zaitzeff

"That Paul apparently feels compelled to assert that Jesus was born of a woman and was of Jewish descent suggests that these were not obvious facts which is odd, to say the least, if we also assume he was the brother of a Jew of "high reputation"."

4 But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5 to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.

Paul is citing known facts as evidence in his argument for the conclusion that we and the Jews are no longer under the law. If one reads Galatians 3:6 we see Paul citing the known fact of Abraham believing God and thereby being credited with righteousness. Paul follows this with another fact that the law says that those who don't keep the law are cursed. Paul cites facts which are known to all parties to establish a conclusion. "Jesus" or Jesus does the same thing in Matt 12:3-7 and any lawyer writing a brief cites facts as evidence to establish a conclusion. If the facts which Paul gives as evidence were in any way in doubt, then, so would be Paul's conclusion, which is,
that we are no longer under the law!

"Paul speaks of many Christians as "brother" or "brethren" so it is not clear whether adding "of the Lord" signifies a reference to literal siblingship or if the former is simply a shorter version of a general reference to certain fellow Christians."

18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 I saw none of the other apostles–only Jacob, the brother of the Lord.

If by "the Lord's brother" Paul meant each and every Christian, then, surely,
the phrase "the Lord's brother" would describe himself, and Peter and many others. Here, the words "the brother of the Lord" are used to help identify Jacob (or James, as his name is sometimes put). However, if "the brother of the Lord" can and does refer to any Christian, then, it is superfluous to use it
here. That is, it accomplishes nothing in identifying the Jacob that Paul visited.

"Given that Paul wishes to establish himself as having equal authority to James and the other apostles, why would he feel compelled to choose to offer this singularly special identification when it does not appear required by the context and utterly defeats this purpose if intended literally?"

1) perhaps because there were many Jews or Jewish Christians with the name Jacob, or at least, several, including some who were leaders;
and
2) because Paul has the same attitude as Jesus, which is that physical descent doesn't make any difference to God! Gal 2:6 As for those who seemed to be important–whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by external appearance.
Mark 3
31 Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.�
33 “Who are my mother and my brothers?� he asked.

34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother.�

and re the short reference of Josephus, do you, Amalek, wish to comment on the post which follows yours by andrewcriddle?

Peter Kirby

For what it is worth, Joel has explained what he means to my satisfaction, in reply to those questions. The questions were due primarily to my lack of familiarity with the areas of which Joel speaks.

best,
Peter Kirby

zaitzeff

In Gal 1, Paul speaks of Jacob, the brother of the Lord.

Is this referring to a physical, blood brother relationship?

Amalek13 denies this. So, lets see how Paul normally refers to fellow Christians. In Romans 16, we have three lists of people (or groups):

The first list is only one person long:
1) Phoebe, whom Paul commends as faithful;

To be greeted:
2) Priscilla
3) Aquila
4) the church that meets at their house.

5) Epenetus
6) Mary
7) Andronicus
8) Junia
9) Ampliatus
10) Urbanus
11) Stachys
12) Apelles
13) those who belong to the household of Aristobulus
14) Herodion
15) those in the household of Narcissus who are in the Lord
16) Tryphena
17) Tryphosa
18) Persis
19) Rufus
20) his mother
21) Asyncritus
22) Phlegon
23) Hermes
24) Patrobas
25) Hermas
26) the brothers with them (i.e. with those of names 21-25)
27) Philologus
28) Julia
29) Nereus
30) his sister
31) Olympas
32) all the saints with them (those of names 27-31)

and the letter includes persons from whom greetings are being sent:
1) Timothy
2) Lucius
3) Jason
4) Sosipater
5) Tertius
6) Gaius
7) Erastus
8) Quartus

we do we learn from these two lists? Well, Paul seems to be like Josephus, in that he seems to prefer to give an identifying tag to each name. He does not always do so, but he does so for each individual name of the first 20 listed above! Sometimes the tags are simple and sometimes they are long. They range from "friend," "co-worker," "relative," "whom I love," "they who work hard in the Lord" to "my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. 4 They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them," when describing Priscilla and Aquila. Beginning with
Asyncritus Paul then gives a series of names with no identifying tag.

It is as if Paul prefers to mention people with an identifying tag, but after the first 20 names, that has become tiresome, consuming time and space.

The list of those sending greetings is similar. The first seven are all identified in some way by something beyond their name: "my fellow worker," "my relatives," "who wrote down this letter," "whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy," "the city's director of public works." The only one of the senders who has a nonidentifying identifyer is "our brother Quartus." In the case of Quartus, it appears that he did not have any other noteworthy qualifications about him, to get him the usual identification. For Paul, the usual identification was not "brother" but something about what the person had done in the work of the gospel, or, his relationship to Paul! Quartus was not a relative or co-worker of Paul. He had not apparently risked his life for the gospel nor did he provide a house in which the church met. Actually, with the name Quartus, I wonder somewhat if he was the 4th slave or servant of Erastus, but I claim no special knowledge of Greek or Roman naming for that speculation. Quartus, who is not very distinguished otherwise, is called
our brother Quartus. The other near use of the word brother is "our sister Phoebe." In this case, however, Paul is not writing to a person whom he is greeting. He is commending Phoebe to others who don't know her. He calls her "sister," i.e. a Christian like Paul.

What do we learn from these lists?
1) Paul did not normally refer to someone as our sister Phoebe or our brother Quartus; those two cases are very exceptional.
2) Paul did prefer, or he seems to prefer, to give an identifying tag with those whose names he gives.
3) Paul speaks of no one in these lists as "the brother of the Lord," or "the sister of the Lord." In fact, when he uses "in Christ" it modifies, not brother or sister, but co-worker or worker.
4) the word brother as an identifier for Quartus seems to have been used because nothing else more significant could be used to describe him.

Suppose we apply these facts to Galatians 1.

19 I saw none of the other apostles [other than Cephas] except for Jacob, the brother of the Lord.

Suppose, as amalek13 does, that the phrase the brother of the Lord is an identifier that does not really identify because it refers to every Christian. Paul has already shown us his usual practice of giving other, more specific identifiers when such are available, and generally of using those identifiers
not in addition to, but in place of the word "brother." Do we have such in the case of Jacob? Yes, we do, and see Paul's usual practice in fact manifested in Gal 2:9. It speaks of
"James, Cephas and John, those reputed to be pillars,"

Paul speaks of Jacob, Cephas and John, but not just any Christians with those names, but "those reputed to be pillars."

Amaleq13

This does not explain why he feels it necessary to assert Jesus was born of a woman since that is assumed of every human being on the planet and wouldn't normally need to be mentioned.

Personally, I tend to think that Paul believed that Jesus incarnated on earth but neither knew nor cared when or where. I think it is entirely possible he assume Jesus was just one of the hundreds of crucified Jews from the previous two centuries. That said, I find his need to declare that Jesus was born of a woman quite strange.

That isn't what I said. I said that Paul refers to his fellow Christians as "brothers" quite often. Do a search and see if he uses it more often to refer to literal or to spiritual siblings. IIRC, the latter usage is in the majority. He also refers to an unspecified group as "brothers of the Lord" and to James as "the brother of the Lord". There is no compelling reason to interpret either of these as literal references and his general use of the term "brother" suggests otherwise. If you search for posts by spin with "brother of the Lord", you will find what I consider to be good arguments against such a literal interpretation not least of which is the fact that "brother of the Lord" is an actual name in Hebrew.

Then why doesn't he use it every time he refers to James?

All the more reason not to make the reference at all! Even worse, your interpretation requires us to assume Paul considered James the brother of the risen Christ (ie Lord) rather than the living Jesus. It seems to me that, even if Paul knew James had been the brother of Jesus prior to his execution, he would not consider him to still be the brother of the risen Christ. The reference just makes no sense interpreted literally. It is contrary to Paul's desire to portray himself as equal to the other apostles and contrary to his apparent general view of the significant difference between the incarnated Jesus and the risen Christ. The former was hardly worthy of mention because the latter was of supreme importance.

If I did, I would have posted it. Andrew's argument against that particular identification of the Jesus being mentioned seems credible but a specific identification isn't really necessary to consider the extant identifying phrase(s)to be an interpolation.

Vorkosigan

<howls with laughter> Bet you won't find that in conservative commentaries! But yet if you look at the commentarys on Mark 15 and parallel passages, you'll find it piously explained that 'Bar-abbas" didn't necessarily mean 'son of the father' because, after all, 'Abbas' could be a name....

I gotta find that post by spin.

Vorkosigan

Interesting observation......

Ted Hoffman

My point exactly. If the creator of ECW lacked familiarity in 'the areas of which Joel speaks' (after reading and reviewing dozens and dozens of NT books), and had to ask for clarification, what about a hapless amateur like me and other posters?

Peter Kirby

Joel wasn't speaking about areas of NT study so much as the views of men like Lévi-Strauss and Pierce and Barthes and Sausse (sp?) and so on, with whom I am not familiar. But I do have some books with titles like "the new hermeneutic" and "the postmodern bible" that I've been meaning to read.

always learning,
Peter Kirby

Ted Hoffman

LOL, don't worry. Even Joel got Peirce misspelt (after meeting so many Pearces, this is to be expected). I guess I wont be the only student at Ebla.

zaitzeff

"This does not explain why he feels it necessary to assert Jesus was born of a woman since that is assumed of every human being on the planet and wouldn't normally need to be mentioned."

Paul believed that the Son of God existed prior to his birth. Paul probably believed that the Son of God could have existed indefinitely without being born as a mortal. Given the two options for the activity of the son of God, Paul indicates that the son of God has incarnated in the person of Jesus.

"Then why doesn't he use it every time he refers to James?"

Once is sufficient.

one should note that the interpretation of Paul by Doherty results in supposing that Paul was internally self-contradictory in a very obvious way. For, according to Doherty, the archons of this age which have crucified Jesus are spiritual beings in a spiritual realm only, crucifying a Jesus who is only spiritual, while, in Galatians 4, Paul specifies that Jesus was "born of a woman, born under the law."