Diogenes the Cynic

No, Paul is only saying Jesus had a brother. That is literally what he says in that verse, and there is no convincing reason to take it as anything but what the plain Greek says.

spin

The Greek word for "sister" is just the feminine form of "brother". The plural of "brothers" can mean both "brothers and sisters", though it would seem likely in the context of 1 Cor 9:5 and politics that it only meant "brothers".

Grog

This is from conservative Michael Marlowe:

An individual female is never referred to as an adelphos in Greek; she is referred to with the word adelphē "sister," and if a writer wishes to be inclusive he must use a compound expression such as adelphos kai adelphē "bother and sister" (see, for example, the usage of the singular forms in the Greek New Testament at Matthew 12:50, Mark 3:35, 1 Corinthians 7:15, and James 2:15). So the rendering "brother or sister" for adelphos in such places as Matthew 18:15 is contrary to Greek usage, and linguistically unsound. When Bible versions like the TNIV use such gender-inclusive expressions in place of "brother" for the masculine adelphos they are simply covering up the male-oriented usage with a paraphrastic rendering.

It is what I was essentially hinting at in my post.

spin

Unless you can show how he had to have said "and/or" (and how he would have said it) this quibble doesn't get off the ground.

I already give a number of reasons why the version you want is questionable:

1. Paul's use of brother (which you haven't seriously dealt with);
2. the significance of the non-titular κυριος in Paul's diaspora Jewish literary-cultural heritage;
3. the fact that no new testament text supports the importance of Jesus's brother James, Acts being silent and the gospels leaving us with his rejection; and
4. in both cases of the phrase we are dealing with person(s) of importance, the plural ranking brothers of the lord with apostles, yet not a single source supports such an idea for brothers of Jesus.

Another grab bag of contentless polemic.

I have responded to the issue in post #121.

spin

That is eisegesis.

And that is simple false.

And that is dogma.

thief of fire

There is nothing silly about it. If we were looking at Paul's "works" as a dcitionary would define it, you might have point

But we aren't looking at the "works" of Paul. We are looking at a handful of surviving letters written to "brothers" and "sisters".
Do you really, believe you have established Paul's usage or just that you can make an argument that might persuade the weak minded?

And somehow freethought and rationalism is advanced when they do?

Sheshbazzar

If the church writer wanted 'Paul' to say that Jebus had a brother named 'James', then 'Paul' damn well would say that Jebus had a brother named James.
It has nothing to do with Paul.

thief of fire

No "dogma" about it. You had it explained to you here why it was not and it's willfulness on your part to persist. Are you trying to advance freethought and reason or just promote your theory no matter what the cost?

Eleanor Dickey's paper on kinship terms, Literal and Extended Use of Kinship Terms in Documentary Papyri


When a kinship term is used to connect someone to a person
other than the writer or addressee of the letter, it may very safely
be taken literally; even in other situations extended usage occurs
only in certain types of context, so there are many cases in which
one can be fairly confident that a term is literal,

As you have nothing to support your view it's mischievous to continue continually cry "dogma"

spin

Michael Marlowe has chosen verses that aren't relevant, ie ones that don't deal with plural forms. They are related by "or", so we expect gender differentiation. The writer in each case is making a list.

The plural form indicating both male and female is not in any sense controversial.

Here's some of the Liddell and Scott entry:

I. as Subst., αδελφος, ο, voc. αδελφε; Ep., Ion., and Lyr. αδελφεός (gen. -ειου in Hom. is for -εοο), Cret. αδελφιος, αδευφιος, Leg.Gort.2.21, Mon.Ant.18.319:—brother, Hom., etc.; αδελφοι brother and sister, E.El.536;

This is strictly analogous to the Latin:

B. Fratres for brother and sister (as also the Gr. ἀδελφοί): “Lucius et Titia fratres emancipati a patre,” Dig. 10, 2, 38: “tres fratres, Titius, Naevius et Seia,” ib. 2, 14, 35: “fratrum incestus, amor,” Tac. A.

spin

All that shows is that you couldn't be bothered to read the rest of the thread. Typical.

And don't be hypocritical in your attempts to impute other people's rationale when you don't know them.