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.
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.
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).
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.
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?
- John’s gospel refers several times to Jesus having biological brothers.
- John’s gospel records Jesus asking the beloved disciple to take his mother into his home and care for her.
- 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?
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.
I am proposing that ‘brothers’ can have more than one meaning, as centuries of Catholics’ beliefs show.
I will await you to respond to my other comment, but for the time being, your argument from the Catholic belief in perpetual virginity has already been refuted. If there’s going to be any progress in this discussion, you need to stop clinging to claims that you have given up on defending for some time now.
But it isn’t even in dispute that the Greek word for “brothers” can have more than one meaning. Please lay out your argument in a logical manner, complete with the evidence.
Look, I think you need to be more consistent in your expectations. First, as I said, the Gospels portray a highly unrealistic picture of this Jesus. He is thought to have been risen John the Baptist. Do you have any examples of other historical people, who were thought to have been reincarnated, by the people who came in contact with them? In my mind, this is a strong hint of mythicism. This cannot reasonably be historical data, even though it passes the test of historicity (i.e. why would Christian Gospel authors make up this information?)
You are hung up on brother of the Lord, brother of Jesus etc… and if that was the ONLY reason for mythicism, I would not be a mythicist.
I would say that I’m 80% for Mythicism and about 20% for historicity. Ultimately, if Jesus was historical, he was nothing like the Gospels picture of him and that is mainstream HISTORICIST position about Jesus also.
You haven’t actually explained why this cannot reasonably be historical data, or why it is a “strong hint of mythicism”. But what I do know is that you are citing one of the criterion of authenticity, and treating it as a test of historicity. This is a common mistake made by mythicists; not understanding the difference between criteria of historicity, and criteria of authenticity. I suggest you do some more reading on this subject.
No. You’re the one who raised it and kept appealing to it like some kind of silver bullet. Have you decided to drop that one now?
It’s not actually the mainstream historicist position that if Jesus was historical he was “nothing like the gospels’ picture of him”.
I have already explained that Christian apologists, such as William Lane Craig (and others) argue that a Jewish person of the 1st Century would never believe in a bodily resurrection (i.e. someone being raised from the dead in the body) while their tomb is not empty. And yet, presumably the populace around Jesus believed that Jesus was John the Baptist raised from the dead!? This makes no sense. I will use your line of reasoning here. Show me one other example in the Jewish literature, where they took a LIVING person to be a resurrected person that died recently. Give me one other example (other than Jesus).
Are you saying that secular historians, like Bart Ehrman, believe Gospels are pure history without any exaggeration? What about historical Jesus is historical?
I will grant that the brother of the Lord could be a historical reference, BUT it doesn’t need to be. I would put it in the 20% historicity bucket
Why does this make no sense? Where is your logical chain of reasoning? Do you not understand that most people who had heard of Jesus in Judea only heard of him as some far away wonder worker who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere? John the Baptist on the other hand, was known all the way down in Alexandria of Egypt. So it’s no surprise that when some people heard about a miracle worker in Judea who was preaching the kingdom of God and calling people to repentance, they thought it was John the Baptist raised from the dead, since those teachings were exactly what John the Baptist had taught people.
This is a completely invalid line of reasoning. I asked you for a precedent because that’s how lexicography works. But this is not how historiography works.
No.
Do you seriously not know? Have you never actually read the scholarly consensus on this subject?
Ok but why? Where’s the evidence that it “doesn’t need to be”?
Try Elvis. (And you ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog)
Where is your evidence for the Jewish beliefs on John’s reincarnation (or resurrection in the person of Jesus)? It’s no surprise that all these people, KNOWING John the Baptist was killed, nonetheless believed he rose from the dead in the person of Jesus? I would like to see some evidence for the historical plausibility of this happening! It is FAR more likely, in my view, that this whole story about Jesus was made up. It never happened. That’s why Christians needed to tamper with Josephus testimonium Flavianum and a host of other documents.
As an aside, how can ANY sane Christian today believe in Jesus’ literal resurrection when John the Baptist was taught to have risen by the same people who later started preaching about Jesus’ resurrection?
Isn’t it very convenient… for YOU? At any rate, the line of reasoning is valid, because IF (as Christian apologists insist) the Jewish people of the 1st Century Palestine would not believe in reincarnation or bodily resurrection of someone whose grave is not empty, then the burden of proof is in you to show that in the case of Jesus, people really thought he was risen John the Baptist.
I linked previously several historical Jesus consensuses. Which one do you buy?
I have already explained the circumstances surrounding John the Baptist at length, and you’ve offered no reason for doubting the narrative and have offered no explanation of why this even hints of mythicism. I should note, in fact, that part of the John the Baptist narrative in the Gospels has been confirmed by the first century historian Josephus, who writes that John the Baptist was executed on the orders of Herod Antipas. Josephus writes in Antiquities of the Jews XVIII.5.2:
Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness.
If anything, part of the narrative has actually been in-part confirmed. The rest, as to why John the Baptist was thought to be raised by some, has been explained by myself earlier. I will quickly re-summarize: John and Jesus were closesly affiliated, and when John died, Jesus took on John’s ministry. So, rumors begun spreading: everyone knew John had died, but now they were hearing rumors about this John-like figure. Who could it be? Some said it was John risen by God to get revenge on the Romans! The first century AD was a highly apocalyptic climate for the Jews. There’s nothing implausible about this, and even if it didn’t happen (which you have offered no reasons for thinking), this wouldn’t be an indicator for mythicism. It would just mean that two or three peripheral comments in the Gospels are ahistorical.
Jesus exists, and He was VERY similar, if not identical to who the Gospels make him out to be. Scholars recognize there is a high similarity between the historical Jesus and the Gospel Jesus because, well, the Gospel Jesus is directly derivative of the historical Jesus. And many important events, including the baptism by John, preaching in Galilee, disciples, crucifixion, etc, have been confirmed.
“Isn’t it very convenient… for YOU? At any rate, the line of reasoning is valid, because IF (as Christian apologists insist) the Jewish people of the 1st Century Palestine would not believe in reincarnation or bodily resurrection of someone whose grave is not empty, then the burden of proof is in you to show that in the case of Jesus, people really thought he was risen John the Baptist.”
No one is saying everyone thought Jesus was John the Baptist. Peter was only recounting some rumors going on among the people, “some say you are Elijah, some say you are John the Baptist”. The Gospels are recording rumors going on about who Jesus was because, remember, it is an element in Mark’s Gospel that no one understands Jesus.
Er, it’s right there in the text. You even quoted it.
No it isn’t a surprise. Why would it be a surprise?
Well you could look at what professional historians have to say. Regardless, even if you think this was made up, so what? How does it affect the historicity of Jesus?
What “host of other documents”?
John the Baptist wasn’t taught to have risen by the same people who later started preaching about Jesus’ resurrection. Perhaps this is what is confusing you.
It’s not a matter of convenience, it’s a matter of fact. Historians don’t judge the historicity of events on the basis of whether or not they’ve happened before. You don’t find historians saying “Well we cannot find any record of any Carthaginian taking elephants from Africa to Rome, over the Alps, which sounds incredibly unlikely, so obviously this guy Hannibal didn’t do it either, and that proves Hannibal never existed”.
Yes it is, and in this case we have a historical record of people thinking he was John the Baptist risen from the dead. That’s the evidence. Do you have any rational reason for dismissing this evidence? Remember, John the Baptist had no tomb, so we’re dealing with a very different situation to that of Jesus.
Clearly you don’t understand what “consensus” means. By definition, there is only one consensus, since consensus is the common agreement of scholars on a topic.
This is what the scholarly consensus actually looks like. The following statements are are all agreed on by the overwhelming consensus of peer reviewed professional scholarship on the historicity of Jesus, from those as conservative as Witherington, Blomberg and Habemas, through those less conservative such as Theissen, and Sanders, to those as skeptical as Ehrman (agnostic), Vermès (Jew), and Lüdemann (atheist).
- Jesus was born to a woman named Mary, during the reign of Herod the Great.
- He had a father (biological or not), called Joseph.
- He was baptized in Galilee.
- He became an intinerant teacher.
- He proclaimed the kingdom of God.
- He conducted a healing ministry which involved certain genuine acts of healing.
- He taught a subversive and counter-cultural socio-religious ethic expressed in wisdom sayings and parables; Mark 2:19; 3:27; 4:21; 10:25; 12:17, Matthew 5:38-48; 6:9-23; 7:7-8; 11:7-8; 18:12-14; 18:23-25; 20:1-15, Luke 6:20-21; 6:41-42; 9:58; 9:59-60; 10:30-35; 11:24-26; 12:22-31; 13:6-9; 13:20-21; 14:16-24; 15:11-32; 16:1-8a; 17:33; 18:1-8; 20:46 are all considered authentic sayings of Jesus even by the rather skeptical Jesus Seminar committee (note that this is a matter of authenticity, not historicity).
- He associated and identified with social outcasts.
- He criticized the established Jewish religious elite.
- He was arrested and crucified during the prefecture of Pontius Pilate, for being a public nuisance and social threat.
- He died at around 30 years of age.
I think your list is a fair one, but I can’t imagine that this one is universally agreed upon?
Read the literature and you’ll find even skeptical historians suggesting stuff like psychosomatic illnesses being “healed”, and other stock in trade successes of faith healers.