Amaleq13

No, I have a title that seems to have been turned into a joke by a Gospel author (Crazy Brother) and that offers another clue that neither reference to Jesus in Josephus should be assumed genuine.

My point is that this James in the formula has no additional identification and that seems to conflict with the "too many James to know who is who" argument you offered earlier.

Even though it was 14 years later and there were, according to you, more than one prominent James?

It only becomes important when less significant things are being discussed? That's ridiculous, IMO.

What makes more sense to me is there was only one important James and he was well-known for his Jewish piety to the point that he obtained nicknames based on it including "the Just", "Oblias", and "Brother of the Lord". He subsequently claimed to have witnessed the risen Christ and, because of his established reputation, immediately became a leader in the new movement.

But there are no problematic policies associated with James the brother of the Lord. They are associated with the James who is only described as a "pillar" 14 years later and you said before that either of the men named James would qualify. According to your argument, this is where Paul should feel compelled to specify the identity of James.

He is still known as "the Just" by the time of Hegesippus and famous enough that the destruction of Jersulem was attributed to his murder. He was known as Jesus' brother but nobody ever asked who his real dad was? Please. Time for your own eye roll.

Like the notion that there was another James who was the son of Zebedee?

...it could probably have gone without saying.

I fully understood what you wrote but you apparently do not understand the problem I have with it.

"Lord" is a title associated with the victory of the risen Christ. The Son becomes Lord after being resurrected. You are suggesting that this title is being used to refer to an accident of James' birth and that continues to be absurd. "Brother of Jesus" would have been a more appropriate reference to an accident of birth.

"Brother of the Lord" is a long-standing title indicating his established reputation for Jewish piety so it suggests nothing with regard to greater authority as an apostle for the risen Christ.

johno

It seems to me that there is some post-modern nonsense lurking beneath the surface of this statement. So let me construct a parable (a well known method of arguing).

In the 16th century there was a sect of Sun worshippers: for them the Sun was god, the light of their material lives, the light of their spiritual lives, but there was a minority of atheists who denied the existence of gods. At the time, there were two competing theories of planetary movement, the heliocentric one, and the geocentric one and, at the time, there was insufficient scientific evidence to support one or other of the views unequivocally. The heliocentric theory was favoured by the Sun worshippers, who claimed that it explained that the Sun was the centre of the material universe as well as the spiritual one. An ignorant man (me) wished to determine which physical theory was more likely to be true. Notice that this question has nothing to do with the spiritual nature of the Sun. He could ask Sun-worshippers or he could ask the minority of atheists. I would argue that he would be prudent to ask the atheists, because the spiritual beliefs of the Sun worshippers might reasonably be expected to bias them in favour of the heliocentric system (even if they tried, consciously, to avoid the bias). So off he would go and ask the atheists who had no a priori predispositions to favour one physical theory over another.

Both the Sun-worshippers and the atheists knew what Koestler pointed out, which was that at the time of Copernicus, the Ptolemaic system, clockwork, epicycles, deferents, and eccentrics, predicted the movements of the planets more accurately than the Copernican system. I would not know how the Sun-worshippers would cope with this because I had decided that there was no point in asking them. So on balance, preferring to take the advice of the atheists I should provisionally accept that the Sun worshippers were mistaken in their adherence to the heliocentric system. Given the circumstances of the time, I believe that my choices would have been rational: I took evidence from the source that was demonstrably less potentially biassed. What convinced me was the greater precision of the predictions of the Ptolemaic system, and I chose to subscribe to the Ptolemaic system. Subsequent physical evidence, material evidence, discovered by Sun-worshippers, applying the methods of scientific inquiry, proved me to be mistaken, and (with a certain amount of intellectual discomfort and chagrin) I changed my opinion.

Was I mistaken to prefer to consult the atheists in the first place?
I think not.

Was I mistaken to wish to subscribe to one theory rather than another in the absence of compelling evidence?

I think not. My reason for this is summed up in the notion that understanding arises more readily from error than from confusion.

It ought to be straightforward to substitute christian for sun-worshipper, historical jesus for the heliocentric system and to decide if my scepticism about believing what christians conclude about the historical Jesus is justified.


Note that the parable I gave led me to the mistaken conclusion.

johno

andrewcriddle

IMHO James is specifically mentioned in Corinthians 15 as an example of someone who knew Jesus before his death, did not then regard him as Messiah (or anything else special) but came to do so after Jesus' death.

I am doubtful of the historical value of Hegesippus as a witness to James' status in the 30's CE. I'm not even sure how far his claim that James was holy from his birth, ie some sort of perpetual Nazirite, implies that James had held from his early years the extraordinary status which Hegesippus attributes to him in the 60's.

Even if your interpretation of Hegesippus corresponds to historical reality it seems to grant James a status in the Temple quite separate from his status in the Christian community. I'm not convinced that James' status in non-Christian Jerusalem circles in the 30's would mean that a Christian in Galatia would, when Paul mentioned meeting a Christian James in Jerusalem in the 30's, assume James the brother of Jesus was meant.
Paul makes a solemn declaration in Galatians 1:20 that he is not being economical with the truth. He would be vulnerable if it became known that in say 38 CE while in Jerusalem he had a meeting with James which he had avoided mentioning in Galatians.
This is probably a question of the timeline of use of these various titles, on which we can do little other than speculate.

However Josephus in 'Antiquities' may imply that brother of Jesus/brother of the Lord was the main 1st century identifier.

Andrew Criddle

Sheshbazzar

Of course the name "James" IS only a popular English convention, not a name that is actually written within either the Greek or Hebrew mss.
This convention pays honor to the English kings and tyrants of that name, and conveniently for 'Xtian" religious discussions, serves to distinguish an apostle from all of those 'Jew's' called "Jacob".
But it IS a discredit to both the truth, and to accuracy.
This name "James" stand in the place of the most common Hebrew name "Jacob", and there being so many "Jacob's" (not "Jameses") there would need to be some specific identifier.

jjramsey

What you have is elaborate speculation to try to work around a straightforward reading of "brother of the Lord" that conflicts with what you want to believe.

14 years of actual time may have passed, but it obviously didn't take fourteen years of time to read the letter. The reference to James that identified him as "the brother of the Lord" was only a few paragraphs before. There's no reason to assume that the Galatians would think he was talking about a different James simply because Paul wrote "Then after fourteen years" in Gal 2:1. If anything, Gal 1:13-2:14 is all one block of story, so it is reasonable to expect that unless Paul explicitly said otherwise, the same James identified at the beginning of the story was the same as the James mentioned in the rest of the story.

That's a clever strawman you created. :notworthy:

James son of Zebedee was an apostle, so the Church would have had reason to hear of him even before the Gospel material became commonplace.

Hardly. James can't take credit for being Jesus' brother. That blood relationship is an accident of birth, regardless of whether Paul calls James "brother of Jesus" or "brother of the Lord."

It might have been more convenient for us, but out of characther for Paul. Paul rarely used the name "Jesus" unadorned. He usually adds "Christ" and/or "Lord." Here are the few exceptions:

• Romans 3:26. However, Paul referred to Jesus in verse 3:24 as "Christ Jesus," which is part of the same line of thought as verse 3:26.
• Romans 8:11. This reads, "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you." Notice that though the name "Jesus" is unadorned here, he shortly refers to him as "Christ" in this verse.
• 1 Thessalonians 1:10. Here, Paul refers to Jesus as being a "Son from heaven."
• 1 Thessalonians 4:14. Here, Paul refers to Jesus as having been raised from the dead.

Based on this, the likelihood that he would have just used "brother of Jesus" is small. "Brother of the Lord," though, is reverent to Jesus, so it allows Paul to give Jesus due honor, but is reasonably unverbose, so it calls at least somewhat less attention to itself--and to James--than "brother of Jesus Christ" would.

Amaleq13

Doesn't that suggest he was well known as such an example and could be identified by name only?

Not only does Hegesippus attribute this status to him but he claims that others did so as well to the point of blaming the destruction of Jerusalem on his murder. On what basis do you doubt his claim? Origen and Eusebius believed him and they also believed that the destruction of Jerusalem was blamed on the murder of James. Origen even criticizes this as inappropriate because it should have been blamed on the execution of Jesus. We don't have to take all of Hegesippus' possible hyperbole literally to recognize that the evidence strongly indicates James was widely respected in the Jewish community. And that, as you acknowledge, suggests that this reputation was obtained prior to his conversion.

In addition, we have Acts 21 that appears to refer to similar vows being taken by Jewish Christians (verses 23-24) and it is difficult to ignore that James is mentioned by name only five verses prior.

I agree and that is why I have consistenly referred to James' reputation among the Jews to have been already established before his conversion.

Perhaps but it certainly suggests that Paul had other identifiers available that would not carry the problematic implications of a reference to a literal siblingship.

I consider that phrase to be an interpolation on purely linguistic grounds that have been argued to death elsewhere. Removing it calls into question whether this is even the same James.

andrewcriddle

IMO Hegesippus is direct evidence only for James' status in Jerusalem in the 60's and for him having been a lifelong Nazirite.

I'm doubtful of the reliability of the claim that he was a lifelong Nazirite a/ I'm not sure how far lifelong Nazirite vows really happened in late 2nd century Judaism b/ I suspect that whether or not the earliest form of the tradition said 'Nazirite from birth' or 'perpetual Nazirite for many years before his death' by the time it reached Hegesippus it would have said 'Nazirite from birth'.

IMHO I don't think that the apparent independence of James' status in Jerusalem from his Christianity necessarily means that it predates his Christianity.

IMVHO the actual course of events may have involved James moving to Jerusalem from Galilee after becoming a Christian and gradually by his Temple piety acquiring a reputation in Jerusalem independent of his Christian belief but not predating it.

Andrew Criddle

Amaleq13

Not necessarily but it seems to me to be the most likely explanation.

I have a really hard time accepting a Christian James obtaining a great reputation for Jewish piety even if he was a hard-core Judaizer. I think all the evidence points in the other direction. It is certainly implied in Hegesippus' story both in the reference to him entering the "holy place" and in the expectation of the Pharisees that James will denounce Christianity.

lara

The importance of this question lies in the fact that, along with other religions, too much time and emphasis is spent on the historical perspective which leads to conflict. Adhering to a certain set of unprovable historical events results in us persecuting and judging one another due to which version of events we adhere to. Baptists hate the methodists, Methodists hate the catholics etc...If the Jesus myth could be proved, perhaps some of the violence, destruction and persecution in the name of religion can be reduced. I think we need a more evolved perspective. Times have changed. Truth can only be universal and in all religions there is a common strain: responsibility for ones actions, forgiveness, peace and love.
But, having said all of that, even if there was absolute 100 % proof that Christ was a myth, I dont think the blind faith of the christian literalists will alter. You need a certain degree of intelligence to be able to look at the broader picture.

andrewcriddle

late 2nd century Judaism should have been late 2nd Temple Judaism Sorry about that

Andrew Criddle