Richard Carrier addressed in peer-review for the first time

Faith & Science Conversation
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Hm… I wonder how Catholic church for CENTURIES considered Mary an eternal virgin. What did they not understand about the manuscripts they copied and re-copied before the Protestants came along? I mean, there is only ONE way to interpret James the brother of the Lord and that is to consider them physical brothers, siblings. There could absolutely be no other meaning, right?

And what about this curious passage:

John 19:26When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 27Then He said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” So from that hour, this disciple took her into his home.

Why was this necessary if there was the Lord’s brother, Mary’s other son still alive and well?

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The origins of the belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary seems to have its origins in the late second century I believe (this is not a subject I am very well versed in). But if you look at the early church fathers, they are defending it or debating it, and that is rather telling that it was a point of dispute within the church. The classic debate is between Helvidius and Jerome in the fourth century. Calling her the mother of God (Christotokos vs theotokos) was a bit of a sticky issue at the Council of Ephesus in 431. But even then, the perpetual virginity of Mary was not formally adopted until the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, in which they call her “ever virgin.” But it is interesting and striking that questions over Mary’s virginity after the birth of Jesus became such a hot topic for theologians so quickly.

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I pointed out that you were attempting to represent a particular passage as containing a logical contradiction, without having made the slightest effort to even check if it was a genuine logical contradiction. You didn’t even bother reading another translation. And yes, the NET gives an alternative rendering in the footnotes, that’s typical of a high level translation. But in order to make that translation make sense, the word μόνος would need to be translated differently.

The point here is that you interpreted the text a specific way because it suited your personal viewpoint, and you took no steps to verify your understanding of the text. That’s called confirmation bias. It’s the same kind of reasoning we see from flat earthers and Young Earth Creationists.

Why do you think this is some kind hint of mythicism?

Maybe you should look at why it makes sense to professional historians. If you spent more time reading professional historians, and less time reading stuff by"space alien ate my Buick" writers, you might get a better understanding of the issues involved.

Easy, they said he was the brother of Jesus because he was the son of Joseph. The few early Christian theologians who believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary, believed that the people referred to as the brothers and sisters of Jesus were the children of Joseph from a previous marriage. Other theologians believed Mary was a virgin when she bore Jesus, but had other children with Joseph afterwards.

Both groups of theologians believed that the words for “brother” and “sister” when speaking of Jesus’ siblings, actually referred to Jesus’ siblings (whether full siblings or half-siblings). They did not interpret them as “spiritual brothers and sisters” who were just other Christians. Again, you would know this if you had made even the slightest effort to look into the issue, instead of just parroting stuff you’ve found online. Can you do better than Carrier? Can you find any first century examples of "[name] the brother of [name] as a reference to Christian fictive kinship? Or even any within 200 years of the first century, either prior or after?

We have a vast range of literature that used fictive kinship address, including plenty in non-inscriptional literature. You could try searching in Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, Perseus, the Duke Papyri, the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae, Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, Archiv für Papyrusforschung, and Dittenberger, for a start (I hope you read Greek!). Do let me know what you find. I know what you’ll find, because I’ve already looked at the diachronic evidence for fictive kinship address in proximate Greek literature.

It wasn’t. Wow, these are easy, got any more?

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But Jesus wasn’t the son of Joseph, so James could not have been his brother! Do you have (to be consistent) any other examples of ancient people calling each other brother OF X, even while they were only step brothers? Lets be consistent here. You want Carrier to dig up similar examples for you so it’s only fair for you to provide the same.

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It’s not my argument, so I don’t have to do anything with it. I think it’s a pathetic argument which avoids the very obvious fact that they knew full well that “X the brother of Y” was a reference to biological kinship rather than fictive kinship. And this is the point; they didn’t interpret the meaning of “X the brother of Y” as a reference to anything other than biological kinship. This destroys your entire argument about their interpretation of this phrase.

Pro tip, I only have to dig up examples to support my arguments, not other people’s arguments which I don’t even agree with. How are you going with your research by the way? Ready to rewrite the lexicons yet? I can’t wait to see all the lexical evidence you’re going to pile up.

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I think some important points have come up on SuperBigV’s new argument regarding Mary’s perpetual virginity. Firstly, Gullotta pointed out that Mary’s perpetual virginity was never actually adopted by the Catholic Church until the 6th century AD.

Secondly, Jonathan noted that even for those who did believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, not a single one of them interpreted the brothers of Jesus, including James, as spiritual brothers. They still believed they were members of the same family, if Joseph had sons from a previous marriage. So, even SuperBigV’s argument that there must have been some other kind of interpretation of the brothers of Jesus (since some believed in the perpetual virginity), when we actually look at that interpretation, we find that it cannot support mythicism. In order to demonstrate this, all we have to do is actually read one of the earliest accounts regarding Mary’s virginity, which is the Protoevangelium of James (c. 2nd century AD, heretofore PEJ). This is what we read:

PEJ IX: And Joseph cast down his adze and ran to meet them, and when they were gathered together they went to the high priest and took their rods with them. And he took the rods of them all and went into the temple and prayed. And when he had finished the prayer he took the rods and went forth and gave them back to them: and there was no sign upon them. But Joseph received the last rod: and 1o, a dove came forth of the rod and flew upon the bead of Joseph. And the priest said unto Joseph: Unto thee hath it fallen to take the virgin of the Lord and keep her for thyself. 2 And Joseph refused, saying: I have sons, and I am an old man, but she is a girl: lest I became a laughing-stock to the children of Israel. And the priest said unto Joseph: Year the Lord thy God, and remember what things God did unto Dathan and Abiram and Korah, how the earth clave and they were swallowed up because of their gainsaying. And now fear thou, Joseph, lest it be so in thine house. And Joseph was afraid, and took her to keep her for himself. And Joseph said unto Mary: Lo, I have received thee out of the temple of the Lord: and now do I leave thee in my house, and I go away to build my buildings and I will come again unto thee. The Lord shall watch over thee.

Here, when Joseph is told to take the virgin Mary in marriage, he initially refuses declaring that he already has sons – that is to say, he does not want to get married because he already has children from a previous marriage. I think that settles that, there remains to be any evidence for a spiritual understanding of the brothers of the Lord passage.

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yaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssss.

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I appreciate your enthusiasm. As it is, there is a blog about recent mythicist discussions and argumentation in academia. Spoiler, there is a refutation spree. Any comments are appreciated.

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Did you check out one of the latest mythicist in town?

81-Q54GxfOL.jpg1120×1569 280 KB

Year 303-Christianity is Invented

This book was written by a Spanish engineer (yes, engineer) who claims to have spent 20 years researching and says that the New Testament was written between the years 303 and 330 by the same authors.

Also, he says that Jesus never existed, that there were no Christians before the IV century, that Justin Martyr, Origen and the others were fictional characters whose works were written by the same people who wrote the New Testament, that the Testimonium Flavianum is a forgery because it is between two passages that fit perfectly, and a long etc.

He claims to have found “hidden signatures” that reveal that the gospels were not written by the disciples, but by a team of people.

Dr. Antonio Piñero, from the University of Madrid, responded to Fernando Conde Torrens, the author, saying that his hypothesis is impossible, because we already have the New Testament before the III century.

Mr. Conde is present on practically every site that mentions him, doing mental gymnastics and semantic games to avoid being refuted. A user showed him a passage he ignored (because it mentions Christians long before the IV century) and Conde insulted him.

He is similar to John Loftus. Whenever he is cornered, he says “Read my book, you ignorant fool”.

What’s worse, is that he refuses to debate anyone who doesn’t agree with him. I found him on YouTube refusing to debate someone, and I told him “Richard Carrier debates people who don’t agree with him, why don’t you do the same?”… he never responded.

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Perhaps we don’t exist either!

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Why did you even post a book of paralyzing stupidity on this forum?

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For people to know the level of stupidity some people can reach. At least the author of that book believes in God.

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Not even Richard Carrier exists!

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If anyone is interested, a group of colleagues of mine have a video responding to an anti-theist on the Kalam argument and on the historicity of Jesus. The video is EXTREMELY long because it didn’t have a planified script, but it is worth watching.

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Kor makes a good point. BioLogos isn’t the town dump. People already come here to dump their stupid, so there’s no need to import it ourselves.

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Look, the Christian Scripture has plenty of uses of BROTHER meaning anything but a sibling. Every Christian is considered a brother (if male). So, the burden of proof is on the historicist to show that only physical relationship is in view and the phrase “Lord’s brother” cannot have any other meaning. (such as a brother in Christ, etc…). 1 Cor. 9: Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?

Again, It’s not my job to make you a mythicist. I’m just pointing out the case for historicity is not as strong as you may think.

Secondly, you have ignored the passage from John’s Gospel, where Jesus tells the disciple he loved that Mary is now that disciple’s mother! WHY would this be needed IF Jesus’ siblings were around?

here is Carrier on this
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/11516

Given what we have from Paul, this is just as likely, if not more likely, than the alternative reading, because we have evidence direct from Paul that he knows of cultic Brothers of the Lord (as in Romans 8:29 he says all Christians are brothers of the Lord), but no evidence he knows of biological brothers of the Lord, a significantly different category of person. So when Paul says “Brothers of the Lord,” he never says which kind he means; and had he known that there were two different kinds of such brothers, the cultic and the biological, he would need to clarify which he meant. That he never clarifies which he meant, means he only knew of one kind. And the only kind of such brother we can clearly establish he knew, was the cultic. And if even that doesn’t move you, he still doesn’t tell you which he meant; so you can’t otherwise claim to know.

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Previously I, Jonathan, and Gullotta have solved the perpetual virginity of Mary thing. Before I discuss the brothers of the Lord thing, you make this strange point:

Secondly, you have ignored the passage from John’s Gospel, where Jesus tells the disciple he loved that Mary is now that disciple’s mother! WHY would this be needed IF Jesus’ siblings were around?

Jonathan has answered this as well, it wasn’t needed. It’s just what happened. There’s no particular necessity to have Mary live with this or that brother or this or that disciple. The real question is why couldn’t Mary have been sent to live with a disciple? This objection is useless.

So, the burden of proof is on the historicist to show that only physical relationship is in view and the phrase “Lord’s brother” cannot have any other meaning. (such as a brother in Christ, etc…). 1 Cor. 9: Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?

1 Corinthians 9 clearly supports the regular interpretations, since it draws a distinction between apostles (regular Christians) and the brothers of the Lord, meaning that the brothers of the Lord were not just rank-and-file Christians. Paul calls fellow Christians “brothers” sometimes, but he never calls a regular Christian a “brother of the Lord”, a phrase that only James, out of everyone in Paul’s epistles, is singled out for. Further evidence that James was a brother of Jesus is because our extra-Pauline ancient literature also tell us Jesus had a brother named James, including both the Gospels of Mark (6:3) and Matthew (13:55-56), as well as the first century Jewish historian Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews XX.9.1), not to mention the probably authentic James ossuary also dating to the 1st century. James was clearly widely known in the 1st century as an actual, familial brother of Jesus, and so there’s no reason to assume Paul is doing otherwise when he singles James out as the “brother of the Lord”.

Furthermore, Gullotta makes another convincing argument as to why James should be understood as an actual brother. In Galatians 2, Paul tells us that James is one of the pillars of the church, alongside Peter and John, and we’re told that James “had people” who represented him in cities like Antioch. If James had no familial ties with Jesus, how did he gain such prominence and power? He was not one of the twelve disciples (unlike Peter and John), and his Christophany was rather late. Indeed, how could James gain such power in the early church by any means besides an actual familial relationship with Jesus? And since he was in fact so powerful, how on Earth could one claim that the “brother of the Lord” is a phrase for a rank-and-file Christian? It CAN’T mean that, considering James was anything but a rank-and-file Christian. Carrier solves this by claiming the James of Galatians 1 is different from the James of Galatians 2, which has to be the most strained reading of Galatians 1-2 I’ve ever heard and can be dismissed as an absurdity that Carrier confected to maintain mythicism.

In conclusion, there is actually considerable evidence that James really was the brother of the Lord. The widespread tradition in 1st century Christianity that Jesus had a familial brother named James, Paul only singles James out as the brother of the Lord in his epistles, and there is no logical explanation for the prominence of James in the first century church besides him having a familial relationship with Jesus (and in fact, he was so prominent that “brother of the Lord” simply can not be a phrase for a rank-and-file Christian, since it applied to someone like James).

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Not in my opinion. Did Joseph or Mary fail to raise worthy sons? Was there an objection from any of them about this arrangement? I think your explanation raises more questions than answers IF Jesus had siblings. If NO siblings, then Jesus’ request makes sense.

As to the rest of your points, I recommend consulting Richard Carrier’s responses to Bart Ehrman

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/11516

Ehrman also says this can’t be the meaning in Galatians 1:18-19 because there the James thus called a brother of the Lord is being differentiated from Cephas (Peter) the Apostle. As I wrote in my summary, that’s indeed true: Paul is making a distinction; he uses the full term for a Christian (“Brothers of the Lord”) every time he needs to distinguish apostolic from non-apostolic Christians. The James in Galatians 1 is not an Apostle. He is just a rank-and-file Christian. Merely a Brother of the Lord, not an Apostolic Brother of the Lord. The only Apostle he met at that time, he says, was Cephas (Peter), the first Apostle (according to 1 Corinthians 15:5 in light of 1 Corinthians 9:1). Likewise the “Brothers of the Lord” Paul references in 1 Corinthians 9:5 are, again, non-apostolic Christians—and thus being distinguished from Apostles, including, again, the first Apostle, Cephas.

One could ask the same question about Paul’s prominence. Note, Paul did not consider himself to be inferior to James or any other Apostle. He says so explicitly

2 Cor 11:5 For I consider myself not in the least inferior to the most eminent apostles.

And actually, as I’ve said earlier, this is a strong indication that Paul is not aware of the earthly ministry of Jesus. He is not aware of the 3 years Jesus spent with the disciples teaching them and explaining to them the Scriptures, parables, etc…

For example, in Romans 8:26, Paul says that WE do not know how to pray. And yet, the disciples were taught by Jesus himself on how to pray (Lords’ prayer). This is just one example. Paul is not aware of this teaching. He is not aware of Jesus explaining the Scriptures to his disciples as in Luke 24.

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As I have already pointed out to you, we’re not dealing with the single word for “brother”, or the phrase “brother in Christ”, or the phrase “brothers in the Lord”. We’re dealing with the phrase “X the brother of Y”. None of the examples you’ve cited contain this phrase. When are you going to actually do the lexical work required to demonstrate that “X the brother of Y” refers to fictive kinship?

You need to understand why you are not succeeding. One of the reasons is that I know more about this subject than you do. I’ve even had lengthy exchanges with Carrier on these points. On the topic of “James the brother of the Lord”, he suffered the same lexical breakdown as you; he could not provide a single instance of this phrase being used of fictive kinship. He tried to claim that we just don’t enough textual evidence for fictive kinship terms to make a determination about the meaning of the phrase. So I gave him a clear example from inscriptional evidence. Then he changed his argument and said we don’t have NON-inscriptional evidence. So I gave him several clear examples from NON-inscriptional evidence.

If the phrase does indeed mean what you say, why can’t you find any evidence of it being used that way?

I didn’t ignore it, I told you explicitly that there was no such need. So what? What is this supposed to prove? How is it supposed to provide any evidence that Jesus didn’t have biological brothers? Have you even read the gospel of John? Are you aware that John’s gospel mentions Jesus’ biological brothers on several occasions?

John 2:
12 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there a few days.

John 7:
2 Now the Jewish feast of Tabernacles was near.
3 So Jesus’ brothers advised him, “Leave here and go to Judea so your disciples may see your miracles that you are performing.
5 (For not even his own brothers believed in him.)
10 But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, then Jesus himself also went up, not openly but in secret.

How is your argument even supposed to work logically? Something like this?

  1. John’s gospel refers several times to Jesus having biological brothers.
  2. John’s gospel records Jesus asking the beloved disciple to take his mother into his home and care for her.
  3. Therefore, Jesus had no biological brothers, and was a fictional celestial spaceman rather than a historical human being.

Is that what you had in mind?

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No one is saying that their other children were incapable of housing Mary. The text simply says that she lived with one of the disciples. This wasn’t exactly a non-existent thing in the ancient world. There is no problem.

As for Carrier’s comments, I’m already aware of them. That’s why my comments on the brother of the Lord were written as a direct refutation of the “rank-and-file” interpretation of Carrier. My argument wasn’t the same as Ehrman’s, it was simply a debunking that James was a rank-and-file Christian – he was one of the very pillars of the church alongside Peter and John and had men representing him throughout Israel. Perhaps you need to re-read my arguments, of which none have been refuted. James is the only person ever singled out as a “brother of the Lord”, there was a widespread 1st century Christian tradition of Jesus having a brother named James (mentioned in Mark, Matthew, Josephus, and probably an ossuary) and so there’s no reason to think Paul was writing about anything different, and James significance in the early church is inexplicable if he had no familial ties with Jesus.

Paul did not have the prominence that James had. Paul had to endlessly defend himself from accusations all throughout his letters as an apostle, and himself recognized that the three pillars were, not himself, but James, Peter, and John, and even went to these three in order to affirm he had been preaching the same gospel that they were. Paul’s prominence was not during his own lifetime, but rather decades later where the overwhelming success of his preaching in the Gentile world begun quickly materializing.

“And actually, as I’ve said earlier, this is a strong indication that Paul is not aware of the earthly ministry of Jesus. He is not aware of the 3 years Jesus spent with the disciples teaching them and explaining to them the Scriptures, parables, etc…”

1 Corinthians 11:23-26. Paul also tells us Jesus had 12 disciples in 1 Corinthians 15:5.

“For example, in Romans 8:26, Paul says that WE do not know how to pray.”

Do you actually believe that Paul never prayed, and every time he thought of it, it just came to his mind “ugghh well i don’t know what to pray for if only Jesus told one of us…” LOL. Paul was being rhetorical. Paul does know what we should pray for. Paul tells us many times what we should pray for. 2 Corinthians 1:10-11, Phillipians 1:19, etc. Simply go to biblegateway.com, type in the keyword ‘pray’ and scroll through all the results from Paul’s epistles.