The Lords Brother In my videos on the silence of Paul, I made
only brief mention of Galatians 1 verse 19 where Paul says of his trip to Jerusalem.
“I saw none of the other apostles, only James the lord's brother.”
A similar text is 1 Corinthians 9 verse 5 where Paul says “Don't we have the right
to take a believing wife along with us as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers
and Cephas?
These texts are used extensively by historicists when countering the argument from the silence
of Paul and all mythicists must counter it.
This level of interest does merit further treatment.
Paul uses words that denote sibling relationships very commonly.
The word counts do depend on how you break down the categories but the way I've done
it, Paul uses the term “brothers and sisters” when addressing his audience 62 times.
He refers to non-specific church members as brothers and or sisters 20 times.
He refers to named church members as brothers 14 times, to non-specific church members as
brothers 7 times.
He addresses Philemon as Brother 3 times and he refers to non-specific church members as
sisters twice.
With the 2 lord's brother passages this adds up to 110 occurrences in the 24000 words of
the 7 genuine epistles of Paul.
I have listed all of them in the comments
In almost all of these 110 occurrences, we can tell unambiguously from the context whether
Paul is referring to spiritual or physical siblings.
There are only two exceptions to this and I'm sure you can guess which those two are.
This leaves 108 examples where we can tell from context whether Paul is referring to
spiritual or a physical siblings.
And in that group of 108 occurrences there is only one where context would suggest that
he is referring to a physical sibling and that one is in Roman 16 verse 15 where Paul
says “greet Philologist, Julia, Marius and his sister, and Olympus and all the Lord's
people who are with them”.
This looks like a real sibling because it refers to a specific person's sibling rather
than the way Paul refers to spiritual siblings as “my brothers and sisters” or “our
brothers and sisters” or “other brothers”.
So in Paul, siblings are overwhelmingly spiritual not physical.
Here are a few typical examples of Paul's use of the term as spiritual brothers taken
from the numerous ones that exist.
1 Corinthians 16:11 No one, then, should treat him with contempt.
Send him on his way in peace so that he may return to me.
I am expecting him along with the brothers.
2 Corinthians 8:23 As for Titus, he is my partner and co-worker among you; as for our
brothers, they are representatives of the churches and an honor to Christ.
2 Corinthians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our
brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all his holy people throughout
Achaia: An example of his most common way of using
the term Romans 7:1 Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for
I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as
long as that person lives?
So if we take the two brothers of the Lord passages, it's certainly true that they have
a similarity to the one passage that refers to a physical sibling in that a specific person's
sibling is mentioned rather than somebody who is “our sibling” generally in that
“I saw none of the other apostles only James the lord's brother” suggesting that it's
something special about James.
Then in 1 Corinthians 9:5 Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with
us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas?
This appears to be categorizing different groups of itinerant preachers, those being
the other apostles apart from Paul, the lord's brothers and a group with one member: Cephas.
The lord's brothers could be the physical brothers of Jesus but they may rather be another
different category of itinerant preacher.
Assuming a physical sibship is fair enough for Marius and his sister.
But there is one individual whose siblings generally seem to be spiritual and that is
of course the Lord.
We have good reason for believing from Paul that the Brotherhood of the church includes
Jesus because both Jesus and the faithful have the same father, i.e.
God the father.
Paul states in Roman 8:14 14 For those who are led by the Spirit of
God are the children of God.15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so
that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to
sonship.
And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed
we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
So we know that the faithful are children of the father.
In Romans 15:5 Pauls says 5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you
the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, 6 so that with one
mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So God is our Father and Jesus' father also making us all siblings of Jesus.
Mythicists address the lord's brother question in different ways.
Richard Carrier maintains that brothers in this context refers to all members of the
church.
There is some logic behind this because of Paul's view that both Jesus and the faithful
are children of the God the Father.
The problem is it makes for a rather strained reading or 1 Corinthians 9:5 “Don’t we
have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the
Lord’s brothers and Cephas?”
Carriers holds that the apostles and Cephas were also the lord's brothers whereas the
passage seems to indicate that they were separate groups.
If they were all the lords brothers, why mention the apostles and Cephas as brothers would
have included them.
David Fitzgerald takes a different tack.
He notes that in Galatians 2:6 where Paul is talking about the leaders of the church
in Jerusalem.
6 As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does
not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message.
7 On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching
the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised.
8 For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work
in me as an apostle to the Gentiles.
9 James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand
of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me.
They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.
10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had
been eager to do all along.
So Paul says of James, Cephas and John “whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does
not show favouritism—they added nothing to my message”.
Fitzgerald argues that it's unlikely that Paul would have been disdainful like like
that had he been talking about somebody he believed to be the real blood brother of Jesus
and argues that the “brother of the Lord” section is an interpolation and Paul never
wrote it.
Maybe, but this runs into the recurrent problem with dismissing things as interpolations.
Any inconvenient evidence can be dismissed as an interpolation.
Is Fitzgerald's argument from disdain strong enough to justify this?
Robert Price argues that the lord's brothers was a particular designation of a group of
itinerant preachers.
This view does not lead to a strained reading of the two texts but it is not particularly
supported by other evidence that a group bearing such a name existed.
So for example in
1 Corinthians 12:28 28 And God has placed in the church first
of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping,
of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues.
29 Are all apostles?
Are all prophets?
Are all teachers?
Do all work miracles?
30 Do all have gifts of healing?
Do all speak in tongues?
Do all interpret?
31 Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.
Here Paul lists the roles within the church and the lord's brothers are not mentioned,
but then there's no indication that the list is intended to be comprehensive.
So mythicists have different ways of rationalising these texts but none of their rationalizations
are without problems.
When taken in isolation, the lord's brother thing is perhaps a bit marginal since is not
at all clear clear what Paul meant.
The plainest reading is that Paul meant a physical brother of Jesus but that reading
is not supported by Paul's overwhelming use of sibling relationships to describe spiritual
rather than physical siblings.
Perhaps more important though is the context in which this debate arises.
The lord's brother is the strongest counter to the silence of Paul argument for the non
historicity of Jesus.
Now if this rather marginal argument is the best one against the view that Paul did not
believe in a historical Jesus, from all of his writings in seven genuine epistles and
24,000 words, it speaks volumes about what he didn't say about a historical Jesus.
And that's really very odd under historicity.
So the lord's brother argument is finely balanced but one thing I am confident of is that the
ambiguities are such that there is no way that this argument has the power to displace
the silence of Paul argument for mysticism, which remains mythicism's strongest argument.