jakejonesiv

Hi Rick,

A couple of thoughts.

#1. The term used in Galatians 1:19 is "brother of the Lord," not "brother of Jesus." A not insignificant distinction if we are insisting on a human relationship. Also, no claim of uniqueness is made for James. An unspecified number of other "brothers of the Lord" are said to travel about with believing wives. 1 Corinthians 9:5.

In fact, the force of the argument is that the writer considers himself a "brother of the Lord" also: to whatever they are entitled, he (Paul) also is entitled.

#2. In _The Jesus the Jews Never Knew: Sepher Toldoth Yeshu and the Quest of the Historical Jesus in Jewish Sources_ by Frank R. Zindler, 2003, an argument for interpolation is made. Make of it what you will.

By comparing Josephus, _Antiquities_, Book 20, chapter 9 with Pontius codex 238, it is determined that Josephus originally had "James brother of the Lord". This would have nothing to do with Jesus Christ, but would indicate a leader in a brotherhood dedicated to the service of Yahweh.

A Christian interpolator reading this, and believing that the only Lord is Jesus (1 Cor. 8:6), substituted in Josephus the awkward phrase, "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James". The convoluted nature of giving priority to Jesus and only backing into James at the very end is evidence in itself of interpolation.

The original Gal. 1:19 merely mentions a James, nobody's brother. The original reading of Josephus (preserved in Pontius) is inserted, thereby confounding James the Just with whatever James was in view here.

Jake Jones

Rick Sumner

Jake:

I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm commenting one way or the other on what Paul meant in Galatians. I'm addressing the OP, not the tangent that sprang from it.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Amaleq13

Perhaps I'm mistaken but I understood Gal 1:19 to have been the ultimate focus of the OP. I also understood you to be offering what I considered to be two sound arguments against the suggested basis for interpretation of that passage:

Even if we assume that Mark's author knew Paul and even if we assume he relied on Paul as a source, that he doesn't use the phrase in the way suggested certainly makes it difficult to accept as the intention.

jakejonesiv

Hi Rick,
I got the idea from this,
Why do you regard my response inapproproate to these three questions? Am I missing something?

Jake Jones

andrewcriddle

The plural use of 'brothers of the Lord' in 1 Corinthians 9:5 might mean James and Jude, or something ilke that.

Andrew Criddle

Julian

I found your response useful and enlightening.

Julian

jakejonesiv

Hi Andrew,

If the kinship is physical rather than spiritual, then I wonder if the sister/wives of 1 Cor. 9:5 were literal sisters and those guys were commiting incest. Like Abraham and Sarah. Then Jesus' brothers (James, Joses, et.al.) married their own sisters (Mark 6:3), Peter married his sister and if they didn't have a sister, s.o.l. :huh:

But all that assumes that the Pauline writers knew the gospels, something of which there is scant evidence. By all accounts, the Pauline epistles predate the gospels, so it is a bit risky to read gospel material back into the epistles. So I am going to guess that the brothers and sisters in Christ were a spiritual concept.

The earthly career of Jesus, if he had one, is hardly in view in the Pauline corpus. Instead we find a spiritual Jesus.

"And because ye are Sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Gal. 4:6. Spiritual Sons of God means spiritual brothers of Jesus, right?

Jake Jones IV

andrewcriddle

I agree that 'Sister as Wife' in 1 Corinthians 9:5 presumably means something like 'fellow-Christian wife'.

The problem with taking 'brothers of the Lord' as meaning something like 'fellow-Christians' is that they seem here to be a specific group distinguished from the apostles who are certainly fellow-Christians.

Andrew Criddle

jakejonesiv

Hi Andrew,

That is a good point.

Let's take another look at 1 Cor. 9:5. "Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas ?"

If it were the case that the items in the list were mutually exclusive, then Cephas couldn't be an apostle.

Actually, a series of overlapping groups like this is evidence that various traditions or sources are being combined. But that is too much of a tangent for this thread.

Jake Jones

John A. Broussard

I'm not quarreling with your interpretation of this passage, but I sometimes wonder how much the numerous copyists may have changed wordings as they worked away at their tasks. In this case, I would think the early Christian scribes would have more or less used the following terms interchangeably: Lord, Jesus, God, Christ and a few other similar terms. Isn't it possible that stylistic considerations might have led to substituting one term for another?