spamandham

I don't think Paul considered James an apostle.

1 Corinthians 15:7
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles

Galatians 1:19
I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord's brother.

Jame's status is higher than the apostles in the eyes of Paul. So much higher, that he has earned the right to be called the Lord's brother.

dogsgod

I would agree that James could have been called the Lord's brother due to a position of high status that he may have held, but I'm not so sure that he wasn't an apostle based on that wording. If you removed the words "all "and "other" from the examples you provide, there would be little doubt that he was not an apostle, but that isn't the case.

judge

You need to address Galatians not Corinthians. Galatians is where the verse is found.

You need to demonstrate the following statement of yours is true, or withdraw it.

You have not shown that this is the only reason.

What you need to say is something like the following.

As lord can at times be ambigious, it is possible that it meant something else other than Jesus, in some long lost version of Galatians which no longer exists, or even in the one we have.

That is really all you can say.

Doug Shaver

My bad. I seem to have missed some context. I thought you were defending the conventional reading. Sorry about that.

spin

I'm not the one trying to force a meaning onto the phrase in Galatians. Your evasion of the linguistic issue easily seen in Corinthians won't help you face the problem.

You will some time have to deal with the problem of created ambiguous reference.

The best you can do is quibble on "only". That is the only way you can get out of dealing with the textual issue. If you don't want to consider the problem of a word meaning two things without any contextual clues as to what the reference is then you should say so now and we stop the tango...

Like fucking hell it is. I want you to get involved instead of evading your responsibilities in the dialogue.

There is no way that one can conclude that "the lord" in "James the brother of the lord" refers to Jesus. One can assume it, believe it, postulate it, but not meaningfully conclude that it is the case. If you think you can, I'll read how you come to that conclusion, but I think you'd be deluding yourself.

You have a task, which so far you have assiduously avoided. Unless you deal with it I don't think you will be in a position to say much that is relevant on the topic.

The OP was about the significance of "James the brother of the lord" and when one can establish that "the lord" in the phrase was taken to mean Jesus. (A priori retrospective views aside, can anyone resolve the issue?) In dealing with the phrase, I've also outlined a linguistic position that a writer, in the effort to communicate, doesn't try to use a term in such a way that a reader doesn't know at any one time what the term means (here's where you're supposed to deal with the 1 Cor. data). I've further argued that those examples of the non-titular κυριος appear to be in interpolations, one of which is witnessed in the manuscript tradition.

So if you don't want show how one can know at any one time if the non-titular κυριος refers to god or Jesus (as in the test case of 1 Cor 7), we can proceed.


spin

judge

Yes you are. You are claiming you know a scribe or interpreter got confused. I dont care which way it reads. And,more importantly despite your insinuation, I have not claimed to know which way it reads.
But here again is what you wrote.

This is the hillarious thing about this whole episode. You are actually trying to force a meaning onto the text in an effort to refute religious fundamentalists. Try and see the funny side.



The thing is that you cant conclude that it does not. Maybe it does maybe it doesn't. I couldn't care which is true.



But again if you just read what I have written you will see that in this entire thread I have not tried to say it must read one way or the other.

Toto

And spin has not tried to say how it should be read, so what is this long pursuit about? Don't force me to split out all of your posts just to keep the thread coherent.

judge

If you state the following..."As things stand the only reason that "James the brother of the lord" is believed to be the brother of Jesus is that writers and interpreters have confused the usage of the non-titular "lord" shifting it onto Jesus."

Then you you are trying to say how it should be read. Or do you disagree?

Toto

That statement does not say how it should be read. It only says that it is not the same as "the brother of Jesus."

What is your point?

judge

You cant claim people were confused about the issue unless you have evidence that they were confused.
Can you explain what the evidence is that rules out anyone believing it for another reason?
If you cant explain just what this evidence is then why support Spin?