Ben C Smith

Analogous in that they are independent of Paul, not necessarily in other respects.

I never said it fails to work. I said it does nothing to support your view.

Agreed.

Agreed.

The individuals themselves? You think he learned from the grandsons of Jude themselves (or possibly at one remove) that their great-uncle was Jesus and you still do not believe him?

Most people know who their great-uncle is.

That was not my assumption (indeed, Jerome attributes a quite famous story about his brother James to the Hebrew gospel). My assumption was that when you spoke of the gospel story you were talking about the canonical gospels. I may have assumed that too hastily.

Hegesippus is chock-full of stories that revolve around James and his family. At least two of those stories (the audience with Domitian and the martyrdom of Symeon) depend on the family claim to Davidic descent; we know from Paul and a host of later authors (including Hegesippus himself) that Jesus was claimed to be of Davidic descent. Coincidence? I doubt it. At least one of the stories (the succession of Symeon and other relatives of the Lord) depends on Jesus having known kin. At least twice he tells us that the Lord had a brother named Jude. Once he reminds us that the Lord had a brother named James. Not one of these stories was founded directly on either the gospels or Paul.

We are dealing with a family that by the third generation became convinced that Jesus himself was a great-uncle. Now, I am not at all squeamish about calling a genealogy forged; I have previously expressed my own suspicions that the family of Jesus began to think of itself as of Davidic descent only after Jesus becoming known as the messiah implied it (and even if they were claiming it before that it would not prove actual descent from a king that had been dead for nearly a millennium). But there is a world of difference between claiming somebody as your great-grandfather some thirty times removed and claiming somebody as your great-uncle, at no remove, who was killed prematurely.

If anybody in century II was in any position to know the original meaning of the term brother of the Lord, it was Hegesippus. He has more information about the apparent leader of the group and his family than anybody else.

And the Davidic connection should not be ignored here. Both Jesus and James (and his kin) were reputed at a very early date to descend from David. Is that a coincidence? How many explicitly Davidic claims do we hear about in our sources?

Ben.

Amaleq13

I assume he believed (or wanted to believe) they were relatives of Jesus' siblings but I have no idea how their claims were established or verified.

I couldn't name one of mine but claiming to be related to someone famous is pretty common especially when doing so results in benefits like obtaining a position of power. And it is even more likely when the organization or movement that provides that power benefits from accepting their claims.

I think it is more accurate to say we are dealing with a family that had convinced others that Jesus himself was a great-uncle. I also think it is relevant that those "others" certainly benefitted from being able to claim a direct connection to Jesus for "their" beliefs.

In terms of being verifiable? I don't see that there is any difference for that time. Do you think that the fall of Jerusalem might have made claims like that somewhat difficult to be denied even if someone were interested in doing so?

If we assume their claims to be genuine, I agree. However, I don't consider that to be an assumption with a sound basis.

No Robots

Er, they were hauled in front of the Emperor Domitian and faced execution because of their relation to Jesus. Hardly "a position of power".



This is how you reject the story of Jesus's relatives, with insinuations about "benefits" to mysterious "others" and plain charges of fabrication? And all this is in the face of Paul's corroborating references to "brethren of the Lord"? I see nothing in your outlook but an ad hoc, conspiracy-laced shaggy-dog story.

Ben C Smith

Really? Not one? I find that amazing. I have seven maternal great-uncles, one deceased, and can name every one of them. On the paternal side it gets a little bit fuzzier, but I recognize the name of each as soon as I hear it.

I agree that there was prestige to be had in claiming Jesus as a sibling, but your hypothesis, while of course possible, sounds like a vast conspiracy theory. You are more than welcome to it, but I cheerfully stick to the more usual set of questions about and reconstructions of the dominical family... at least for now.

Ben.

JoeWallack

JW: (waving hand in front of Amalek)
Here is the summary you are looking for:

1) "Mark" is primarily a Fictional account so any Possible claims such as Names must be Doubted.

2) "Mark's" Story indicates there is important information he doesn't want The Reader to know. Important Historical Names are one of them.

3) Subsequent Christianity was perfectly God willing and able to Change potentially improtant information in "Mark". Like important historical names.

4) "Mark" has plenty of evidence that important Names were Created for Theological reasons.

5) "Mark" has a Primary Theme of Replacement using Jesus' own family as The Example. Another reason to Create the same name for a Family and non-Family person in the Story.

JW: (waving hand in front of Amalek)
Here is the Post you are looking for:

Mark's View Of The Disciples



James

Didymus

Perhaps you've found Crossan's argument for a historical Jesus somewhere. I haven't, but would certainly be interested in reading it if it exists. Far as I know, he invariably starts with the presumption that Jesus was a historical figure, and tries to sort out his life from that standpoint. He makes no effort to support that belief or to refute mythicists like G.A. Wells, whom, if I recall correctly, he waves off as insignificant.

The crux of your argument is whether the "multiply attested sayings" are indeed from independent sources. In a culture where most information is transmitted by the spoken word - and where verbatim repetition is highly valued - it becomes virtually impossible to distinguish among myriad sources. In my reading of Crossan, he makes the case that accurate TRANSMISSION of stories about Jesus would be possible. But that doesn't speak at all to the historical accuracy of the stories that were transmitted.

Crossan seems to think that the gospel writers after Mark mined the tradition for more perspectives on Jesus. But like urban legends, the Jesus stories were probably fanciful from the beginning, and the sayings were probably based on the utterances of unknown sages, the product of common folk wisdom influenced by religious teachings and philosophical precepts.

What are you referring to? The synoptics? They are far from dependent. How could their parallels possibly support the historicist position?

There's certainly no need for mythicists to "explain away" the parallels by assigning the sayings to "other people or traditions." Matthew and Luke and much of the apocrypha are dependent on Mark and Q, and by no means "from sources independent of each other." If that's all that's required for a "successful mythicist argument," it's in the bag, and can found be throughout CHRISTIAN scholarship, including Crossan's.

Didymus

Amaleq13

Er, the power is within the structure of the developing Christian "orthodoxy".

It is simply naive, IMO, to ignore the clear intentional efforts that were made by those would come to call themselves "orthodox" to establish the appearance of a continuation tradition back to Jesus, himself. It is naive to ignore it and foolish to accept it uncritically.

Paul's references are what is being discussed so it really makes no sense to suggest that they corroborate anything.

Amaleq13

I think I met one of my great-aunts once when I was little but I can't remember her name. My wife couldn't name any of her great-uncles, either but she, too, has a vague memory of a great-aunt she cannot name.

As I indicated to No Robots, I consider it naive to ignore the struggle to proclaim "orthodoxy" that was ongoing throughout the century and foolish to accept anything related to that effort uncritically.

Ben C Smith

I do not think I have accepted anything uncritically or naively. Jesus having brothers just makes too much sense of the ensuing pile of data to ignore.

Ben.

Doug Shaver

Given any apparent parallels, the alternative to influence is coincidence. I see too many to attribute to coincidence.

Please indulge me if I don't take the time to search the thread to review the context in which Ben made his comments. My question: Did the three authors assume Jesus' historicity? If so, and considering the context in which they presented their interpretation, did they have any reason to mention any alternatives?