Lord' is highly unusual and would not apply to a fellow believer. If it did Paul would have used it more than 2 times. So, the appeal to Paul's use of the word elsewhere is of no value. The reasonable conclusion is that Paul was using it to distinguish James from other fellow believers. But he also does this in 1 Cor. without making a clear distinction. He presupposes that his readers KNOW that he is referring to something other than a spiritual relationship between fellow believers.

Absent knowledge of a special group that were considered 'brothers' and not 'sons' of God, it is most reasonable to assume a biological relationship.


The context, spin. Paul just got done mentioning Cephas when he mentioned James, the Lord's brother. Why in the world would he have done that if not to make a distinction for James that was unnecessary for Cephas?:

We must conclude that Cephas was not the Lord's brother but James was. Yet, Cephas was one of the 3 pillars! And, from 1 Cor 9 we conclude that apostles and Cephas were not considered brothers of the Lord:

Who gets to be not a son but a brother of the Lord if not apostles and Cephas? This 'special group' was special indeed! But how? Wouldn't the most logical reason be the simplest explanation that distinguishes one group of believers from another: a biological relationship?



Something is missing in Acts. James appears out of nowhere, so the introduction has been lost to history. However, Acts does mention Jesus' brothers: Again, it doesn't say 'fellow brothers, or my brothers, or the brethren': They don't talk about the future leader at all. They talk about Peter a lot but nothing on James. One might think this is as intentional as Act not introducing James. Something was going on which clouds the issue as far as the gospels and Acts are concerned. But they all say Jesus had brothers, and a couple mention a James.

Or Josephus.


You have 'sons' of God, not brothers. You have Paul using the term for James and unspecified non-apostles. You have Paul clearly not applying the term to the other apostles, Cephas, or John. You have Jewish traditions in Hegessippus and Josephus that say Jesus had a brother named James. You have the gospels and Acts all saying Jesus had brothers, whether they were directly brothers or cousins. You have the reasonable idea that the first Church leader was related to their crucified leader--to carry on the torch. And, you have the common sense usage of 'brother' to mean a biological relationship.

Against that you have a theoretical group that didn't include the apostles or Cephas, who had advanced beyond being sons of God to being 'brothers of the Lord' in a spiritual sense, who were so spiritually special and important that Paul and everyone else failed to discuss their importance or even allude to it.

Big picture? They were relatives.

Solo

What are you saying ? It is not clear.

Best,
Jiri

aa5874

You are arguing from BOTH sides. On one side of the mouth you discredit the Jesus story and the other you conveniently accept your discredited sources as historically accurate.

The very gospels claimed Multiple times that Jesus was born of the Holy Ghost, see Mathew 1.18 and Luke 1, so it does NOT matter if anyone claimed to be the brother of Jesus.

In Josephus "Antiquities of the Jews" 19.1, Gaius the Emperor declared he was the BROTHER of Jupiter.

Antiquities of the Jews 19.1 It is the ACTUAL nature of Jesus that is significant just like it mattered with Jupiter.