Malachi151

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...brews-ogg.html

This would seem to incontrovertibly establish that James the Just was James son of Zebedee, or at least an apostle, since the only people said to have drunk of the cup of the Lord were the apostles. Again , "my brother" does not mean relative.

Also from this text:

Clearly this is a use of brother that doesn't mean relative.

TedM

Very interesting Malachi! I've been meaning to read that gospel, and now have quite a compelling reason to do so.

thanks,

ted

Chris Weimer

It's a strawman to think that brother must mean relative. It doesn't. Paul also uses "brothers" to refer to fellow believers.

Moreover, who said that James, the Brother of Jesus, wasn't an apostle?

You've still provided nothing but strawmen.

Malachi151

I'm not sure about strawmen. As you know, Christian tradition, and still most people, state that James the Just was Jesus' literal brother.

I'm just saying that this is one more piece of evidence that this is not the case.

Most people still interpret Paul's "the Lord's brother" reference to James as meaning a literal brother of Jesus and this James is also equated with James the Just.

Yet, the author of Acts never says that any James he talks about is a brother of Jesus, though every Bible I have seen uses footnotes to claim that he was.

James the Just is equated to the brother of Jesus by most early Christian apologists.

In the Gospel of Thomas, however it mentions James the Just and does not say that he's a brother of Jesus. Again here we see James the Just equated to a "disciple" who was at the "Last Supper". Since this only included "the Twelve" according to all the stores, that I indicate that this James had to be an apostle, not a family member.

I don't see what the strawman is.

This is more information that goes along with this:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=200746

And again I'd have to ask where the "established scholars" are on this issue....

Solo

You are mistaken yet again. In the dominant Christian tradition, the Catholic one, James the Just was a cousin of Jesus, not his brother. For explanation see doctrinal point 500. of the current Catechism.

Jiri

Chris Weimer

How is this evidence? No one ever claimed that brother had to be taken literally. As I already said, Paul uses the term "brothers" elsewhere to refer to non-relatives.

Yes, but that has nothing to do with whether brother had to mean literal brother. It's only at this point that it matters. Just because I call one of my good friends "my brother" doesn't mean that my real brother isn't my brother.

What exactly does Acts say?

Why is being an apostle non-compatible with being a relative of Jesus?

Malachi151

Well this had to do with keeping to the view that Jesus had no brothers, but it all stems form the same root, and has been reinterpreted by Protestant scholars as incorrect and that this was indeed his brother. Whatever, it doesn't change the point.

Malachi151

I'm not even sure what you are trying to argue here.

If you don't think that the mention of "the Lord's brother" in Galatians is referring to a literal brother of Jesus then there is no issue, you and I are saying the same thing.

If the tradition was that the only people at the Last Support were "the Twelve disciples", then that would indicate the the James in the Hebrew Gospel was considered one of those twelve disciples, which excludes this from being a literal brother of Jesus.

This would then be a clear association of James the Just with James son of Zebedee, as James son of Zebedee is the only disciple that this would be talking about.

jgibson000

The big problem here, even assuming that the text is speaking about the last supper, is that we don't know who it was that the author of the Gospel of the Hebrews thought was at the Last Supper.

If you think that what appears in the GofH assumes, and is rooted in, takes its cue from, and faithfully reproduces the traditions about Jesus and the disciples that appear in the Synoptics, I suggest you have a good look at the GoH's account of Jesus' baptism and testing. This will disabuse you of that notion fairly quickly, I think. It certainly insures that we cannot read the synoptic traditions about Jesus etc. into the GoH as easily as you think we can.

And remember that, as Epiphanius and others tell us, the GoH is from the Ebionites who venerated James, the brother of the Lord. In the light of that fact, it seems very likely that they would put James the Just/Brother of the Lord at the last supper, no matter what the Synoptics say (or don't say) about his presence there. See how they make him, despite what the Synoptics say, the first witness to the resurrection.

So if I were you, I'd be very cautious about drawing the conclusions you do about who the James mentioned in GoH has to be and what it does or does not "prove" with respect to the identity of James the Just. They are built on sand.

JG

Solo

You wish. Eastern Orthodoxy also holds that James was not a brother literally. Also, you are dreaming in technicolor if you imagine that Protestant scholarship shows anything approaching consensus on James as a full-bloodied sibling. For one thing, if it was true, Jesus would have been putting foot in his mouth in Mark 6:4.

Jiri