Steven Carr

Perhaps as the three most important disciples were called Peter, James, and John, a James had to be found to replace the James who died.

dogsgod

Acts 12:2 He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. appears to be an interpolation for a number of reasons. The storyline reads as if the line isn't even there and makes more sense without it as the removal of it takes away the awkwardness, such as the awkward questions as to whom this James is that is referred to after just reading James is supposedly killed. The story is not about James, it is about Peter, and it is odd that only a single line would be given to tell of James' death within a story about Peter's arrest and escape from prison, as if Peter's arrest is far more significant than the actual killing of James. Anyone can read the story with the line in and then with the line removed and judge for themselves.

Doug Shaver

Lay people are entitled to the scholarly consensus for their default. For the scholars it's a bit more complicated, but I wonder if you're not confusing "default" with "consensus."

avi

Yes, I probably am confounding the two.

I define default, perhaps idiosyncratically, as:
action to be taken in the absence of any overriding factor. Thus the default action, upon encountering a door with a handle that rotates, (to permit entry to an adjacent chamber,) is to grip the handle, and turn the knob. In this example, the consensus opinion corresponds precisely to the default setting. There are some situations where one wishes to gain entry to the adjacent chamber, without wasting time rotating the knob. A battering ram generally suffices for this scenario.

In addressing the issue of who influenced whom, we must acknowledge unfortunate ignorance, for we have inadequate data to resolve the issue of Paul's influence on Mark, or vice-versa, to everyone's satisfaction. It is therefore difficult to establish a default perspective that will prove satisfactory to everyone, or even to a modest majority.

It would appear, upon casual inspection, that a majority of scholars, a consensus, favors the notion that Paul preceded and influenced Mark. I do not share that conviction, therefore, for me, and in my opinion, the default position in this debate, ought to be based upon the available evidence--> in this particular argument: third century manuscripts. I do not subscribe to the hypothesis that Paul's writings preceded Mark's efforts, notwithstanding the widely affirmed consensus that they were indeed antecedent.

avi

andrewcriddle

Even if we ignore Acts as evidence it seems likely that the James in Galatians 2:12, who discourages Peter from eating with Gentiles, is James the brother of Jesus, whom other sources describe as zealous for the Jewish Law.

If James the pillar is James the son of Zebedee brother of John, then Paul first refers to James the brother of Jesus (1:19) then to James the brother of John (2:9) then goes back to James the brother of Jesus (2:12) without making it clear what he is doing.

Andrew Criddle

avi

Apologies in advance, Andrew, if this comment/question is too far afield, i.e. off topic.

Why wouldn't we imagine Jesus being EVEN MORE "zealous for the Jewish Law"? He was a rabbi, right???

Can we genuinely imagine a Jewish rabbi, not only IGNORING Jewish law, but flaunting it, by eating with Gentiles, and denying the importance of Circumcision, as Paul is supposed to have argued?

Umm, wow, here's another "off-topic" comment/question. Perhaps it is simpler to veer away from the main point....

But, Andrew, doesn't it seem a tad peculiar to you, that there should be so much confusion here, about James? Let us imagine ourselves, back in the days of Nicea conference. While the emphasis may well have been on Arius, at least SOME of the discussion was focused on another topic of great importance: establishment of the canon, the authorized documents/texts to be included in the newly organized Christian Church.

I think Athanasius was just a young guy, a neophyte, at the time of that conference, but Eusebius and others, had collected a list of approved documents.

So, what I wish to suggest is then, that there were folks back then, who were engaged in discussing these issues, and surely, somewhere along the line, maybe before, or during, or just after Constantine, somebody had realized that the collection of texts, including all of the books which today we refer to as the New Testament, had problems, ambiguities, contradictions, and so on. This business with the vague and imprecise reference to James, brother, or friend, or apostle, or....whatever, seems to me at least, to represent a signpost, poorly cemented perhaps, maybe even flapping a bit in the wind, but an indicator, nonetheless, of some serious meddling with the original documents. Quite possibly, the meddlers had the best of intentions, trying to reconcile all the discrepancies and lapses, and errors, so that the final version would be as accurate as possible. But, at least to me, this muddled elaboration of James, is characteristic of a deficient original script.

Thus, whether or not "Paul"'s writing preceded or followed "Mark"'s, there remains a serious problem for those with a belief in a historical Jesus--can one accept Paul's description of James? If so, which description is the accurate one?

avi

Toto

avi - are you aware of Eisenmann's James the Brother of Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk)?

It was the subject of some interest when it first came out, but has not held up very well, in part because Eisenmann staked his theory on a certain dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls that can't be supported very well. He also has some fanciful reading of Christian literature, as I recall.

The part of his theory that did make some sense was the idea that James was an early leader of the church (or perhaps a Jewish sect that preceded what would become Christianity), who was written out of the record. But this happened fairly early in church history, so there are only a few clues here and there.

aa5874

IF we use Papias as evidence then James the bishop was not the brother of the Lord Jesus, offspring of the Holy Ghost.

avi

Thank you very much, Toto, for this reference, no, I was unaware of its existence.

I believe that there are TWO records: the record of the Christian Church, as recorded by many witnesses/participants, and the original record, i.e. the fictional writings not in our possession, which represent (in my opinion) second century, post Bar Kokhba creative exercises. The Wiki article states that Jewish Christians did not participate in that conflict against the Romans, thus contradicting my claim, but I am unaware of the evidence employed by the authors of this article, which enables them to assert so confidently, that Christianity was already extant in CE 130. Maybe James was one of the leaders of that group, cited by Wiki?

I have many doubts about the late second century author, Irenaeus. As far as I can determine, he alone provides reference to "Papias", who is supposed to have arrived here on planet Earth about the year 70CE. We possess no surviving documents from Papias. Even assuming we were to believe Irenaeus, and I do not, any of the several James' under discussion, would have been dead already, three decades before Papias could have made their acquaintance.

Isn't that one of the main claims of the organized Roman Church: persecution of the Patristic leaders? So, are we to believe that James, (younger) brother of Jesus, was still living 60 years after Jesus' death? Not only was this James fellow hearty and strong, he must have also had a substantial sum of money, to have been able to travel to Turkey, to visit with Papias: a wild scenario, even without Roman persecution. How would an elderly, frail, octogenarian James have been able to know of the existence of the youngster, Papias? The internet was only in its infancy, in those days.

avi

Solo

Hi Andrew,
I do not know that it is an 'obvious' or 'straightforward'
reading. I would grant you that it is the traditional interpretation based on the patristic view of the church founding.

According to that view, the church was founded miraculously in a city where the leader of the group was executed by the authorities shortly before by a popular demand. How a new sect, which appears to have relied for a material support from the community could even begin to operate in such an environment, let alone organize missions far afield so that within a couple of years there existed different strands of attitudes to it in the Diaspora, is a complete mystery.

If one accepts the traditional dating, which has Paul converting within say three years of the crucifixion, then it is pretty much a given that James' congregation preceded the crucifixion and adopted the followers of Jesus. The 'dancing around' the James'es, i.e. the confusion about their identity, happened IMHO because the church opted to suppress the fact of adoption, in order to a) downplay and minimize the Jewish origins of the movement, b) diminish the messianic figure of James and his role as the patron of a nascent Jesus cult. So, all sorts of scenarios were devised to obscure James' primacy, and its independent origin.

This operation left all sorts of telling signs. First, there are the internal inconsistencies of Galatians. Paul says (in 2:2) that he went to Jerusalem "by revelation". Obviously, he writes some time after he had his revelation, and he adjusts it to the achieved effect of his mission, i.e. laying out his doctrine before those who were "reputed to be something" in the church. But this is a difficult piece of information given that Paul, it is asserted by Gal 1:18-24, visited with the James' people in Jerusalem previously and spent some time with one of the chief apostolic figures, Cephas. It is incomprehensible, that if Paul had already visited the church, that he would have had to rely on "reputation" in making his second contact, and that apart from considering the failure of his revelation to supply the names of the principals to spare Paul having to rely on the word of mere "men". In this light, it is not difficult to see why Tertullian knows nothing of the first visit in the Galatians, as he would have doubtless wxtended Marcion's 'mutilations' of the text (in C.M. Book V.) by the expunged the reference to James as the Lord's brother.

To my mind, the most 'straightforward' and 'obvious' reading of Gal 2:10, is that the 'poor' are an identical reference to Rom 15:26, and 15:31. I am led to believe on the basis of this reference that Paul's revelation was to make the offer to "the saints" directly, but having been denied access to them, settled for an audience with the "so-called" pillars who appear to be ....well, just (like Paul would have like to have been, i.e. recognized) missionaries for the James the Just's church of the messianic ecstatics at Jerusalem.

In this light, James of Gal 2:12 is not the James of 2:9.
The 'tines apo Iakwbou' identifies James as a singular authority in the church, not merely someone who was a reputed stalwart. If you read this verse next to gThomas 12, it becomes clear why Paul does not bother distinguishing the two James'es. James the Just, we can safely assume, was a figure who needed no introduction in the circles that Paul moved. 'The men from James' establish the context which marks James as the high authority of the church, one which delegates to underlinks who, in their turn, are able to force conformity in non-ranking members. It is simply a non-starter in terms of male hierarchical behaviour to think of Cephas as a high-ranking church official, one on an apostolic par with James the Just, based on what Paul reports happened at Antioch.

As for Acts being a guide in distinguishing the Zebedee from the Lesser: it's as messy as it can be. To claim that James the son of Alpheus was Jesus' 'brother' (and James the Just) one has to first dance around the kinship issues, which are simply self-contradictory. No better witness to that than Act 1:14, where just after the Twelve (with the two James'es in) are named, they are joined by Mary and Jesus brothers. This of course does not prevent the Catholic Encyclopedia from opining that although there is no full evidence for the identity of James (2), the son of Alpheus, and James (3), the brother of the Lord, and James (4), the son of Mary of Clopas, the view that one and the same person is described in the New Testament in these three different ways, is by far the most probable.

Next and importantly, is not even clear that the author and editors of Acts actually intended to push the view that James the son of Alpheus (1:13) is the James referenced in 12:17, 15:13, and 21:18. Haenchen only observed dryly that the other apostle James seems to have been removed from the proceedings with 'only a meager notice' and others, e.g. Eisenbaum, that the figure of Stephen and his violent end may have actually been inserted to displace James' martyrdom.

Best,
Jiri