LegionOnomaMoi

Actually, I specifically gave names which didn't require distinguishing. As for "shred of content" I gave more than I was given when it comes to content. I brought up lingusitics because analysis of the use of a single word ignores the entire cognitive linguistic framework and the many various theories of grammar therein. Lexicon and grammar exist on a continuum, and simply pointing to the use adelphos in Josephus when it comes to this passage is as effective as pointing to the use of "drive" in a book which includes the sentence "ignorance of linguistics drives me crazy." Prototypically, "drive" means "operate a (motor) vehicle." A brief search through COCA will reveal how frequently this fails because of constructions like "driving me crazy/up the wall/mad/etc."

Yet rather than argue against the various construction grammar (or, for Hudson and his followers, word grammar) theories or their applicability in identification constructions in Greek, you stated: And even better:The reason 3+ decades of various generative linguistic theories kept coming up against walls was because their analyses worked under the assumption you are using. And it is completely inadequate. Construction grammars grew out of an increasing awareness that syntax and lexicon could not be seperates so easily. I argued that certain constructions were common in greek for identification purposes.

Your response was "Paul uses the term brother differently." Fantastic. The response completely ignores the point I made, and you managed to follow it up with your "amiss when it comes to linguistics" post which served to nail down rather securely you didn't have any idea what I was talking about.

You could have waited for me to respond to your initial post, and I would have explained more specifically what I meant by construction and linguistics, and why an analysis of lexical usage is inadequate here. You might not agree, but at least you would actually be addressing my point. Instead, you followed your initial response with your disparaging comment on my knowledge of linguistics.

Bernard Muller

to spin,
I have been checking the occurrences of 'lord' in the Pauline seven epistles and I concluded:
- Many of 'lord = god' is due to the fact Paul quoted the OT.
- 'in the lord' most likely is equivalent to 'in Christ'. Anyway, all the ones declared 'in the lord' are also Christians.
- There are many instances when 'lord' can be interpreted as either god or Jesus. That might have been deliberate from Paul.
- Finally there are many examples where 'lord' on its own refer to Jesus (not including 'in the lord'):
Rom10:12,13; 14:9; 1Cor2:8,16; 6:14; 7:12,17,25; 11:20,23,26,27,29; 14:37; 15:58; 2Cor 12:1,8; 13:10; 1Th4:15,16,17

Duvduv

Bernard, thank you for the references (Duvduv here).

It does seem to be a pattern (particularly in 1 and 2 Corinthians) that the author(s) of the epistles conceived of the term "Lord" by itself to refer to the Christ, though when quoting the Hebrew Scriptures it always refers to God, which then creates ambiguity, because (I assume even in Greek) how can both God and Jesus be evoked as the same person (Lord) when sometimes the epistles refer to God and Lord separately where Lord is Jesus?

Including where "the Lord" gives instructions or commands in several places in 1 Corinthians 2 for Paul and for followers.

It is more ambiguous in the cases in Romans and 1 Thessalonians. In a couple of cases we find the words God, Lord and Christ in close proximity making it difficult to know who the writer is talking about.

So the reference in Galatians to James the Brother of the Lord might unambiguously refer to Jesus. Of course this does not necessarily resolve the question about what brotherhood means here, especially since believers are called brothers and sisters, though there could be more than one James who is a believer/brother. In Galatians James is not just a brother but THE brother. On the other hand in a reference in the Clementine Homilies the language used is "James, known as the brother of the Lord."

If the writer of Galatians wasn't referring to an earthly Jesus, then either the reference is an interpolation to clarify the earthly relationship by the later Christian editor, OR he is simply "The Brother" meaning The Leader of the celestial Christ movement if not an interpolation.

Bernard Muller

to Duvduv,
Then you have to add up, from also Galatians, Jesus as a seed of Abraham and come/made from a woman.
And you are right about the "the". It makes a lot of difference.

spin

This is starting to touch on the problem concerning the use of αδελφος in Gal 1:19. What you call "prototypical" here distinguishes the most common use of the term, which one would usually understand when the word was used without any contextual clues whatsoever. Consider:

[T2]1.a "What do you do to relax?" - "I drive."
1.b "What do you do to relax?" - "I drive. I get behind the wheel and just go."
1.c "What do you do to relax?" - "I drive. I get out on the links and hit that tiny little ball."[/T2]
One would normally understand a reference to cars with 1.a.

In the situation of Paul, he has established a commonality of use of the term "brother" in which at least 95% of the time he means the word in a non-biological sense. This requires the reader to understand the normal usage of "brother" in Paul's writings is non-biological. To understand differently requires contextual evidence.

Duvduv

Then we have this strange text from 1 Corinthians 9, whereby the apostles are singled out apart from Cephas (wasn't he an apostle?) and "the Lord's brothers" (are they different than apostles in terms of marriage) with no special mention of James. After all, weren't James, Cephas AND John special pillars?

3 This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. 4 Don’t we have the right to food and drink? 5 Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas[a]? 6 Or is it only I and Barnabas who lack the right to not work for a living?

Are the brothers in this case Judah, Simon and Joseph? Why does Cephas get special mention but not James or John?

And in 1 Corinthians 15 the author sees no reason to describe James as "the brother of the Lord" as in Galatians, and wasn't James also an apostle here?
Could it be that indeed in context the words "brother of the Lord" in Galatians was in fact an interpolation where meeting James is directly connected to not telling a lie? Then three years later he went to Jerusalem AND THEN to Syria and Cilicia. Why is "Syria" a different place than Damascus itself, and why no specifics?
WHEN exactly was later? If he could mention "three years" can't he say WHEN he returned to Damascus if it's important?

And why does he say he "later went to Syria and Cilicia", not describe that visit just as he doesn't describe anything about his trip there apparently for 14 years or his trip to Arabia where he must have been preaching his gospel to the gentiles! And what does not being known in Judea have to do with going to Syria and Cilicia?!

How about this possibility of this narrative:

17 I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. [...] Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. [...]
21 Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. [...]
Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. 2 I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles [...]

And he went in response to WHAT revelation? It IS worth noting that the term "going up to Jerusalem" is a traditional Jewish notion in reference to the pilgrimages as compared to any other town in the Holy Land. Had the author left out his going up probably no one would have ever notice.

spin

This establishes that Paul actually uses the non-titular κυριος for god.

The conjecture here is based on the sort of retrojection that you need to worry about.

You mean that someone would deliberately write in such a way as to confuse the reader? If we accept that Paul uses the non-titular κυριος for god, then in all likelihood these refer to god as well.

Incorrect. 10:13 is a quote from Joel 2:32, thus indicating god, and requires you to see 10:12 must be as well.

This is "lord of...", ie titular.

2:8 "lord of..", titular. 2:16 is a quote from LXX Isa 40:13, referring to god.

This is a certain example.

I see no indication that these refer to anyone other than god.

This indicates that you haven't checked the verse: it doesn't use κυριος, but an adjectival form. This lordly meal refers to a communal meal that has been hijacked by later christianity with the interpolation of 11:23-27.

This 11:23-27 is an interpolation of purely Lucan material (based on Mark). It caused someone later enough trouble that they had to add του κυριου to "body" in v.29 because of the confusion left by the original interpolation. The reference to κυριος in 11:29 is missing from all early manuscripts. (That indicates that you seem to be using some old form of KJV.) It would seem that the scribe needed to specify that the body was that of Jesus, while Paul was referring to the body of the person who was going to participate in his communal meal, which would have been obvious before 11:23-27 was added.

No reason to think of Jesus in any of these, except through the hindsight of later christian doctrine.

More of the same. The passage is based on Jewish apocalyptic. The coming day of the lord is quite frequent in the prophets. As a background look at James 5:7,8 which speaks of "the coming of the lord". This does not refer to Jesus, but to god. (5:10 speaks of "the prophets who spoke in the name of the lord." And one would have to work hard to construe any of the non-titular usages of κυριος to refer to Jesus.) The only thing that might confuse in 1 Thes 4 is the reference both to "god" and "the lord", but these two terms were functionally interchangeable in Jewish literature of the time. You can see it in 1 Thes 4:3-8, which uses both "god" and "the lord". Christian doctrine understands this image of the lord coming as Jesus, but there is no reason to do so from a reading of Paul alone in his Jewish cultural context.


We are left with only two items both in 1 Cor, 6:14 and 11:23-27. Both of these need to be considered in the context of Paul's literary output. On other grounds both have been argued to be interpolations by different scholars. I've argued both are such and the fact that they both use the non-titular κυριος for Jesus is an added reason for considering them as interpolations.

This is an important issue: does a writer deliberately use a word which has two possible referents without distinguishing between them, in such a manner that the reader cannot know which referent is intended? The writer attempts to communicate with their audience, especially in a situation such as the one in which Paul is trying to provide counsel for his congregations. We must hold this supposed ambivalent use of κυριος as doubtful.

(You seem to accept that there is nascent christian trinitarianism in Paul, but there certainly isn't. He frequently makes clear a separation between god and Jesus. Consider the case of 1 Cor 2:16, which asks "who knows the mind of the lord?" then responds, "but we have the mind of christ" implying that christ has access to the mind of the lord.)

judge

Thanks LegionOnomaMoi.
I wonder if you might expand, for the layman, on where Spin is going wrong here.

Thanks in advance.

Duvduv

Spin, aren't the citations from 1 Corinthians about the Lord contained and understandable within the context of the narrative?

spin

Perhaps you could deal with specific examples. I think all examples except the two I've pointed out refer to god, but the context for a christian allows enough wiggle room due to later doctrine to consider a number of them to refer to Jesus.