gurugeorge

I don't think this is even close to a contender. In 1 Corinthians 9:5 we have the phrase "the brothers of the Lord". That siblings of a human Jesus are being spoken of in that context seems to be ruled out by "sister wife" denoting something like "believing wife", in the very same passage.

Paul uses "brother" to denote a fellow Christian in several other places.

From this, it seems likely that James is a fellow-believer-type "brother", and not a sibling-type "brother".

IOW, it is a "term of art".

ApostateAbe

The word used for, "brother," is the same as the word used for fleshly brother, but, yes, the word also has that extra meaning in the writings of Paul. So how do I know which definition to choose? The phrase, "the brother of the Lord," is used as though to specify which "James" Paul was talking about, because there were many Christians named "James" (one of the twelve disciples was named James). For Paul to write about meeting James, a fellow Christian, using the word for "brother," without further explanation, would make his report ambiguous at best and misleading at worst. And all doubt should be resolved by the synoptic gospels listing the brothers of Jesus, and "James" is included among them.

show_no_mercy

Would you know this just from reading Paul's letters? Who is the James in 1 Cor 15:7? Who is the James in Gal 2:9? Are they the same James? If you think there was a "James" in the twelve in 1 Cor 15:5, then there must have also been another Cephas in the twelve as well, based on the bias of later gospels (and assuming that Cephas and Peter are the same person - also a bias of later gospels).

gurugeorge

Why? If it's easy to misunderstand now, it was equally easy to misunderstand then, and the idea that the cult figure had had actual siblings could have arisen as a simple error in post-Diaspora early Christianity.

As I keep saying (and as spin has recently pointed out to someone else) I think that, as a thought-experiment, you've really got to bracket the synoptics when looking at "Paul", and take it as if there were no Christianity, and you'd just discovered "Paul"'s letters in a jar in the desert, with the only allowable context being what was contemporary with "Paul" and prior to him, nothing later. In that context, what could the usage of "brother" and "sister" possibly mean? On the face of it, it's an obvious term of affiliation, or term of art, in most of the circumstances it's used in "Paul", so it's overwhelmingly likely to be so in the case of James too - especially given that there's no hint that the cult entity's biography in "Paul" is historically detailed enough to have a family of any sort.

It seems to me that the logic in my previous post is fairly tight. If siblings were meant, "sister" could not be used in that context (it's the same word, just feminine version); so "brothers of the Lord" (more generally "brother/sister") must be a "term of art" for the early Christians of Paul's time (though we can't tell exactly what it meant, it might have had social, intra-organisational-political, doctrinal or experiental connotations); therefore denoting James as "the brother of the Lord" is highly likely to be a similar usage (the "the" must merely distinguish him from some other possible James that "Paul"'s audience could conceivably have though he meant).

Incidentally, it seems to me that the (apparently) common translation of "sister wife" as "believing wife" is itself a prime example of (probably unconscious) weaseling by Christian translators. If "sister" denotes believer, why doesn't "brother"? But in fact we don't actually know that "brother/sister" merely denotes "Christian believer", it looks more like a concept with some sort of sociological (in the broadest sense) connotation.

If it weren't for that Corinthians passage, I could accept the "of/in" counter-argument, and would feel more comfortable with "the brother of" as denoting a sibling; but the Corinthians passage seems to rule that out, and it looks as if "of" and "in" are interchangeable (in terms of the "term of art", whatever it originally meant).

aa5874

This is totally unacceptable. You simply cannot ignore information presented about James in other Church writings and then use the writings of Paul in isolation or in a jar. That is just absurd.

One cannot just reject information that can help to clarify whether it was propagated that a James was supposedly called a relative or brother of Jesus.

The NT and Church writers propagated or implied that James was called the brother, a sibling, of Jesus at some time up to the writing of Church History.

This is Church History 2.1.2See http://www.newadvent.org

It cannot be shown that the author of Galatians 1.19 did not propagate or imply that the alleged Jesus was a sibling of the supposed James.

gurugeorge

Writings are written at a certain time, some things are written later than others.

By textual and historical analysis, many scholars have determined that at least some of what we have in "Paul" is the earliest Christian material we have.

Taking that idea as true (for the sake of argument - I understand you don't accept that idea, but I provisionally do), it is quite legitimate to conceptually isolate those earliest writings from writings that came later in time.

Beforehand, we have no idea what sort of misunderstandings or flights of fancy may have crept into doctrine with time.

In order to see what the earliest Christians thought, you have to look at writings from that time without reference to later writings, without having one's opinion of those early writings contaminated by ideas that may (or of course may not, we don't know until we've performed this thought experiment) have been later developments, tendentious readings or misreadings, or even sheer error (and bear in mind, we know there are at least two socially disruptive events for the Jews, in 70 CE and 130 CE).

aa5874

There is no historical evidence of the Pauline writers in the 1st century. Can you please show an external source that can corroborate the historicity of ANY Pauline writer in the 1st century?

It would appear that many scholars have simply ignored information, externally and even internally and, have done as you proposed, analyze the Pauline writings in isolation or in a jar.

And further, some have declared all information in the Pauline writings as interpolations that show or tend to show that the very writings were late.

This type of analysis is completely flawed and bogus.

How can you accept a writing in a jar when there are other writings already available which can help to clarify information found in your isolated jar?

I think your idea is a bad idea when you are also claiming that your isolated writings in a jar have been manipulated and heavily interpolated.

The very idea that the Pauline writings were manipulated and heavily interpolated are RED FLAGS that should NEVER EVER be ignored.

When was "beforehand?".

Beforehand, it has already been deduced that the isolated writings in your jar have been manipulated.

Well, what do you think would happen if gMatthew, gMark, gLuke, or gJohn was individually accepted in isolation, accepted as if in a jar or just accepted as early writings?

Once you accept writings in isolation or in a jar, you cannot tell me about events that are not found in your isolated writings.

When the Pauline writings are placed in isolation or in a jar, there is virtually no historical value to those writings.

If my memory is good, the Pauline writings have only one single verse that may have some historical value but even, in isolation, the mention of Aretas has created other historical problems for the Pauline writers.

It is not reasonable at all to place writings in isolation when other writings are available.

gurugeorge

Well of course some kinds of claim of interpolation can only be made by comparison with other writings, including later ones. But sometimes internal inconsistency shows up too.

I suppose there is an appearance of circularity here, but I don't think there's any real circularity: if philological and historical research taking into account all the extant writings gives us a rough date, then we look at whatever seems to be the uninterpolated core in its appropriate chronological position. (I'm not saying it's clear there is clearly such a thing, this is just the general idea.)

Simply: forget about the synoptics when looking at "Paul", forget about the later stories, see what "Paul" seems to be saying himself. What turns up?

What turns up (as far as I can see) is a proto-Gnostic talking about a mostly spiritual entity with a few pseudo-historical biographical details of the type you find in many myths.

What you don't find (which is necessary for the HJ case) is evidence that anybody who actually lived actually knew a human being called "Jesus". (If there were, in reality, an HJ, that absence could be for any number of reasons, of course; but the stubborn fact remains - there is no clear evidence of any eyeballing of a human "Jesus" anywhere in "Paul", the supposedly earliest Christian writing we have.)

(Again, I'm aware of your theory, but as I've said before I find it implausible because of the troublesomeness of the proto-Gnostic elements in "Paul" - it's just implausible that a total forgery would be introduced with those elements at a later stage, especially after individual religious prophetic inspiration became strengst verboten. It seems "Paul" had to be included for some reason, even despite the troublesome proto-Gnosticism, which seems to be hedged about with orthodox interpolation. And if so, that's telling. IOW I could conceive your theory to be correct IF all of "Paul" was like the more obviously orthodox suspect Epistles, but since it's the less suspect "Pauline" writings that have the proto-Gnostic elements then, as I say, it's hard to see why those would - as on your theory - be fabricated and included in the Canon. If they were fabrications, they should all be like the suspect Epistles, thoroughly orthodox in outlook.)

aa5874

Why are telling me about comparison with other writings when you are advocating ISOLATION?

Have you abandoned your in a jar idea already? Please don't tell me about other extant writings when you want to put the Pauline writings in a jar.

The Pauline writings when taken in ISOLATION have virtually no historical value. And without any historical clock, they may be filled with anachronisms.

It is of little use to take the Epistles in ISOLATION and then make a completely erroneous assessment when other information is available and then resort to the very information you ignored to correct your errors.

I do not ever try to asses the Pauline writings without taking into account all the information I can find.

When you read the Pauline letters in ISOLATION you may not understand the nature of the Pauline Jesus, but the writers claimed Jesus was betrayed in the night, was crucified, died, resurrected, ascended and is coming back a second time.

Now, that is exactly the same claim made by the NT and the Church writers about the God/man Jesus.

Paul according to the NT and the Church writers simply was converted AFTER JESUS ASCENDED TO HEAVEN.

The story from the Church is simple. Jesus the God/man was on earth, he left after his resurrection, and while he was in heaven, he initially blinded PAUL who used to get visions or revelations from Jesus in heaven.

I really don't know which theory you are referring to.

I have no known implausible theory. I have evidence or information that Jesus of the NT WAS IMPLAUSIBLE. Please see Matthew 1.18, Luke 1.35, Mark 16.6, John 1, Acts 1.9 and the preface of De Principiis.

But, in any event, it is a bad idea to examine the Pauline Epistles in ISOLATION because such an exercise would eventually be scrapped or discarded when other pertinent information is taken into account.

gurugeorge

Well, I think I've explained my meaning well enough. From our previous discussions and this discussion, it relaly seems like you have some sort of difficulty with the very idea of a thought experiment. I don't know what it is, but you seem to get hung up on the idea. :huh:

As I see it (and as I'd wager most people here would see it) we can range quite freely between sometimes taking all writings into account, and sometimes conceptually isolating texts or parts of texts by various criteria, including temporal order. I really don't know what else I can add to make it clearer.

I meant your theory that all the "Paul" writings are relatively late, thoroughly orthodox texts.