Toto

Hoffman can be obscure.

I think he is trying to refute the argument that all Christians were brothers, therefore James as brother of the Lord does not equal biological brother. (I don't think anyone has made this precise argument.)

I think he drags in the phrase "tines apo Iakabou" (some from James, who put the kibosh on Peter eating with Gentiles in Gal 2:12) to try to say that if all Christians were brothers, then these guys would have been called "brothers."

Someone noted a while back that Paul never calls Peter "brother." I think Paul reserved that term for members of his own faction (there were no self-identified Christians then.) I tend to think it is a possibility (but cannot prove) that "brother of the Lord" might be ironic - like people might now use the phrase "God's gift to women" to refer to a man with an unduly high regard for his own worth. (example in lyrics)

hjalti

Hmm...surely Carrier is offering a version of that argument.

Yeah, I suspected that, but that line of argument doesn't seem to make any kind of sense to me. Even if all Christians were called brothers (which I think is pretty evident from the literature!), why would we expect Paul to always use that word?

And from the same comment:Hmm...this is true if he's thinking about the specific phrase "brother in the lord", but if not, then what about the synoptic story about Jesus rejecting his family and saying something like: "Who are my brother, sister and mother?", "This bunch of crazy acolytes over here!"

:huh:

spin

If Paul actually said anything about any other Jesus sects than the one he seems to have begun, you might have a ledge to stand on, but as it is, we know nothing from Paul as to what the messianists in Jerusalem believed other than the fact that Paul consistently opposed their adherence torah performance with Jesus. The "churches of Judea in christ" show no signs of believing in Jesus, so are they anything more than messianic congregations?

Sorry, no prize for these assumptions.

It is evidence that the christian community perverted texts, just as they invented texts and ascribed them as they wished, making no basis on which to claim independence of attestation.

We are dealing with an orthodoxy which the Johannine community was a part of, which Origen basically belonged to... the line through which all our modern religion is based on. Appealing to heresy doesn't help establish any independence of attestation. We need ways of finding sources for elements in traditions rather than diverse developments with a tradition.

We know that Mt & Lk have a literary dependence on Mk and that Mk was written after the time of Paul. We seem to have a pedigree in the making that needs to independent attestation, if all the traditions develop within the one wide creative community. This analysis may ultimately be wrong, but we need external facts to establish independence and there are none.

spin

If there were an opportunity that the gospel writers knew about the role that James the brother of Jesus would play in the early life of the religion, you'd expect some hindsight to elevate James from the rejection of the family, but none of them show any knowledge.

hjalti

Or maybe he just didn't like the faction that appealed to James, and that's why he makes Jesus disown his biological family. :constern01:

maryhelena

OK, I’ll give it a go.....

Perhaps Hoffmann, inadvertently, has opened up another way to view the Gal.1 ‘problem’.

[T2]
18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother.[/T2]

Hoffmann is questioning the use of ‘brother’ as a term used for all Christians - and is doing so as a contrast to the hierarchical type structure that is evident with the ‘apostle’ term. And you know what - perhaps that is the clue to this whole James issue. The contrast is between *apostle* and *brother* - and focusing only on ‘brother of the Lord’ is to ignore the context of the passage.

The context is *brother* contrasted with *apostle*. *Brother* is biological and *apostle* reflects a hierarchical structure. In other words; a contrast between a natural order and a man-made order. That’s the context of Gal. 1:18,19. Whether the gospel JC is historical or mythological - that contrast between *brother*; between the natural order, the primacy of flesh and blood, and the subordinate hierarchal man-made, *apostle* order, stands.

It’s immaterial, in connection with Gal. 1:18,19, whether the gospel JC is historical or ahistorical - ‘Paul’ is contrasting *brother* with *apostle* - and the implications of that contrast make sense as much for the ahistoricist position as they would IF JC was a historical figure.

Interpreting the words of ‘Paul’ literally or metaphorically or philosophically? Well, that’s what the whole historicist verse ahistoricst debate is all about...

Duvduv

With all due respect, as I have written previously, I feel that all the linguistic investigations totally lose sight of the context both of Galatians 1 itself and anything else referring to the brother of the Lord. The fact is in terms of context that this term overall means nothing because if it did, we would see it widely used, especially since we are talking about someone who was supposedly the actual physical brother of the historical Jesus.

Someone whose knowledge of the Christ would have been equal to or far surpassed that of "Paul" who only had revelations of the risen Christ without any background or context.
The fact that Paul merely mentions the name in passing means that as far as he is concerned, there is nothing of greatness or awe in this person who ostensibly was ALSO born of the same great Mary who merited giving birth to the savior. No expressions of personal awe, no reverence, nothing.

And elsewhere we already know that James was merely "called the brother of the Lord" as an honorific title. And conceivably if it was an interpolation it may have found its way in after or even before the gospels themselves were finalized as holy scripture from a marginal gloss.

Heck, Mary doesn't even deserve a single interpolation in a single epistle at all. And she was the mother! I wonder why no one interpolated that one name after the gospels and nativity stories were finalized. I suppose there were some kind of rules to interpolating into these ostensibly ancient texts that served as testimonies to the Christ, otherwise it could have gone on for hundreds of years. Nevertheless, how about "born of MARY" just once?!

The mere singular mention in passing of "brother of the Lord" in a single epistle means nothing.

maryhelena

Well, actually it could well mean rather a lot!

For the JC historicists it seems to be their 'got you' argument...:constern02:

For the ahistoricists/mythicists it could well be a big deal also.....

From the ahistoricist/mythicist position, the gospel JC is not a historical figure. Therefore.....................James did not exist nor did Cephas/Peter. Consequently, this Pauline passage has to be interpreted metaphorically or philosophically. I gave one such interpretation above.

And its not only that a metaphorical or philosophical interpretation of that Gal.1:18,19 passage is possible - but the implications are immense. 'Paul' is referencing two gospel figures. Two figures from a pseudo-historical story; two figures from a story that reflects a salvation interpretation of history. 'Paul' knows that gospel JC story. And not only does he know that story - but he is supporting it by claiming to have met two 'people' from that gospel story. Bottom line - 'Paul's' own story has to be questioned as to it's historicity. Real people, historical people, don't meet up with figures from a pseudo-historical, salvation history, story.

footnote: Take 'Paul' at his word - he says he is not lying - he met up with two people from the gospel JC story - one of them the brother of the Lord. The only way 'Paul' could do that is if 'Paul' is part and parcel of that NT storyboard...

spin

The "he" is all three synoptic communities!

MrMacSon

I agree. There seems to be lots of passages that suggest embellishment.