DCHindley

In the LDS church, the RLDS faction, which was led by B Young's son, were considered heretics and were excommunicated. Is that much different than Jesus' relatives (the Desposyni) getting written out of the picture in the reign of Hadrian?

DCH

No Robots

Taggart: I got it.
Hedley Lamarr: What?
Taggart: Let's kill every first born male child in Rock Ridge.
Hedley Lamarr: Nah, too Jewish.

--from Blazing Saddles

Toto

Malachi Martin does appear to have some problems as a source, especially after reading Malachi_Martin. But presumably his source for this lay in his access to Vatican documents. It's not clear why he would invent a story like this; it seems to run counter to his traditionalist sympathies.

Clivedurdle

Let us look at the possibilities carefully.

A historical person by definition has relatives and acquaintances.

This one is alleged to be King of the Jews and got executed for his troubles.

He might have been from a middle or upper class family - seems to be educated to come up with the sermon on the mount. I have seen related arguments that the apostles were wealthy - Capernaum was a wealthy Roman town. Relatives may have been architects - even a carpenter was not necessarily a low class trade. There are possible links to the High Priesthood.

I agree that last century the British Royal Family wrote out of history an heir to the throne - forget his name - David, Albert, Edward? But there is clear evidence he existed - photos of him, records.

So a negative reaction would have left something - even evidence of a Stalinist type writing of Trotsky out of history - (interestingly we have fiction about that one - Animal Farm!)

And there is a huge amount of reflected glory here - " My great great great grandmother is Jesus's mum's aunt. I am related to Jesus the Nazarene!"

It should be possible to discern something in the records.

Which leaves the other possibility - no relatives? Hmm, why can't I find relatives of Batman?

DCHindley

Don't be silly. Batman's parents were killed by the Joker, and his other relatives were presumably all drowned in the sinking of the Titanic. Seriously, except for Kim Basinger and Alfred, no one knew Batman was Bruce Wayne, so no one is going to know who his relatives were to remember in the saga. You're also takling about a work of fiction, where the plot line can be as unbelievable as you can push the reader to suspend in their heads.

However, the NT Gospels, Hegessipus, Julius Africanus and others mention Jesus' brothers, uncles and cousins. Why make them up? The latter two proto-orthodox authors believed these relatives were in control of a Jewish wing of "their" movement, which was in general agreement with proto-orthodox Christians until the time of Hadrian, when presumably they diverged.

A close reading of these passages preserved in Hegesippus and Africanus really tell us is that proto-orthodoxy was originally Jewish christian through the time of Hadrian, at which point *they* (the proto-orthodox) diverged *from* Jewish Christianity. As I explained in another post to you on another thread, Jewish christianity was a messianic movement.

DCH

PS: The small "c" in "christian" and "christianity" above is deliberate. Christianity, as a Jewish movement, was one of several Jewish messianic movements in antiquity, only centered around the person of Jesus, not Herod or Athronges, etc.