"Brother of the Lord" and martyrdom

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stephan happy huller
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Re: "Brother of the Lord" and martyrdom

Post by stephan happy huller »

I think there were two ideas in competition with one another in the late second century:

1. anyone could be made a brother of Jesus, son of God (= adopted)
2. there was a family of Jesus, James was the brother of the Lord etc. who were the heads of the Jerusalem Church

James as brother of Jesus stands very close to Jacob as brother of Esau. The overlap would be that Jacob wrestling with Esau leads to his taking over the name Israel as Esau was the angel of the presence (= Israel). I think (2) came later than (1). The idea that human beings became divine through taking over the name of the angel of the presence extends to many figure (= Enoch, Jacob, Moses etc). In the Jewish mystical tradition Jacob now stands atop the heavenly ladder, the place where the angel he formerly saw at Bethel.

Christianity thus stands in a long line of expectation that the angel of the presence would come, adopt human beings to become angels. The mistake most people make is that they assume that Jesus is a form of Joshua via Yeshu. Irenaeus testifies that the two and a half letter name (isu) was the true name of the Son of God. But as I note in the other thread it goes back to the Hebrew 'His Man' (= is ha'elohim) rather than Joshua. There is no demonstrable evidence that Yeshu was a diminutive of Joshua before Christianity. Yeshua is already a short form of Yehoshua. Now we have short forms of short forms? Unlikely.

While it is true that the earliest testimony to Jews (or Samaritans perhaps) accepting the existence of a 'Son of God' is Celsus's Jew c. 135 CE one can argue that the idea is already present in some form in Philo and among the Dositheans in Samaria. Again, it all comes down to adoption as the vehicle for 'adoption' as a newly formed divine being. The idea that there were physical brothers of Jesus is a reaction against this early conception IMO.
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Peter Kirby
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Re: "Brother of the Lord" and martyrdom

Post by Peter Kirby »

Kevin Brown makes another point about Gal. 1.19 ( http://diglotting.com/2012/10/06/review ... r-part-ii/ ):

James is singled out as a figurative 'brother' but Peter is not, when they would both have been figurative brothers, especially in the common sense of "brother" that we find all over the NT and outside it.

Defeating this counter-argument seems to require the hypothesis that a "brother of the Lord" was not just an elaborate circumlocution for a brother in Christ but actually represented an early sub-group within the broader movement (and of course that this sub-group was -not- the same as the later brothers of the savior, positing genealogical relationship to Jesus, mentioned through Hegesippus and Julius Africanus as relatives of Christ).
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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Tenorikuma
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Re: "Brother of the Lord" and martyrdom

Post by Tenorikuma »

Hence my original point that if James had been martyred at the time of writing and Peter was still alive, it would explain the exclusive use of the label.
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Peter Kirby
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Re: "Brother of the Lord" and martyrdom

Post by Peter Kirby »

It's worth noting that Clement does not use "brother of the Lord" in the key passage but rather just "brother."

http://earlychristianwritings.com/text/ ... book4.html
And what? Does not he, who denies the Lord, deny himself? For does he not rob his Master of His authority, who deprives himself of his relation to Him? He, then, who denies the Saviour, denies life; for "the light was life." He does not term those men of little faith, but faithless and hypocrites, who have the name inscribed on them, but deny that they are really believers. But the faithful is called both servant and friend. So that if one loves himself, he loves the Lord, and confesses to salvation that he may save his soul. Though you die for your neighbour out of love, and regard the Saviour as our neighbour (for God who saves is said to be nigh in respect to what is saved); you do so, choosing death on account of life, and suffering for your own sake rather than his. And is it not for this that he is called brother? he who, suffering out of love to God, suffered for his own salvation; while he, on the other hand, who dies for his own salvation, endures for love to the Lord. For he being life, in what he suffered wished to suffer that we might live by his suffering.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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Tenorikuma
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Re: "Brother of the Lord" and martyrdom

Post by Tenorikuma »

Agreed. I'm by no means making a slam-dunk argument. It would be nice to have examples from other writers.

I'm just noting that Clement uses the term "brother of the Lord" in Stromata III as a title for an apostle who has achieved perfect gnosis, and then goes on to use the term "brother" (in relationship to Jesus, not in relationship to himself or other believers) as a label for martyrs as well. So the argument that an early Christian writer using the phrase "brother of the Lord" could mean nothing other than "the biological brother of Jesus" is somewhat weakened.
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Re: "Brother of the Lord" and martyrdom

Post by spin »

Can someone tell me yet when the term "lord", non-titular "lord", "lord" in lieu of haShem, jumped ship and became used for Jesus within the christian tradition?
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Peter Kirby
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Re: "Brother of the Lord" and martyrdom

Post by Peter Kirby »

I dunno maybe you can suss it out from the table here:
http://peterkirby.com/a-table-of-christ ... itles.html
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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