spamandham

Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord's brother.

Even if we suppose that there were multiple Jameses running around, the context of Peter and Jerusalem already tells us which James he is referring to, so the idea that it's clarifying doesn't make much sense.

I think the most congruent perspective is that "Brother of the Lord" is a title for James as head of the Jerusalem church, and that Paul uses the expression here since the context is Paul's visit to the Jerusalem church.

In the other 3 places Paul refers to James, he does not use the title, because the context is different. But in all cases, everyone already knows which James Paul is referring to.

Juststeve

Spam:

In Matthew's list apart from Peter there are two disciples called James, James of Zebedee and James of Alphaeus. Paul uses James the brother of the lord to distinguish the James he saw from the other two who like Peter were disciples. Seems a natural usage to me.

Steve

Doug Shaver

Well, it does . . . unless you're going get all persnickety and pedantic about things like begging the question.

Doug Shaver

Assuming a historical Jesus, I would infer from other sources that he had a brother named James who was head of the Jerusalem church for a while, and I would suppose that Paul was referring to him here.

If those other sources did not exist, I would not think Paul was here claiming that James was Jesus' brother, and nobody else would ever have thought so, either.

spamandham

So why then does he not make this distinction the other 3 times he refers to James? Even the gospel authors can't figure out what to make of the various Jameses, as they play no role aside from being mentioned.

Juststeve

Doug and Spam:

Absent any other sources the most natural reading of “brother of the lord” would be the lord’s brother. It doesn’t work for a Mjer but that not an adequate reason to ignore the plain meaning of what Paul wrote.

Spam takes the position to an extreme. Paul is identifying the two people to whom he spoke, Peter and James the “brother of the lord”. Apart from the insistence that there was no real Jesus to have a brother named James what is the excuse for dismissing what Paul plainly says? If Paul is simply trying to identify one particular James, Jesus’ brother among a number of James, how could he have done it more plainly?

When a theory requires one to ignore the plain meaning of what is written it may be time to look for another theory.

Steve

show_no_mercy

What reason do we have for Paul to stop using "brother of the lord" and to start using "brother in the lord"?

Possibly due to the same type of confusion in this thread?

Paul overwhelmingly uses the word "brother" to mean fellow believer. He uses the phrase "family of believers". He says that Jesus was the "first among brothers" [to be resurrected]. He even talks about himself being "untimely born"; considering the etymology of the Greek word "brother" (αδελφος - brother, from δελφυς - womb) this seems appropriate.

James being a literal brother of Jesus seems to be the only outlier.

Juststeve

Mercy:

Had Paul meant to say brother in the sense of fellow believer he would have called Peter a brother as well. He might have said Peter and James, brothers in the lord. He didn't. He is quite clearly referring to a particular individual named James who he says is the lord's brother. Your position requires that you assume Paul didn't mean what he said in a straight forward way. On the assumption he was talking about James the brother of Jesus how could he have said it so you would understand?

Steve

Toto

D'uh - James the brother of Jesus?

Juststeve

Toto:

Had he said that you and the other MJers would reply that Jesus was a common name and he was probably talking about another Jesus. In fact what he said was more specific to the person who Paul referred to as the lord, that is one specific Jesus who was the brother of James.

Steve