aa5874

I have never heard of any matter that was resolved only using the one single source. It is just totally illogical and beyond normal reason to try and resolve a matter only hearing from one SINGLE side.

What is found in the Epistles must be corroborated by another source. It is unheard of that the Pauline writings or any other writings are self-corroborative.

Even in cases of direct evidence multiple witnesses are still employed as corroborative sources.

Once there are Church sources of antiquity that contradict Galatians 1.19, then then it simply cannot be confirmed to be true and bearing in mind that the writer himself is unknown outside of apologetic sources and that the writings bearing the name Paul may have been manipulated and their date of writing are not corroborated external of the Church.

dogsgod

I appreciate everyone's response but I must apologies for not making my question understood.

Can someone on this board read Greek and explain whether or not the words brother of the Lord can have more than one meaning as it can in English.

Someone explained to me that in Greek it's not possible to translate brother of the Lord to mean brother of a spiritual Lord. For that one would have to say brother in the Lord rather than of. In other words, there is only one way to translate James,brother of the Lord and that is to say that James had to be the literal brother of the Lord, not a brother of a spiritual Lord. I don't know whether to accept that because I don't read Greek.

I'm not asking whether James was a literal brother or not per se, I'm asking a question of the language and how it translates.

spamandham

So your latest attack is to pretend that mythicism rests upon 'brother of the lord'? If that's the best you've got, it's time to admit you have nothing.

aa5874

But, knowing Greek cannot resolve the veracity of the statement. If the Pauline writer did say that he met James who said he was the brother of the Lord then it would still need some external corroboration when it is taken into account other passages in the Pauline writings and other non-Pauline sources.

The Pauline writer would not have worshiped a man as a God and had already stated that he was not the apostle of a man.

And mad-man can claim that they are God's brother, father. or God himself.

And in MYTHOLOGICAL fables Gods can have human relatives.

Loomis

Now I see what you mean. I’m no expert but if Philemon 1:16 is any indication then that someone is correct.

Where does the NT actually say “brother of the Lord?” Are you talking about Mark 6:3, Matthew 13:55, and Galatians 1:19?

I suppose a lot of folks will reason that since the author of Acts (for example) used “brother” to refer to someone of the same faith, then it follows that “brother of the Lord” can also mean someone of the same faith. But that premise does not demand that conclusion.

Loomis

I agree. But he already made it clear that he is not concerned with the truthfulness of the claim that James was Jesus’ brother; only if “brother of the Lord” is (or can be) synonymous with “brother in the Lord.”

Doug Shaver

Yeah, most likely.

Yeah, he could. However, in fairness to the historicists, I must note that just because the author of Acts used the expression that way does not imply that Paul must have used it that way.

ApostateAbe

In my book, there are at least five arguments that are each deal-breakers for mythicism, and this is only one of them. Seemingly small things like that are treated very seriously in Biblical scholarship, and for good reason--we don't have a lot of trustworthy information to begin with, and this passing mention is one of the few bites of trustworthy information. Mythicism does not only rest upon the validity of the best historicist arguments, however--it also rests on its own positive evidence, whatever that may be.

Toto

The phrase "brothers in the Lord" is used, but that does not require that "brother of the Lord" has a different meaning and can only mean a biological brother.

I think that someone has constructed an argument that sounds like it has some validity but is actual based on wishful thinking.

I can't claim to be an expert, but I'm reasonably sure that if there were any basis to this argument, I would have read about it before this.

dogsgod

Doherty offers this corollary bellow when discussing brother of the Lord on his website, the jesuspuzzle, and reading between the lines indicates that this someone might have a point. BTW this someone is a poster on another forum that claims to be an expert at reading Greek.


As a corollary, we also need to be cautious in relying too much on analyses that depend on the exact wording of our surviving text. Whole arguments in the case of "the brother of the Lord" have hinged on the word "the" or the preposition "of" as opposed to the "in" of Philippians 1:14. Considering that our earliest portion of Galatians in an extant manuscript comes from the third century, and in complete form only in the fourth, and that all sorts of scribal amendments were made, intentionally and unintentionally, to the New Testament texts, reliance on knowing the original wording of any passage is extremely unwise.



But then I came across the angel of the Lord Acts 12:7 which prompted me to rethink this.