spin

The only place that mentions that James is the brother of Jesus is Mk 6:3. However, we find an interesting indicator in Mk 15:40, 47, 16:1 which talk of Mary Magdalene and "Mary, the mother of James and Jose". One may presume that this Mary is the Mary also mother of Jesus, though it doesn't say so or indicate in any way that this is indeed that Mary. The Matthean parallels to Mk 15:40, 47, 16:1, say (Mt 27:56) "Mary, the mother of James and Jose", (Mt 27:61) "the other Mary" and again (Mt 28:1) "the other Mary". While Mark is rather unhelpful on the issue, there is no sign that the Matthean writer saw this Mary as the mother of Jesus.

It would seem that we have a development of a tradition visible only in Mark, ie the identification of this other Mary, mother of James and Jose, with the mother of Jesus and recorded in Mk 6:3. Had this development already been in Mk when both the other synoptics drew upon it, it is extremely hard to understand the omission of the important information. This suggests that Mk 6:3 was not available when the other synoptics were written. And we also see no effort in Matt & Luke to specify that the other Mary was in fact Mary, mother of Jesus.

At what point did Mk 6:3 enter the text? The answer would tell us when James became the brother of Jesus. Maybe the Matthean and Lucan writers each had some arcane polemic against including the data in Mk 6:3, but had it been available to them, it would probably have been a little too appealing to think about leaving it out.

Toto

Matthew 13:55 "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?

I don't see a way of figuring out which part came first, and which was added later.

avi

Yes, perhaps. It could be. You may be correct.

On the other hand, however, one must also be concerned about the possibility that perhaps the authors of Matthew did not possess a copy of Mark, though it already had become available elsewhere.... This would seem reasonable especially if Mark was written, as I suppose, in Rome, while Matthew was written in Jerusalem.

Still another possibility, perhaps the authors of Matthew deliberately chose to ignore Mark....i.e. his writing was in their possession but they disregarded the text, on this particular issue==> but I wonder why?

avi

spin

It was late when I looked at the issue. However, the basic logic of the development in Mark should be obvious. I was just over-hopeful with the cherry.

The process in Mark still seems to have gone from "Mary, the mother of James and Joses" to the material in Mk 6:3. Mk 15:40, 47, 16:1 are analogous to "Klara Hitler, mother of Gustav and Edmund" or "Ida Eisenhower, mother of Milton and Edgar".

Neither Mt or Lk acknowledge that the "Mary, the mother of James and Joses" is in fact the mother of Jesus. We have Mt 13:55 citing Mk 6:3. We see the disjunction in Mt between these two Marys, not so visible in Mk.

Perhaps someone might like to support the coincidence of there being two Marys, one being mother of James and Joses, while the other is the mother of Jesus, James, Joses and Simon. Hey it is just vaguely possible, despite the relatively few names mentioned in the gospels, but Joses itself is a rare form of the name Joseph and stretches that possibility into the category of unlikely.

I think the evidence points to "Mary, the mother of James and Joses" representing an early form of christian tradition than her being also mother of Jesus.

Saramago

Galatians 1:19 But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother.

(Usually taken to mean literal brother, but doesn't have to.)

judge

Aren't you missing the obvious?
That being, that James might have been seen to be the brother of Jesus before Mark was written.
How did you rule that out as a possibilty?

stephan huller

I am eating at a restaurant but I would argue that Mark and Luke represent manipulations of the original Marcionite gospel (which does not have Nazareth, hometown, people knowing Jesus oe Jesus having a mother or family)

These ideas were all layered over an original docetic narrative found in its purest form in Marcionite NT

Chili

Pardon me for adding this but that happened at conception . . . to say that James was born of Magadalene and so from below or from canal desire as is shown in John1:13, there juxtaposed with 'from God' to say that both are possible and are shown here in detail with the final result that James goes back to Galilee to do some more preaching (pandering fallacies in the promised land like the Jews did before him) and the real Jesus goes to heaven.

If it is vague in the passages that may be the reason for it.

aa5874

First of all, gMark as found today cannot be DATED to the 1st century and cannot be CONFIRMED to be about ACTUAL historical events.. Unless you want to do history in a Vacuum, then all the writings of Antiquity from the Church and NT authors have DESTROYED any hope that James had a human brother called Jesus.

It makes NO sense to be CONSTANTLY going over the same the single verse in Galatians where the Pauline writer CLEARLY sated that he was NOT the apostle of a man and did NOT get his Gospel from a man and when it was considered HERETICAL to claim Jesus was a man.

One cannot use gMark ALONE to assemble the history of Pilate. In gMark there is NO details about Pilate so one must USE other sources. And it is EXACTLY the same for any other character in the NT.

All the ADDITIONAL details about Jesus show that he was NOT considered a man whether or NOT "James" was his brother.

If the supposed Mary had a male child for the Holy Ghost and another male child for a man the two male children would be brothers only that One would be the OFFSPRING of a Ghost and the other the offspring of a man. They would still be brothers.

But, James the apostle, was NOT even the Son of the Holy Ghost or Mary.

All the DATA of antiquity is there for EVERYONE to see.

The physical nature of James is IRRELEVANT to the physical nature of Jesus.

That is basic Mythology of Antiquity.

spin

But ain't that a fucking hoot! People use Mk 6:3 to try to shoehorn this "James, the brother of the lord" as the brother of Jesus. Now we get the completion of the circularity.

:hysterical:

We cannot be sure what Paul meant by "the brother of the lord", though nothing about it points to any biological brotherness, given that Paul so consistently uses brother with a religio-communal association.