Toto

No, that's not what I meant.

Paul calls James "the brother of the Lord." That phrase is not found in Matt, Mark, or Josephus. I am providing an interpretation which makes the use of the term brother in the gospels as a reference to a bioloical brother consistent with the non-biological use in Paul.

I assume, based on my reading, that the reference to James the brother of Jesus called Christ was originally a reference to a different Jesus, referred to earlier in that paragraph. A Christian scribe added "called Christ" in the margin to change the original meaning, and this marginal note was incorporated into the text.

If you want to search the archives, there has been extensive discussion of this phrase. This is not an arbitrary position. It is not the majority position, but it is hardly "fringe."

spamandham

The earliest reference, which perhaps we will agree is Gal., refers to James as "the lord's brother". This same writer uses the word 'brother' endlessly in situations where it can not possibly refer to a blood relationship, and we know that this writer tells us that James is the head of the Jerusalem church. This writer also tells us that the Jerusalem church is the church he felt need to find favor with (i.e., it's the head church) -making James the equivalent of the 1st pope.

Further, this writer refers to other members of this church by titles such as "apostle". What title does this author give us for James, since you argue "brother of the lord" is not a title?

What relative timeline would you give to that? I'd say it comes after the gospels were penned.

The chronology I'm considering here is:

Paul -> Josephus -> Bar Kochba revolt -> Mark -> Matthew -> Luke -> John -> Acts + non-Pauline NT works

So Sure. The writers of the gospels had access to the letters we know as Paul's. They also had access to Josephus. So they were aware of some dude named James who those writers called Jesus' brother, but they really didn't know anything about him, since neither Paul nor Josephus tell us anything about James of much interest. So they wrote him into the story with minimal detail for consistency with those prior works.

We know the gospels writers were building off pre-existing works, because we see the exact same expressions found in multiple gospels. That can't reasonably happen unless they were building off pre-existing written works.

Of course there is. It's the same evidence you say points to James being a blood brother of Jesus, except that some like to cherry pick it and completely ignore the fact that Paul uses 'brother' ~50 times in situations where it clearly does not mean blood brother, and never uses it to refer to a blood brother, except, it is argued, in the one passage where it is claimed it refers to a blood relationship with Jesus.

It is simpler to conclude that 'brother' refers to a special spiritual relationship than to a blood relationship, based on how Paul uses the word in every other usage. And there is further good reason to think this:

Romans 8:29
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Clearly, those god 'foreknew' would be considered brothers of the Son.

Chili

. . . because it is not possible to be a Christian Jew, nor is it possible to be a Christian Catholic or a Christian protestant if Christian-ity is the end of religion (Gal.5:1-4). Jesus showed us that and Paul knew that as well but James did not . . . and so now we also know who the gentiles were.

show_no_mercy

This makes sense of Paul's use of "family of believers" in Gal 6:10. What would a family of believers call themselves? Brothers and sisters, which is exactly what Paul does.

Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection; all others who believe in the Son will also be resurrected following suit (which is why Paul says "falling asleep" as a euphemism for death).

aa5874

But, in the Pauline writings James is NOT known or mentioned as the head of any Jerusalem Church, it may have been Peter or Cephas. In fact, in the PAULINE writings, no specific head of any Jerusalem church is discussed, only an ambiguous reference to three characters who "SEEMED to be Pillars".

One can be a "pillar' of an organisation without being the head especially when there are more than one "pillars".

And further, based on the Pauline writings virtually nothing is known about James, the name can only be found about four times in all the Pauline writings.

Now, if the Pauline writer used the word "brother" but did not mean a "biological brother" what does he mean when he wrote "SEEMED TO BE PILLARS"?

This is Galatians 2.7-9 where some Peter, not some James, was committed to the Gospel of circumcision.

The Epistle to the Hebrews may have been for the supposed Jerusalem church but the name "James" is not even in there.

But, in any event, Jerome seemed to have RESOLVED the matter, perhaps based on research.

Jesus had NO BIOLOGICAL brother called James after all.

There was a mix-up. Joseph who was not the father of Jesus had a child called James with MARY, sister of another MARY, the supposed mother of Jesus.

This is Jerome in De "Viris Illustribus" 2

So, who was the mother of the "James" in Josephus AJ 20.9.1? Mary Madgdalene?

And it must be noted that the "Lord's brother" was not mentioned as a "pillar" in the Gospels nor can the "Lord's brother" be found in Acts of the Apostles, the Epistle with the name James or the "brother Jude" and Revelation.

GakuseiDon

Yes, that is true, so a 'spiritual' reading for 'brother' is possible, no doubt about it. But what word would he use if he wanted to denote an actual brother?

What makes me lean towards Paul referring to an actual brother is Occam's razor: it seems that is how the earliest writers took Paul's meaning, in addition to no record of it being used as a title for a person or a group.

James is one of the pillars, and to identify him (from amongst other James, I imagine) he calls him "brother of the Lord".

On a slight tangent: If "apostle" means "sent out", and James remained in Jerusalem, then I guess that is why he was not called an apostle.

Agreed. Second / Third century, when Mary's virginity started to become an issue.

But the very fact that they wrote him in as an actual brother is evidence for my position, IMHO. They understood it that way, and they were much closer to the language and thinking of the times.

You have to make James AND his followers all-but-disappear from the knowledge of later Christians in order to propose that the later Christians thought that Paul was referring to an actual brother. But even then, rather than downplaying James by making him one of many spiritual brothers -- as you say, Paul uses "brother" in a spiritual sense many times, so they had that option -- they take Paul to mean that James was an actual brother.

C'mon. What word would Paul use if he wanted to denote an actual brother?

Wouldn't this have included Peter, the other apostles and all the other spiritual brothers called "James"? There are a number of "James" in the NT who were followers of Jesus -- how does "James, brother of the Lord" identify a specific James? Do you think that Paul is implying that Peter was not a "brother of the Lord"?

Paul uses "James, brother of the Lord", to distinguish him. If "brother of the Lord" were a general term for "Christians", and there were a number of James, how would "James, brother of the Lord" narrow it down? Paul would say "I saw James, brother of the Lord", and his response would be "Yeah? Which one?" or "So you didn't catch up with the non-Christian James?"

Toto

For a biological brother, might Paul have used the term "kata sarka" - brother in the flesh?

Why are you so sure that the gospel writers were early, or that they understood the brother of the Lord to refer to the biological brother of Jesus? They could have cast James as a biological brother for literary reasons. In any case, haven't you claimed that no one believes the gospels are history?

Chili

Yes! Magdalene is the temple tramp, fun as she may be and the efficient cause of our desire but not the formal cause of rebirth and therefore a tramp. She was the cause of his dream as opposed to the Annunciation in Luke. Let me put this in the context of John 1:13 and there identify her as "carnal" desire as opposed to God:

. . . 13: "who were begotten not by blood, nor by carnal desire, nor by man's willing it, BUT by God.

Just look at the desire in this, and that clearly identifies Magdalene . . . or Eve instead of 'woman.'

spamandham

Something that would translate as 'brother', I imagine.

It's up to us to decide from the context whether he is referring to a blood relationship, or not. If he is referring to a blood relationship, it would be the only time in ~50 or so such usages of variants of 'brother' that a blood relationship was intended. If Paul were to use the word ambiguously...sometimes in a spiritual sense and otehr times in a literal sense, then the case you are making would be stronger. But he doesn't. He doesn't appear to *ever* uses it to refer to a blood relationship, unless the one instance we are discussing in reference to James is it.

Sure, but 100 years had passed, and even in Paul's letters, James is barely mentioned (4 very brief blurbs total). James didn't make much of a splash. But since Josephus records him unambiguously as the blood brother of Jesus called Christ, I would expect him to make a gospel appearance, since the gospel writers used Josephus as a source (as shown by G. J. Goldberg in regard to Luke).

So we have a guy named James, head of the Jerusalem church, who has the title 'brother of the lord'. Josephus is familiar with this title, but not understanding Christian culture, presumes it is a blood relationship, and records it as such. Paul records it as well, and does not bother to point out that it's a title, because everyone in the Christian community already knew that. The gospel writers come along later, read Josephus and Paul, and insert James as a blood brother into their stories. This is not the least bit complicated or unlikely in any way.

The alternative is that James really is a blood brother of Jesus. Ok, apply ordinary social rules associated with cults. James is the blood brother of Jesus and is the head of the head church as a result. This is the way cults typically work, so nothing unusual. However, what is unusual, is that Jesus family then falls off the face of the earth. Why did they not continue to play a prominant role in the church? ...and why do Jesus' other siblings and mother, who play roles within the cult in the gospels, not get recorded in Paul's letters? Cult dynamics dictate that every member of Jesus' blood family who belonged to the cult would have played prominent roles. Why does Paul not mention them?

You *MUST* resolve these issues in a way that is more straightforward and less speculative than the alternative before you can claim that the our good friend William of Ockham supports your position over that one.

That's easy. 100 years had passed. If it weren't written down, who could tell you anything about the leaders of the JWs from 100 years ago? These things are just not interesting or important enough to survive via oral history. If they aren't written down, they're forgotten very quickly.

In the case of James, it *was* written down, but just enough to know his name and the 'brother of thel lord' business, and so that's all that shows up in the Gospels.

You're position, where James is a real brother of Jesus, has a harder time of explaining why Jesus' family plays no role at all in the church by the 2nd century and are just barely even recorded in the gospels.

...because that's what Josephus says, and Josephus *did* mean it as a blood relationship. However, Josephus was simply recording what he had heard regarding James - Josephus obviously did not know James personally, and mistook his title for a blood relationship. This would be the natural thing to do for someone who was not intimately familiar with Christian culture.

...only if they were considered to be "conformed to the likeness of his Son", by the early church. My guess is that someone would have to be viewed as particularly pious to be elevated to such a lofty position. That person might even become the leader of the Jerusalem church, and be remembered later as "James the Just".

Paul refers to James 4 times, but only one of those times does he refer to him as "the lord's brother" (probability = 0.25). Peter is mentioned 6 times authentically (I do not consider the creed in 1 cor. 15 to be authentic). Applying the statistics from James to Peter, there is an 18% probability that Paul would consider Peter "the lord's brother" but never mention it, all else being equal, so most likely, Paul did not consider Peter to be a 'brother of the lord'.

For the 2nd time, I am not arguing that 'brother of the lord" is a general title for all Christians, or that there was some subcult known as 'brothers of the lord'. Rather, it's a title for James specifically.

yalla

I pick up my RSV.
I open to the Paul section.
It flops open at I Corinthians.
I check to see if there is any underlining there in red, sometime ago I went through the 'genuine' Paul epistles and underlined the kin terms.

Here is one.
4.6 "....brethren ..."

4.14 "....but to admonish you as my beloved children."

Hands up all those here who think that Paul is addressing his genetic children, the fruit of his loins.

4.15 " ... for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel"

Well thats one explanation, which does not include DNA, of how people can be children of someone.

4.17 " Therefore I sent to you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord"

Much the same process going on here too, unless you think Tomothy was 'begat' by Paul and an unnamed mum.

6.1 " ....brother ..."

6. 5-6 "can it be that there is no man among you wise enough to decide between members of the brotherhood, but brother goes to law against brother and that before unbelievers"
Hmm, on the one hand we have 'unbelievers' and on the other hand
'brothers' of the "brotherhood".

What is a brother? He is a believer.

There are dozens more of these examples from Paul, where he uses kin terms to describe the 'in, crowd, the believers, those later called Christians as opposed to unbelievers.

In none of the cases does it denote a genetic/DNA/blood/kin/result of a sex act relationship.