Geoff Hudson

The Epistle of Clement to James in the Clementine Homilies starts: Clement to James, the lord, and the bishop of bishops, who rules Jerusalem, the holy church of the Hebrews, and the churches everywhere… . Here James has the generic titles “lord” (master), and “bishop of bishops” (shepherd of shepherds). He is regarded as the master shepherd or the archbishop, presumably of all the churches including the church in Rome, which is bad news for Catholics who regard Peter as the first Pope.

So in relation to the phrase “James, the Lord’s brother”, here is explicit evidence that it could have originated from the expression “James the lord’s, brother” in which “lord” is his generic title and the brother in question is not the fictional Jesus, but probably John. This makes all the talk of James being the brother of Jesus a complete nonsense.

The Clementine Epistle of Peter to James starts similarly: Peter to James, the lord and bishop….

In The Recognitions of Clement James is addressed explicitly as my lord James (Rec. 2.14).

Clearly, James is a much bigger fish than the editors of the NT would like us to believe.

Geoff

smugg

Aren't the Clementine Homilies of dubious authenticity?

Toto

The Clementine Homilies may not have been written by Clementine, but still could be evidence of the importance of James in the first century.

Peter Kirby

The Clementine Homilies, Recognitions, and pseudo-letters are assigned to the third or fourth century. See New Testament Apocrypha edited by Schneemelcher. The Homilies may be based on a document circa 200 termed the Kerygmata Petrou.

<a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/kerygmatapetrou.html" target="_blank">Kerygmata Petrou</a>

best,
Peter Kirby

Geoff Hudson

Peter,

Thankyou. The documents may be dated as you say in your post. But some of the information in them patently comes from an earlier time, though edited. I am looking at the Clementines and hope to send some posts later in a new thread that will argue to that effect. I think there could be some undiscovered shocks in these documents.

Geoff

galiel

Citizen James, the Lord, and an Archbishop walk into a bar...

Oops, sorry, wrong Forum.

Celsus

You mean to tell me, 600 pages into James the Brother of Jesus, that Eisenman's horrible, repetitive, mindnumbing doorstop of a book hangs by a thread?!?!

(Now where the hell did I put that crowbar?)

Geoff Hudson

He's great!

On page 193 of JTBOJ, Eisenman says, “James does not appear to do any travelling, but as far as can be determined remains the whole time in Jerusalem.” Now this is exactly what the editors want us to believe. Eisenman has taken the bait, hook, line and sinker.

It is clear that the members of the early Jerusalem church experienced persecution. The editors of Acts would have us believe it was led by someone called Saul who later becomes Paul, but I would argue a certain High Priest’s son was the culprit. There are one or two strange events surrounding this persecution. In Acts 8.1, we have “all except the apostles were scattered.” If the intention was to finish-off this fledgling movement before it became well established, then the obvious approach was to eliminate the leaders first. In fact the people who seem to be scattered and do the evangelisation are not the leaders who would give “our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word (Spirit?)” (Acts 6.4), but they are the very ones who were appointed to “wait on tables” (Acts 6.2-5 and 8.5). So may be these were ficticious characters introduced by the editor to evangelise, as in the case of Philip, or to be executed, as in the case of Stephen. This allows the editor to keep the real leaders in Jerusalem. It seems logical to me, therefore, that it was the church leaders who were forced to flee as well as many others, when “a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem” (Acts 8.1). There are two questions: who were the leaders who fled, and where did they go?

On page 529 of his book, Eisenman says about Acts – “it transposes the stoning of James in the 60s with that of Stephen in the 40s.” May be Eisenman is half aware that the account of Stephen’s stoning has been slipped into Acts 6 and 7. It is my view that the account about Stephen is in fact about the trial, defence, and execution by stoning of John the Prophet. This account has been taken from the end of Luke, and its place has been taken by the spurious crucifixion of the fictitious Jesus. To some, Stephen’s speech in Acts is a rambling affair, but it is full of theological significance highly relevant to John. Eisenman is brilliant with his allusions, but he is not such a good theologian, and it would have paid him to have examined this passage more thoroughly (as I hope to do in my thread on the death of John). If we take out the Stoning of Stephen (Acts 6.8 to 8), there is a natural follow-on from Acts 6.7 to 8.1 – the point where “a great persecution breaks out. In Acts 6.7 we see the reason for the persecution: “So the word (Spirit?) of God spread. The numbers of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of PRIESTS became obedient to the faith (Spirit?).” The High Priests were losing their following to a group that rejected the law of sacrifices, and with it their revenue, power and prestige. Their answer was to imprison and flog the ringleaders (Acts 5.17 and 5.40). The killing starts in Acts 8.1. I somehow think that the leaders would have gone with the everyone else to live and fight another day. I believe one of those leaders was James (alias Peter and Barnabas), and another was his brother John.

Geoff

Vorkosigan

To some, Stephen’s speech in Acts is a rambling affair, but it is full of theological significance highly relevant to John. Eisenman is brilliant with his allusions, but he is not such a good theologian, and it would have paid him to have examined this passage more thoroughly

Possibly the reason Eisenman didn't pay it too much attention is that it is cribbed from Joshua's farewell speech....

Geoff Hudson

I have to retract some of my last post. I think that Stephen’s stoning in Acts 7 is an echo of the stoning of John the Prophet, but that the actual speech in Acts 6 and 7 is James’. I agree with Eisenman that the events in Acts 6 and 7 are connected with an attack by an “enemy” on James as described in Recognitions 2.70, and with the persecution of the early believers as described in Recognitions 2.71. There are three related points where I disagree with Eisenman:

• I do not accept the editor’s note in Recognitions, or the editor’s version in the NT, that the “enemy” was Saul/ Paul, but was more than likely the James’arch enemy Ananus, one of the sons of the ruthless High Priest Annas.
• Secondly, I do NOT believe that James was stoned to death by Ananus, but was beheaded as a Roman citizen in Rome after an appeal to Caesar’s court in which James was opposed by Ananus (who I think WAS responsible for the subsequent stoning to death, at Jerusalem, of James the lord’s brother, John.
• Thirdly, I do not believe that James was “zealous for the law” in the way Eisenman and the editor of the NT suggest, in opposition to Paul.

Also in disagreement with Eisenman, it is my view that James travelled extensively around the cities and towns of the Mediterranean area with fellow missionaries John, his brother, and Paul (imo Josephus), and that all three “sang from the same hymn sheet” – they all preached that purification of Jew and Gentile alike was available from the Spirit of God, provided believers obeyed His voice. If they were interested in the law at all, it was primarily that law revealed by the Spirit of God to Moses on Mount Sinai. In this restricted sense, Paul could say that the law was holy (Rom. 7.12). The Epistle of James to the “Hebraic Jews” has been heavily edited to give the impression that James believed the opposite to Paul. But it is my view that James, along with Paul, rejected the laws related to sacrifices, because they believed they were only meant to be temporary, and were superseded by the Spirit of God who was the replacement High Priest and the means of purification for all believers.

Vorkosigan has suggested that “Stephen’s” (imo James’) speech in Acts 6 and 7 may be a “crib” of Joshua’s speech (Joshua 24), recounting God’s dealings with the Israelites. I would rather think of Joshua’s speech being used as model by later writers for their special applications. I believe that the speech in Acts 6 and 7 was used to trace the history of the Spirit of God’s dealings with the Jews. If Josephus wrote Acts, as I think he did, then he would have had first hand information from James in writing “Stephen’s” speech. Of course, Josephus is not unknown for writing speeches.

Geoff