Did Acts invent a James brother of Jesus who was ALSO a leader?

[Giuseppe]

Something of similar in modern terms:
if even the simple Christians have a wife,
if even the bishops have a wife,
if even the Pope has a wife,
why I not?

[Ben C. Smith]

I don't understand your point. Paul is saying:

1 Corinthians 9.5: 5 Do we not have a right to take along a sister wife, even as the rest of the not-apostles and the apostles and Cephas?

the sense is: if even the simple baptized Christians (the not-apostles) have the right,
if even the apostles like me have the right,
if even Cephas has the right,
why don't I have the right?

These are people who are assumed to be traveling around (περιάγειν). It makes little sense to characterize ordinary baptized members of the church in this way, right alongside people like Cephas and the apostles.

You are having to assume that all visionaries of the risen Christ are sent. No text says that, at least none that you have produced.

It is not an assumption. It is the banal consequence of :

1) the meaning of Apostle (''who is sent by'')
2) what Paul himself says in 1 Cor 9:1
3) the fact that Paul was a persecutor an instanct before he became apostle.

The apostles were always moving themselves. They were sent always to preach what they were receiving by Jesus. This explains their absence in Jerusalem when Paul visited it the first time.

There is nothing in 1 Corinthians 9.1 that says that all people who saw the risen Lord are apostles, just as there is nothing in that verse that says that all people who are free are apostles. You are reading your viewpoint into the verse.

[Giuseppe]

I disagree. We have only the definition of Apostle given by Paul in 1 Cor 9:1.
According to that definition, who sees the Risen Christ becomes ipso facto an apostle. Period.

[Ben C. Smith]

I disagree. We have only the definition of Apostle given by Paul in 1 Cor 9:1.
According to that definition, who sees the Risen Christ becomes ipso facto an apostle. Period.

You have not explained what you are doing with the "free" part. Is everyone who is free also an apostle?

[Ben C. Smith]

You are engaging in the formal fallacy known as affirming the consequent:

If someone is a firefighter, then s/he saves lives.
This person saves lives.
Therefore this person is a firefighter.

If someone is an apostle, then s/he has seen the Lord.
Brother X has seen the Lord.
Therefore Brother X is an apostle.

To wit:

Firefighter: Am I not a firefighter? Do I not save lives?
Giuseppe: Everyone who saves lives must be a firefighter.

Paul: Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen the Lord?
Giuseppe: Everyone who has seen the Lord must be an apostle.

[Giuseppe]

You are assuming freely and totally ad hoc that there is another way to become an apostle.

Under the mythicist thesis there is only a way: to have seen a phantasm.

Under the historicist thesis there are two ways:
To have seen a man, or/and to have seen his phantasm.

I may have made the fallacy of the consequent only if you can show me what is necessary to be an apostle, in addition to Paul's definition in 1 Cor 9:1.

As about the "free" part, that is an effect of the being an apostle, not the cause (who is the vision of the Lord).
"Paul has seen the Lord" implies that
"he is an apostle " implies that
he is free.

[Ben C. Smith]

You are assuming freely and totally ad hoc that there is another way to become an apostle.

Under the mythicist thesis there is only a way: to have seen a phantasm.

Under the historicist thesis there are two ways:
To have seen a man, or/and to have seen his phantasm.

No, I am not (necessarily) doing that at all. I am saying that seeing the Lord may be a prerequisite, but even so it does not have to be the only prerequisite. (And the historicist stuff is misplaced here; you may recall that one of my hypotheses to be tested is that Paul knows of no historical Jesus.)

I may have made the fallacy of the consequent only if you can show me what is necessary to be an apostle, in addition to Paul's definition in 1 Cor 9:1.

That is simple. One would have to be sent. That is what the word apostle means in Greek: sent one. So if you see the Lord, Giuseppe, and he sends you, you are an apostle. If you see the Lord and he does not send you, then consider yourself blessed; but you are not an apostle.

You may or may not be aware of my suspicions about 1 Corinthians 15.3-11, but if that passage is what we are comparing to 1 Corinthians 9.5, then this is what we get:

1 Corinthians 9.5: 5 Do we not have a right to take along a sister wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?

1 Corinthians 15.6-7: 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

And yet, though the phrase "brothers of the Lord" is meant to distinguish ordinary believers from "the apostles" in the first verse, the "more than 500 brothers" are (by definition) apostles in the second, according to your way of reading them. To the logical fallacy you add an inconsistent way to read the text.

[Giuseppe]

I may have made the fallacy of the consequent only if you can show me what is necessary to be an apostle, in addition to Paul's definition in 1 Cor 9:1.

That is simple. One would have to be sent. That is what the word apostle means in Greek: sent one.

Surely you agree that who is sending is the Lord, better, the Risen Christ (since you agree with me and Roger Parvus that only the demons saw the crucifixion, and even they saw without real knowing the identity of the crucified Son).

And the Risen Christ is, by definition in any our Gospel, one who sends apostles to preach publicly the Christ (even in Mark, where the Risen Jesus Nazarene awaits already in Galilee - and the women are sent there, if only they didn't have fear - , meaning his final approval of the Mission to Gentiles).

And yet, though the phrase "brothers of the Lord" is meant to distinguish ordinary believers from "the apostles" in the first verse, the "more than 500 brothers" are (by definition) apostles in the second, according to your way of reading them. To the logical fallacy you add an inconsistent way to read the text.

Why a inconsistent way of reading the text? At contrary, Paul is saying that, since so humble people - the 500 brothers - saw the Risen Christ, they became greater than him (Paul being the famous abort among all just for this reason), and therefore at least apostles as well as Paul himself.

It is not a coincidence that the Pentecost event (involving only apostles) was a legendary espansion of the vision of the 500 brothers. I agree with Rylands and Whittaker and Robert Price that the original apostles were a lot of people, even more than the same mere baptized Christians (the brothers of the Lord).

[Ben C. Smith]

I may have made the fallacy of the consequent only if you can show me what is necessary to be an apostle, in addition to Paul's definition in 1 Cor 9:1.

That is simple. One would have to be sent. That is what the word apostle means in Greek: sent one.

Surely you agree that who is sending is the Lord, better, the Risen Christ (since you agree with me and Roger Parvus that only the demons saw the crucifixion, and even they saw without real knowing the identity of the crucified Son).

I suspect that at one stage of the tradition this was a common belief. I also suspect that this stage of the tradition predates Paul, who has carried over some of the language (not just here but in other spots, as well) from that stage.

And the Risen Christ is, by definition in any our Gospel, one who sends apostles to preach publicly the Christ (even in Mark, where the Risen Jesus Nazarene awaits already in Galilee - and the woman are sent there, if only they didn't have fear - , meaning his final approval of the Mission to Gentiles).

I am reading Paul without the gospels here.

As for the rest, I find I am unable to persuade myself that these "brothers of the Lord" who are traveling about (περιάγειν) are no more than baptized members of the church for Paul. I have tried to read that phrase in suchlike fashions for more than two decades now, but to no avail. My own mind is the hardest thing to convince; and it is not convinced. The better reading is that these "brothers of the Lord" are a special group of some kind.

[Giuseppe]

As for the rest, I find I am unable to persuade myself that these "brothers of the Lord" who are traveling about (περιάγειν) are no more than baptized members of the church for Paul. I have tried to read that phrase in suchlike fashions for more than two decades now, but to no avail. My own mind is the hardest thing to convince; and it is not convinced. The better reading is that these "brothers of the Lord" are a special group of some kind.

Frankly, in my case just the opposite thing happens. It is difficult for me to consider these brothers as people who could advance some particular pretence over Paul.
Probably the reason of the my resistance to consider them a special Group etc is the topic that is object of discussion: the right to take wife!

After so much a lot of discussion about the notorious Paul's detachment from the sins of the flesh (without need here even of considering him a Gnostic or a proto-Gnostic), the fact that he envies in the ''brothers of the Lord'' just their right to take part in such a ''low'' pleasure (for his point of view, of course), means that the brothers of the Lord certainly do not excel in the field of the aspirations for more spiritual things.
Just as the carnal hoi polloi.