Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 10-28-2002, 08:41 PM

Why are Jesus' alleged relatives not part of the case for a historical Jesus? This sounds like a strong argument, but I hear little about it.

In this article by N.T. Wright that surfaced during the Ossuary discussion, Wright notes:

Quote:

There is no evidence whatever that Jesus had children, whether in or out of wedlock; his family?that is, his brothers and nephews?were well known in the early church. Sixty years after Jesus' death, his grandnephews were accused by the Roman emperor Domitian of being part of a would-be royal family.

It struck me that it is unusual to hear Christian apologists refer to Jesus' relatives, the desposyni (or desposynoi), other than James the Just, as proof of his historicity, and I wonder why this is, since these extra relatives seem to be a stronger case. Catholics, of course, would reject the idea that Mary had more children after Jesus.

Of course, the relatives did not do well in early church history, and create a potentially embarrassing picture of Jesus. "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church" by Malachi Martin speaks about

Quote:

. . .Jewish Christians, who occupied the oldest Christian churches in the Middle East and whose leaders were always from the family of Jesus himself. Like all Christians, including the Donatists, they expected an imminent return of Jesus. Unlike the Donatists, and now the Romans, they shunned all worldly power and revolution, and were for the most part dirt-farmers and petty merchants, hugging close to their obscurity even though their first bishop was James, first cousin of Jesus.

Yet the issue that arose between Silvester and the Jewish Christian leaders took place in the year 318. The emperor provided sea transport for eight rough-and-ready men as far as Ostia, the port of Rome. From there they rode on donkeys into the imperial city and up to the Lateran Palace, where Pope Silvester now lived in grandeur. In their rough woolen clothes and leather boots and hats, and with their earthy smell, they contrasted sharply with Silvester's retinue of smartly clad and pomaded bishops and officials. They refused to sit. Silvester spoke with them in Greek-he could not understand their Aramaic; they had little or no Latin. The vital interview was not, so far as we know, recorded, but the issues were very well known, and it is probable that Joses, the oldest of the Christian Jews, spoke on behalf of the desponysi and the rest.

That most hallowed name, desponysi, had been respected by all believers in the first century and a half of Christian history. The word literally meant, in Greek, "belonging to the Lord." It was reserved uniquely for Jesus' blood relatives. Every part of the ancient Jewish Christian church had always been governed by a desposynos, and each of them carried one of the names traditional in Jesus' family-Zachary, Joseph, John, James, Joses, Simeon, Matthias, and so on. But no one was ever called Jesus. Neither Silvester nor any of the thirty-two popes before him, nor those succeeding him ever emphasized that there were at least three well-known and authentic lines of legitimate blood descendants from Jesus' own family. One from Joachim and Anna, Jesus' maternal grandparents. One from Elizabeth, first cousin of Jesus' mother, Mary, and Elizabeth's husband, Zachary. And one from Cleophas and his wife, who also was a first cousin of Mary.

. . .

The Jewish Christians had been the subject of the first crisis in the church. They had been split by factions from the start; and at the first council, in A.D., 49, Peter and Paul had broken with them, insisting that non-Jewish converts need not be circumcised to become Christians, and that only Jewish converts need be bound by the Torah, the law of Moses. The decision was momentous, allowing Christianity to spread beyond Judaism, but it left the Jewish Christians in a sort of religious no-man's-land.

. . .

Silvester knew their history well. Jewish Christians had composed the only church ever in Jerusalem until the year 135. They left it only once in 102 years following Jesus' death, just before the city's capture by the Emperor Titus. Led by their bishop, Simeon, son of Cleophas, who was Jesus' uncle by marriage, they had fled to Perea (in modern Jordan). In A.D. 72 they had returned to Jerusalem and had remained there until Hadrian's ban. After that, Jewish Christian churches were set up all over Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, but they were always hated by the local synagogues as apostates of Judaism, and always in quarrel with Greek Christians who refused to be circumcised and observe the Torah-things the Jewish Christians insisted on.

They therefore asked Silvester to revoke his confirmation of Greek Christian bishops in Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Ephesus, in Alexandria, and to name instead desposynos bishops.

In addition, they asked that the Christian practice of sending cash contributions to the deposynos church in Jerusalem as the mother church of Christianity, which had been suspended since the time of Hadrian, be resumed.
Silvester curtly and decisively dismissed the claims of the Jewish Christians. He told them the mother church was now in Rome, with the bones of the Apostle Peter, and he insisted that they accept Greek bishops to lead them.

It was the last known discussion between the Jewish Christians of the old mother church and the non-Jewish Christians of the new mother church. By his adaptation, Silvester, backed by Constantine, had decided that the message of Jesus was to be couched in Western terms by Western minds on an imperial model.

The Jewish Christians had no place in such a church structure. They managed to survive until the first decades of the fifth century. Then, one by one, they disappear. A few individuals reconcile themselves with the Roman Church-always as individuals, never communities or whole Jewish Christian churches. Another few pass into the anonymity of the new Eastern rites-Syriac, Assyrian, Greek, Armenian. But most of them die-by the sword (Roman garrisons hunted them as outlaws), by starvation (they were deprived of their small farms and could not or would not adapt themselves to life in the big cities), by the attrition of zero birthrate.

I have found a reference to a book, Joan E. Taylor Christians and the Holy Places : The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins (Oxford 1993), which is said to argue convincingly that the Desposyni were not blood relatives of Jesus, but that they claimed Davidic descent. (The
review of the book here makes it sound fascinating, but it is expensive and not widely available.)

offa · 10-30-2002, 05:03 PM

Offa; this Cleophas was St. Joseph's real name. These sons of Cleophas were Jesus' (and James')brothers. There were two women beneath the cross in John 19:25. The Virgin was Cleophas' wife. The other woman was Jesus' wife Mary Magdaline who was a sister of the cloth (Jesus' aunt?).

Clarice O'C · 08-04-2003, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Toto
Why are Jesus' alleged relatives not part of the case for a historical Jesus? This sounds like a strong argument, but I hear little about it.

<snip>

It struck me that it is unusual to hear Christian apologists refer to Jesus' relatives, the desposyni (or desposynoi), other than James the Just, as proof of his historicity, and I wonder why this is, since these extra relatives seem to be a stronger case. Catholics, of course, would reject the idea that Mary had more children after Jesus.

Of course, the relatives did not do well in early church history, and create a potentially embarrassing picture of Jesus.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro.../desposyni.htm

Hi Toto,

On "desposyni," from "The Epistle to Aristides":

"A few, however, of the studious, having private records of their own, either by remembering the names or by getting at them in some other way from the archives, pride themselves in preserving the memory of their noble descent; and among these happen to be those already mentioned, called desposyni,21 on account of their connection with the family of the Saviour."
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-06/...m#P2141_609220

21 The word despo/sunoi was employed to indicate the Lord's relatives, as being His according to the flesh. The term means literally, "those who belong to a master," and thence it was used also to signify "one's heirs."
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-06/...m#P2166_618161

Julius Africanus:
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-06/....htm#TopOfPage

We might find some history of Jesus' relatives outside of the traditional ancient writings such as above. Best resource, of course:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

Cheers,
Clarice

Toto · 08-04-2003, 03:54 PM

Hi Clarice,

I do not remember finding much about the desposyni on earlychristianwritings.

It appears that there are two possibilities: 1) these were relatives of Jesus; Jesus was a leader in a Jewish sect, and his relatives were part of the power structure. That's why his brother James succeeded him. The implications for this are that the gospels are way off concerning Jesus' relations with his family, and that the Christian church hijacked Jesus from his true moorings - but there was a Jesus at the origins of Christianity.

If this is true, one wonders why Jesus and James left no descendants. If Jesus really believed in the law, he knew that he was commanded to get married and procreate.

Or 2) the desposyni had no relation to Jesus, but decided to construct a fake geneology for themselves. This seems to be the position of the reference I listed above, Joan E. Taylor Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins reviewed here.

I haven't made it a priority to find a copy of this book and examine the arguments.

Geoff Hudson · 08-04-2003, 04:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Clarice O'C
On "desposyni," from "The Epistle to Aristides":

"A few, however, of the studious, having private records of their own, either by remembering the names or by getting at them in some other way from the archives, pride themselves in preserving the memory of their noble descent; and among these happen to be those already mentioned, called desposyni,21 on account of their connection with the family of the Saviour."
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-06/...m#P2141_609220

21 The word despo/sunoi was employed to indicate the Lord's relatives, as being His according to the flesh. The term means literally, "those who belong to a master," and thence it was used also to signify "one's heirs."

Perhaps they were James the Lord's relatives who could have been of the family of Rechab, i.e. sons of Rechab. More than likely the Rechabites kept their genealogical records to prove their right to service in the temple, although they were not priests.

Geoff

Geoff

Clarice O'C · 08-04-2003, 04:08 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Toto
Hi Clarice,

I do not remember finding much about the desposyni on earlychristianwritings.

Hi, sorry, I meant that we could check in ancient manuscripts for the desposyni and family.

<snip>

[/QUOTE]
Or 2) the desposyni had no relation to Jesus, but decided to construct a fake geneology for themselves. This seems to be the position of the reference I listed above, Joan E. Taylor Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins reviewed here.

I haven't made it a priority to find a copy of this book and examine the arguments. [/QUOTE]

Toto, are you sure that Taylor's is the book that you mean? Review:

"The origins of Christian holy places in Palestine and the beginnings of Christian pilgrimage to these sites have seemed obscure. From a detailed examination of the literature and archaeology pertaining to holy places in Palestine, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Mamre, Nazareth, Capernaum, and elsewhere, the author finds no evidence that Christians of any kind venerated `holy places' before the fourth century. She explores evidence showing that pilgrimage to intrinsically sacred shrines had been a pagan practice, which was grafted on to Christianity. Many Jewish, Samaritan, and pagan sites were thereafter appropriated by the church and turned into Christian holy places. This process helped to destroy the widespread paganism of Palestine and mark the country as a `holy land'."
http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-814785-6

I don't see anything there about people.

Clarice O'C · 08-04-2003, 04:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Geoff Hudson
Perhaps they were James the Lord's relatives who could have been of the family of Rechab, i.e. sons of Rechab. More than likely the Rechabites kept their genealogical records to prove their right to service in the temple, although they were not priests.

Geoff

Geoff

Hello Geoff,

What genealogical records should we use for this thread?

Toto · 08-04-2003, 04:34 PM

I should have cited a CrossTalk post:

here

Quote:

Here I refer to Joan Taylor (Christians and the Holy Places. The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins. Clarendon Press. Oxford. See esp. pages 31-36). According to her the term Desposynoi is usually left untranslated, ever since the translation of HE by Rufin. The term means something like "belonging to the Lord", "master's people" or "kinsmen of the Lord". The master is understood to be Jesus. There is, however, another meaning of the term DESPOSYNOS: it was simply another way of saying DESPOTHS. In this way the term was understood by the earliest translator of HE, who is responsible for the Syriac version of AD 462, now preserved in St. Petersburg. Based on this translation Taylor translates:

"However, a few of the careful ones, who had personal records of their own, either having a recollection of the names or otherwise getting them from copies, are vain about the memory of noble descent being preserved; among these were the aforementioned called 'lords' because of their connection with the line of the Saviour...."

Taylor continues: "It would seem likely that they travelled around the country reciting their Davidic genealogy not because they wished to claim authority over the churches, which are not mentioned, but because they vainly (in both senses of the word) wanted to be considered aristocrats in Israel..."

There is some discussion of this on CrossTalk, see message 5357

Layman · 08-04-2003, 05:17 PM

Toto,

Perhaps such arguments are seldom used because arguments re: James the Brother of Jesus, which are much better attested than any others, are already brushed aside by mythicists.

Vorkosigan · 08-04-2003, 05:25 PM

Because, Layman, there is no credible evidence that James was ever the physical brother of Jesus. The whole of early Christian history is polemical and theological, shot through with fiction and forgery, and no document we have about it is reliable. Further, as Eisenman deduced, and from Luke's treatment of John the Baptist, it is clear that one strategy the early Christian writers deployed against their foes was to make them into relatives of Jesus. The Gospels themselves are fictions, and the references to James the Brother of the Lord in the Pauline letters are best explained as titular references, where they are not, as in 1 Cor 15, outright interpolations. Josephus has been extensively worked over by Christian writers.....

Nobody "brushes" these aside. Rather, taking everything into account, the early Christian writings are highly problematic, and are not credible evidence of anything.

Vorkosigan

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10-30-2002, 05:03 PM	#2
offa Regular Member Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Monroeville, Ohio, USA Posts: 440	Offa; this Cleophas was St. Joseph's real name. These sons of Cleophas were Jesus' (and James')brothers. There were two women beneath the cross in John 19:25. The Virgin was Cleophas' wife. The other woman was Jesus' wife Mary Magdaline who was a sister of the cloth (Jesus' aunt?).

08-04-2003, 03:54 PM	#4
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Hi Clarice, I do not remember finding much about the desposyni on earlychristianwritings. It appears that there are two possibilities: 1) these were relatives of Jesus; Jesus was a leader in a Jewish sect, and his relatives were part of the power structure. That's why his brother James succeeded him. The implications for this are that the gospels are way off concerning Jesus' relations with his family, and that the Christian church hijacked Jesus from his true moorings - but there was a Jesus at the origins of Christianity. If this is true, one wonders why Jesus and James left no descendants. If Jesus really believed in the law, he knew that he was commanded to get married and procreate. Or 2) the desposyni had no relation to Jesus, but decided to construct a fake geneology for themselves. This seems to be the position of the reference I listed above, Joan E. Taylor Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins reviewed here. I haven't made it a priority to find a copy of this book and examine the arguments.

08-04-2003, 05:17 PM	#9
Layman Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 2,635	Toto, Perhaps such arguments are seldom used because arguments re: James the Brother of Jesus, which are much better attested than any others, are already brushed aside by mythicists.

08-04-2003, 05:25 PM	#10
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	Because, Layman, there is no credible evidence that James was ever the physical brother of Jesus. The whole of early Christian history is polemical and theological, shot through with fiction and forgery, and no document we have about it is reliable. Further, as Eisenman deduced, and from Luke's treatment of John the Baptist, it is clear that one strategy the early Christian writers deployed against their foes was to make them into relatives of Jesus. The Gospels themselves are fictions, and the references to James the Brother of the Lord in the Pauline letters are best explained as titular references, where they are not, as in 1 Cor 15, outright interpolations. Josephus has been extensively worked over by Christian writers..... Nobody "brushes" these aside. Rather, taking everything into account, the early Christian writings are highly problematic, and are not credible evidence of anything. Vorkosigan

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