Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: What the Jesus quote mythicists in, quote.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Say about the brothers of Jesus.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: By Bart D. Ehrman read by Sharon.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Roberts.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Ten years ago on the blog, when I was discussing the proto gospel of James, the current subthread within a thread, I received an intriguing question about this issue dressed in the previous post about the brothers of Jesus and how quote mythicists, end quote. Those who claim there never was a.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Historical Jesus whatsoever, but that he was.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Completely made up a quote myth, end quote, dealt with them. Here's the question and my response.
Question since you've brought up the subject of Jesus'family, perhaps it won't be too far off the subject to ask this question.
Mythicists are forced by their arguments to deal with Paul's encounter with Peter and James in Galatians 118 to 20. They claim that when Paul refers to James as quote, the Lord's brother, end quote, he does not mean that James.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Is Jesus'biological brother, which of course would.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Mean that Jesus actually lived, but that he was using the word quote brother, end quote, in the sense that all the disciples were quote brothers in quote metaphorically.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: What about this?
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Is the word translated as quote brother in quote in English? That ambiguous in the original Greek. Can it be other than a biological relationship?
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Elsewhere, I believe Paul uses the word.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Quote brothers in quote to describe fellow believers. Does he use the same Greek word?
Response Great question. I've dealt with the issue in my.
[00:02:00] Speaker B: Book Did Jesus Exist?
[00:02:02] Speaker A: I think this is one of the real deal breakers for the mythicist position that Paul was personally acquainted with Jesus'own brother.
There are a number of other deal breakers as well, but this is a good one. What follows is what I discuss in.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: My book about the issue.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: At this point of the book, I have just finished talking about how Paul also knew Jesus'right hand man, Peter. Another big problem if Jesus never existed, then I start talking about the brothers as follows even more telling is a much noted fact that Paul claims that he met with and therefore personally knew Jesus'own brother James. It is true that Paul calls him the quote brother of the Lord, end quote, not quote, the brother of Jesus, end quote. But that means very little since Paul typically calls Jesus the Lord and rarely uses the name Jesus without adding quote Christ, end quote or other titles.
And so in the letter to the Galatians, Paul states as clearly as possible that he knew Jesus'brother. Can we get any closer to an eyewitness report than this?
The fact that Paul knew Jesus'closest disciple and his own brother throws a real monkey wrench into the mythicist's view that Jesus never lived.
The brothers of Jesus to expound on the situation, I need to say something.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Further about the brothers of Jesus.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: I pointed out in an earlier chapter that Paul knows that quote the brothers of the Lord, end quote. Were engaged in Christian missionary activities, one Corinthians nine five. And we saw there that Paul could not be using the term quote brothers, end quote, in some kind of loose spiritual sense, where all brothers and sisters or all believers are quote brothers in Christ.
Paul does frequently use the term quote brothers in quote in this metaphorical way when addressing the members of his congregations.
But when he speaks of quote the brothers of the Lord, end quote, in One Corinthians Nine five, he is differentiating them both from himself and from Cephas. That would make no sense if he meant the term loosely to mean quote believers in Jesus, since he and Cephas too would be in that broader category. And so he means something specific, not something general about these missionaries. They are Jesus actual brothers who, along with Cephas and Paul, were engaged in missionary activities.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: This same logic applies to what Paul.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Has to say in Galatians 118 to 19 when he says that along with cephas, the only apostle he saw was quote James the brother of the Lord, end quote. He could not mean the term quote brother, end quote, in a loose generic sense to mean quote believer, end quote. Sephas was also a believer and so were the other apostles, and so he must mean it in the specific sense.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: This is Jesus'actual brother.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: The word, by the way, does not mean quote cousin, end quote. As has sometimes been claimed. There is another Greek word for that anepsios.
And so Paul knows one of these brothers personally. It is hard to get much closer to the historical Jesus than that.
If Jesus never lived, you would think that his brother would know about it.
Mythicist Views of James Mythicists have long realized that the fact that Paul knew Jesus'brother creates enormous problems for their view that in fact the otherwise convincing to them case against Jesus'existence is more or less sunk by the fact that Paul was acquainted with his blood relations.
And so they have tried, with some futility in my view, to explain away Paul's statements, so that even though he calls James the brother of the Lord, he didn't really mean it that way.
The most recent attempt to resolve the problem is in Mythicist, Robert Price's comprehensive study where he cites possible explanations for how James may not actually be Jesus'brother. Price has the honesty to admit that if these explanations quote, end up sounding like text twisting harmonizations, we must say so and reject them, end quote. In the end, he doesn't say so and he doesn't reject them, but he doesn't embrace any of them either, which.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: At least must leave his readers puzzled.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: One of the explanations is that which has been most forcefully argued by G. A. Wells, author of The Jesus Myth, who revives a theory floated without much success by J. M. Robertson. Back in 1927, according to Wells, there was a small fraternity of Messianic Jews in Jerusalem who called themselves, quote, the brothers of the Lord, end quote. James was a member of this missionary group, and that is why he can be called, quote, the brother of the Lord, end quote. Wells likens it to the situation that Paul refers to in the city of Corinth, where he calls himself the quote father in, quote, of the community, one Corinthians 415, and where some of the members of the congregation claim that they are quote, of Christ, end quote, one Corinthians 111 to 13. As Wells concludes now, if there was a corinthian group called, quote, those of the Christ, end quote. There could also have been a Jerusalem one called, quote, the brethren of the Lord, end quote, who would not necessarily have had any more personal experience of Jesus than Paul himself. And James as, quote, the brother of the Lord, end quote, could have been.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: The leader of the group Wells cites.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: As well Matthew 28 nine to ten, and John 2017, where Jesus speaks of his unrelated followers as his, quote, brothers, end quote. This view sounds reasonable enough until it is examined in greater detail.
In evaluating it, the first thing to point out is that the final two Gospel passages that Wells cites are irrelevant. They do not refer to a distinct group of people who are zealous missionaries. They refer to the twelve disciples of Jesus, pure and simple.
But Wells does not think that James or anyone else was a member of that group because he does not think Jesus lived in the recent past and even had disciples. And so the Gospel references to the disciples as Jesus'brothers do not support Wells'claim that there was a select missionary group in Jerusalem that included James.
Nor does it work to claim that there was an analogous situation in the church in Corinth. Paul thinks of himself as the quote, father of the entire church of Corinth, not of a specific group within it. Even more important, we decidedly do not, contrary to what Wells asserts, know of a group that called themselves, quote, those of the Christ. End quote. There were, to be sure, Christians who said their ultimate allegiance was to Christ, not to Paul, Cephas, or Apollos. But we have no idea what they called themselves, because Paul never tells us. They are not, then, a named group, comparable to what Wells imagines as being in Jerusalem headed by James.
And what evidence does Wells cite for such a group of zealous Messianic Jews in Jerusalem that separated themselves off from all the other Jerusalem Christians?
None at all. What evidence could there be? No such group is mentioned in any surviving source of any kind whatsoever. Wells or his predecessor Robinson has made it up, and there is a good reason for thinking that such a group did not in fact, exist. Throughout our traditions, Sephas and James are portrayed as being completely sympatico with one another. They are both Jews, believers in the resurrection of Jesus residing in Jerusalem, working for the same ends, participating in the same meetings, and actively leading the home church together.
Sephas, moreover, is a missionary sent out from this church.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: If there was a group called, quote.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: The brothers of the Lord, end quote, made up of zealous Jewish missionaries in Jerusalem, why wouldn't Cephas be a member?
Why is James the one called, quote, the brother of the Lord, end quote, precisely to differentiate him from Cephas?
Since there is no evidence to support the idea that such a group existed, this explanation seems to be grasping at straws. It is important to review what we know. We have several traditions that Jesus actually had brothers. It is independently affirmed in Mark, John, Paul and Josephus in multiple independent sources. One of these brothers is named James. So too. Paul speaks of James as his lord's brother.
Surely the most obvious, straightforward, and compelling interpretation is the one held by every scholar of Galatians that, so far as I know, walk the planet. Paul is referring to Jesus'own brother.
I will continue in my next post with another mythicist explanation for the quote, brothers, end quote, of the Lord.
