dogsgod

Thanks for the welcome.

The reason I noted that Acts in particular does not name James as a brother of Jesus is due to the telling in Acts of how the word of Jesus was spread after his death. If Acts doesn't so much as name Jesus' brother nor mention that he became a religious leader, how are we to assume as much? What do we know that the author of Luke/Acts didn't know? Why does Paul make it clear that he learned nothing of Jesus Christ from any man? Gal 1,11-12 One would think that he would have pressed James for information rather than dismiss him. Why does Paul claim that his apostleship was appointed by God just as Peter's was? Gal 2,7 Reading what Paul actually says contradicts a literal brother of Jesus as well as a Peter that met Jesus. Paul had revelations of a risen Christ just as Peter and James did along with 500 brothers. None of the epistle writers claim witness to a crucifixion of a recent past.

judge

I dont care too much what it means.
Spin has indicated previously that he posts here to get feedback, and that he has had ambitions on at least one occasion to try to put a paper up for peer review.
So I'm giving him feedback, and the feedback is this. Merely pointing out that the word lord can be ambiguous doesn't mean that it must be ambiguous.

All he has done is point out that the word lord could be ambiguous at other times but made no case that is actually is ambiguous in galatians 1:19, or more importnatly that he actually believes it should be read as god.

spin

You clearly haven't quite got the drift. As you extracted this line from the majority of the post you seem not to have understood what the statement meant nor any of the context. You see you needed to deal with the preceding material to understand the comment you are trying to deal with. The phrase "James the brother of the lord" is in itself not ambiguous; it is opaque to us. It yields meaning, but its significance still isn't transparent. A priori commitments aren't of any use to getting its meaning. Eisegesis doesn't work.

The reference which is "so ambiguous" is κυριος after Paul's work has been interpolated with a few choice items dealing with Jesus. I asked you to look at the use of κυριος in 1 Cor 7 to see if you could discern which of the references refer to god and which to Jesus, and what criteria you would use to discern the differences. It is essential that people confront the issue rather than simply ignoring it. If you have no criteria for choosing in 1 Cor 7, how can you think you understand Gal 1:19?

Your post doesn't seem to be directly related to my comments. Please do recheck the post you were trying to respond to.


spin

(And yes, I have you on ignore along with ApostateAbe and a few others.)

judge

More double talk!
The phrase is not ambiguous..oh wait... it is not ambiguous to us.

So it is not ambiguous to you, but maybe it was ambiguous to someone else in the long lost past.
So, if it was ambiguous to someone in the past, then just what was the alternate reading?
And if you yourself have no alternate reading (even for someone in the past) then you cant say it was ambiguous, can you?
I think it is becoming obvious, just why you are avoiding this, ;-)

judge

No you haven't got the drift. The problem is in your opening post. It is there that the weakness is. As that foundation is weak, everything on top of it falls. Sorry.
The following statement is false. Fix the foundation.

spin

You can believe what you want. The distinction is absolutely clear. If the term is opaque, and you haven't shown any evidence that you understand the term, so I'd say that you are just in the same situation logically, then you can't say that it is ambiguous, ie open to more than one meaning.

You don't like it, but you're no better off, if you want to be objective. Crap on about how others understand it post hoc, but that won't change the problem.


spin

spin

"Back at you"? I mean, judge, your banter needs work.

Demonstrating that you don't understand doesn't help you show you do understand.

If you think that the statement you single out is false, stop the bald assertion and prove it's false. Otherwise all you've done is:




spin

Atheos

[STAFFWARN]There is a little too much personal comment going on in this thread. Let's keep the discussion focused on the arguments being made, not the person posting the argument.

On behalf of the BC&H mods,
Atheos[/STAFFWARN]

judge

You made the assertion. It is you that needs to show that it is true, which you havent done.
All you did was make your own bald assertion. Here it is again.

This is part of your opening post, part of the foundation of your argument. But you haven't shown this to be true. All you did was claim it to be so.

"James the brother of the lord", could easily be believed to be the brother of Jesus for the simple reason it can mean that!
That may be what Paul meant. That may be what tradition held since Paul wrote it.
If you want to claim that it cant mean this or it cant be believed to mean this, then it is you that needs to demonstrate this.

You have not shown that anyone must have been confused.
All you have shown is that perhaps, maybe, there is a chance, possibly that paul did not mean "brother of Jesus" and that later people maybe, possibly, perhaps, got confused.

But instead of just admitting you dont know you claim that you do.

Isn't this what we are trying to discourage here? People claiming they know things despite them have no evidence that it is so?

judge

I haven't crapped on about how other understand it. You are just poisoning the well here.
Who cares how anyone else understands it. The point is, is there a problem with your premises?