Steven Carr

Mark records Jesus as saying that whoever does God's will is his brother.

Is it going too far ro claim that 'Brother of the Lord' might refer to somebody considered to do God's will?

Julian

Is this leading up to the Josephus passage?

I don't see why it is going to far, seems reasonable to me...

Julian

Diogenes the Cynic

I'm actually more curious about what Paul meant by calling James the "brother of the lord" than by the Josephus passage.

John A. Broussard

I've never been clear as to why there's so much fuss about whether or not Jesus had a brother or a whole brood of brothers and sisters.

For those theists who claim a virgin birth for Jesus, isn't it a simple matter to make all those siblings younger and thus confine the virginity to only the firstborn?

Enlighten me.

Delerium

It's part of Roman Catholic tradition that Mary was always a virgin. Probably incredulity at the idea that the woman who gave birth to God could be allowed to give birth to us damn dirty humans. It's not a big deal if Jesus had siblings for most protestants.

Diogenes the Cynic

You misunderstand me, I think. The reason I'm curious about Paul is because of how it affects the history/myth argument with regards to Jesus himself. If Paul intended to identify a literal sibling to Jesus, then that in itself is an indication that Paul saw Jesus as a historical person rather than a symbolic or metaphyisical being. It's not a curiosity to me that Jesus may have had siblings but an early attestation to a sibling (if that's what Paul is doing) is a de facto attestation to HJ.

John A. Broussard

Got it!

I never realized there was any question about Paul's belief in Jesus as a someone who actually existed. While I know he didn't accept as whole cloth the traditions about Jesus swirling around him, my reading is that he did regard Jesus as being a historical figure, somewhat the same way as I regard the existence of Teddy Roosevelt, though I might have some doubts about his rough rider image.

Thanks for the clarification, by the way.

Chris Weimer

Steven Carr: I want you to first recognize that I'm an atheist who believes in some sort of an historical Jesus, however, Brother of the Lord seems to imply a special title given, probably to some sort of Jerusalem sect's ideas of what Jesus was.

Diogenes the Cynic

Yes, there are some mythicists like Doherty who argue that Paul envisioned Jesus as an otherworldly character rather than a historical one, that Jesus' death and resurrection occurred on a spiritual plane, and the Gospels represent attempts to go back and historicize what began as a myth. So that means that any of Paul's comments which suggest that he had a historical understanding of Jesus require examination and explanation in the mythicist arguments. I believe that Doherty's position is that "brother of the Lord" was a figurative title, not an indication of a literal sibling relationship.

freigeister

The understanding that Christ's brothers were the normal familial kind is of long standing. Eusebius mentions them in his Church History Bk III, Chap. 20, citing the even earlier Hegesippus.