Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2023 1:12 am
‘Brother’ used symbolically in a religious context typically indicates the relationship between (human) group members. It is not typically used to indicate a relationship between a group member and a heavenly being.
Even if that were true (and I don't know that it is true), the phrase which Paul used was not "Brother of Jesus," but "Brother of the Lord." I trust we can agree that at the time Paul wrote, he taught that "the Lord" was exactly a heavenly being.
Now, there are many kinds of relationship. Paul's Lord Jesus Christ was awarded his current heavenly status after having occupied some lowlier station. That may have been a historical existence and
Brother of the Lord means "Born to the same parents as the Lord was before his exaltation," or "Companion in the Lord's ministry before his exaltation." Fine.
But on its face, the phrase refers to a heavenly being (the Lord) and in Paul's usage the relationship (Brother) clearly held between a human being and that heavenly being. That is equally true for mythicists and historicists. What is "typical" is therefore unhelpful in deciding among the contending hypotheses.
On the question of "typicality," I was amused to discover an order of modern Roman Catholic nuns who style themselves the sisters of Christ. I verified that they are not claiming to be Jesus's biological siblings:
https://www.soeursduchrist.fr/en/who-ar ... -of-christ
Before you say that that is exceptional, not typical, Roman Catholic nuns are often referred to (and refer to themselves) as
brides of Christ. In fact they are unmarried women, and we have no knowledge of Jesus ever having married. We nevertheless understand the phrase as a reference to a relationship between human beings and a heavenly being, in a religious context.
Very solid points. In fact, I had come around to the position that "brother of the Lord" probably was intended to mean an actual sibling of Jesus, but I think you've reconvinced me that it doesn't.
But this goes back to my bigger point on the Pauline letters. The idea that we can argue for historicity of Jesus based on certain passages in the Pauline letters is entirely wrong to begin with.
We know, with a very high degree of certainty, that the canonical Pauline letters have been revised by proto-orthodox hands specifically for the purpose of making it appear that Jesus was a human being who was born on earth and fulfilled prophecy. We know that. So the idea that anyone can point to passages in these Pauline letters and say, "Look, see this passage shows that 'Paul' thought Jesus was a real person," is entirely bogus.
And I would even go so far as to say that it wouldn't even matter if we thought that the Pauline letters were 100% genuine and authentic and written directly by Paul in 55-65 CE. They still would not rise to the level of evidence that would confirm the real existence of anyone because even Paul is not a reliable witness to begin with. Everything that Paul says about Jesus is hearsay and his claims about what he has done or seen are all of very low credibility and show patterns of exaggeration and delusion.
No matter what, we know that Paul has no direct knowledge of Jesus. Even if Paul did think that Jesus was a real person who was born on earth, he also thinks that he is a heavenly deity with godly powers who rose from the dead, that he or someone else ascended to heaven and observed the going on in heaven, that people, including himself, have the power of prophecy and direct communication with heavenly powers, etc.
So the fact of the matter is, Paul's letters are worthless as "evidence for the existence of Jesus," no matter what they originally said.
But having said that, the other fact remains that the evidence indicating that the Pauline letters were manipulated and revised by multiple hands through a series of modifications by different people, with the canonical versions having undergone a final revision that inserted into the letters specific proto-orthodox claims and beliefs that were not present in the original version of the letters, is overwhelming.
So not only is Paul an unreliable witness to begin with, who cannot really affirm the actual existence of any real person even under the best of conditions, what we have in our hands is evidence that has been higher tampered with in ways that were intended to make it appear as though a Jesus who was believed by many Christians to be a purely heavenly spirit, was in fact a person born on earth.
And since this is largely about Dr. Sarah's critique of the case put forward in my book, I should note that what I argue is that it is that people did come to believe that Jesus was a real person relatively early on, but the belief that Jesus was a real person was itself based on stories about Jesus, not on actual knowledge of Jesus.
Now, what I argue in the book, is that it was the Gospel stories that gave rise to the belief that Jesus was a real person. And I do argue, and continue to argue, that Paul did not think that Jesus was a "real person". However, that does not necessarily mean that Paul did not think that some real "being" known as IH did not make an appearance on earth. And certainly it is possible that Paul could have thought of IH as a "real being" or even "real person". But even if so, that still wouldn't make it true.
Again, we know of many real cases, in the real world, that have happened over the past 500 years, of reports of people and events that never existed leading to real and widespread beliefs in the actual existence of said people/events.
The case that I make is quite simple. Where does the information about who Jesus was, what he taught, and what he did come from? The church fathers all claimed and believed that the accounts of Jesus' ministry and deeds came from eye witnesses. Modern biblical scholars largely argue that the accounts of Jesus' life come from "oral traditions" that presumably trace back to eye witnesses. The case I put forward shows that every detail about the life and ministry of Jesus can be "proven" to have been derived from literary sources and the minds of story writers, with zero basis in anything that could trace back to real knowledge of any real Jesus person.
The detail's of Jesus' life come from the Jewish scriptures. The teachings of Jesus come from the Pauline letters. The account of Jesus' ministry is an allegory about the First Jewish-Roman War in which the scenes are crafted by the writer of the original Gospel from literary sources that have nothing to do with any real Jesus person, rather they are all writings that were being interpreted in the context of the outcome of the war.
And as such, I argue that the entire concept of the narrative about Jesus has to have
originated after the First Jewish-Roman War. The entire narrative in the first Gospel is conceived as an allegory about the war and thus all of the scenes and the entire concept of Jesus' ministry is a post-war literary invention. It cannot in any way shape or form be postulated to trace back to "oral traditions" that originated during the governorship of Pontius Pilate.
There is zero basis for believing that any claims ever made about "Jesus Christ" originated from any real ministry of any real person. The Pauline letters are unreliable, tampered, hearsay evidence. The Gospels are all copies of a single fictional allegorical story that was invented by a writer after the First Jewish-Roman War. Those two sources constitute the entirely of the evidence for the existence of some real Jesus person. All other evidence can be shown to be hearsay at best, derived from the Gospels, if not outright fraudulent.
