An Abstract Mythicist Hypothesis

[GDon]

It might just mean, God chose him and that's that. No reason except God willed it. Sounds crackers, but that's the ideology being promoted here and I think it's pretty standard Calvinism.

Sure, anything is possible, but I was wondering if there is any evidence for an interpretation beyond "election as Christ by God for being a good guy."

Hippolytus, writing in the early 3rd C CE, wrote:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050107.htm

The Ebionaeans, however, acknowledge that the world was made by Him Who is in reality God, but they propound legends concerning the Christ similarly with Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They live conformably to the customs of the Jews, alleging that they are justified. according to the law, and saying that Jesus was justified by fulfilling the law. And therefore it was, (according to the Ebionaeans,) that (the Saviour) was named (the) Christ of God and Jesus[/b], since not one of the rest (of mankind) had observed completely the law. For if even any other had fulfilled the commandments (contained) in the law, he would have been that Christ. And the (Ebionaeans allege) that they themselves also, when in like manner they fulfil (the law), are able to become Christs; for they assert that our Lord Himself was a man in a like sense with all (the rest of the human family).​

"Becoming Christ through perfect adherence to the law" is a theme running through early Christianity. Other quotes, mainly in works against the Ebionites:

Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Ch. 27:

The ancients quite properly called these men Ebionites, because they held poor and mean opinions concerning Christ. For they considered him a plain and common man, who was justified only because of his superior virtue, and who was the fruit of the intercourse of a man with Mary. In their opinion the observance of the ceremonial law was altogether necessary, on the ground that they could not be saved by faith in Christ alone and by a corresponding life.​

Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion 30.18.5-9

They say that the Christ is the True Prophet and that the Christ is son of God by spiritual progress and a union which came to him by a lifting up from above; but they say that the prophets are prophets through their own intelligence and not from truth. Him alone they wish to be both prophet and man, and son of God and Christ, and mere man, as we have mentioned before, but because of excellence of life he came to be called the Son of God.​

Hints of it can be found in Paul, as per my earlier comment, as well as in Hebrews:

5:7 who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear,
8 though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.
9 And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him...​

 

[vridar]

When it becomes possible to you to check for sources, I would be very grateful to read them. Thanks.

You were the one making the assertion about what sources say. What sources did you have in mind, exactly? Of did you just make up your claim from vague memory with no idea what sources supported your assertion and are now asking me to do your work for you?

 

[vridar]

Because the later church followed the teachings of Paul (definitely not a follower of Jesus).

I don't follow how that answers my question. Why did the gospels (which you suggest were written to support Paul's Christianity) say Peter and John were followers of Jesus but not James.

If James alone was never a follower of Jesus how could he ever have become the leader of the church?

As for "Ebionites" (ie: "The Poor") :
http://www.preteristarchive.com/BibleStudies/DeadSeaScrolls/4Q171_pesher_psalms.html


There are plenty of examples in the scrolls where they describe themselves as "Ebionim" which is the Hebrew form of the Greek "Ebionite" which translates as "The Poor" or "The community of The Poor".

Hmmm 1st century messianic apocalyptic Jews living around Jerusalem in communes and calling themselves "The Poor". I wonder if they could be related to the community described in the bible who fit the exact same description... Nah, that would be crazy!

I hear your argument. But to discuss the evidence for it would require a thread of its own. Eisenman is a brilliant mind but his case for James and the DSS is really built on making a lot of circumstantial connections like the one you are making here. We can just as easily approach the evidence with quite different assumptions and come up with very different reconstructions.

 

[Craig B]

You were the one making the assertion about what sources say. What sources did you have in mind, exactly? Of did you just make up your claim from vague memory with no idea what sources supported your assertion and are now asking me to do your work for you?

Sorry, but when you wrote

? Eusebius? My books are all packed away right now so I can't check for earlier sources

I took that to mean that you were unable to check because your books were packed. I did not realise you meant that you were refusing because you thought my asking was out of order. If you meant that, you should have said so.

The only work it seems to me that you will be obliged to do will be the unpacking, and I hope it goes well.

 

[Mcreal]

"some of your race, who say they believe in this Christ, compel those Gentiles who believe in this Christ to live in all respects according to the law given by Moses"

Who else can this be referring to, other than Jewish Christians? Or Christianized Jews, if you prefer.

I was reading something recently published recently that the preferred term (in some academic circles) for the first century is now Jewish followers of Jesus rather than 'Jewish Christians'.

There are a number of other possibilities; e.g:

[1.] [A] six-line fragment, commonly referred to as the "Pierced Messiah" text, written in a Herodian script of the first half of the first century C.E., refers to a Messiah from the Branch of David, to a judgement, and to a killing. The transcription and translation support the "killing Messiah" interpretation, alluding to a triumphant Messiah (Isaiah 11:4).

A "piercing messiah" reading would support the traditional Jewish view of a triumphant messiah. If, on the other hand, the fragment were interpreted as speaking of a "pierced messiah," it would anticipate the New Testament view of the preordained death of the messiah. The scholarly basis for these differing interpretations —but not their theological ramifications— are reviewed in Tabor, J. "A Pierced or Piercing Messiah?--The Verdict Is Still Out," Biblical Archaeology Review 18 (1992):58-59. -http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/deadsea.scrolls.exhibit/full-images/warrule.gif

From Bart Ehrman;

[2.] Jesus’ teachings are best understood as apocalyptic in nature, and to understand any of them it is important to remember what the world view we call Jewish apocalypticism entailed ...

Jewish apocalypticism was a very common view in Jesus’ day – it was the view of the Essenes who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, of the Pharisees, of John the Baptist, later of the Apostle Paul – and almost certainly of Jesus. This is a widely held view among critical scholars – by far the majority view for over a century, since the writings of Albert Schweitzer. https://ehrmanblog.org/the-apocalyptic-background-to-jesus-messiahship/

A pre-Jesus messiah

[3.] William B Smith around 1906 then found evidence in sources like the Great Paris Magic Papyrus that a reverence for the name Jesus or Joshua began before the Christian Jesus ever lived. ... the Christian belief that Jesus is the divine Word incarnate is a reworking of an older myth, the cult of a dying and rising saviour, Joshua (Hellenized to Jesus) believed by some Jews. The Jesus of the gospels, according to Arthur Drews, professor of philosophy at the Technische Hochschule of Karlsruhe (Die Christus-mythe, 1909) is an old god brought down to earth, as Abraham and his sons also were in all likelihood. This humanized divinity becomes the basis of Christian soteriology, the idea that all human beings are, or can be, gods. They are gods in waiting.

Jesus/Joshua was an old cult name for God, an invention of the Persian so-called diaspora, and evolved from the idea of a Jewish saviour or messiah based on the Persian Saoshyant. The Joshua who “returned” with Zerubabel might have been a mythological personification of the saviour Joshua meant to signify the eschatological significance of the “return” to the “returners”, the Persian colonists. Smith wrote in 1911:

'The doctrine concerning Jesus was a pre-Christian one, a cult which at the meeting of the centuries (100 BC to 100 AD) was widespread among the Jews and especially among the Hellenists, more or less in secret and veiled in “mysteries”… From the beginning Jesus was nothing other than a divinity… namely as the redeemer, the guardian, the saviour."​

This saviour had not had an earthly life but was one to come. The novelty of Christianity was the claim he had! Smith thought “Joshua Messiah” (Jesus Christ) was already a cult name among Jews long before the crucifixion of Jesus Barabbas. It is not at all far fetched, indeed less so today, now that the Persian influence on Judaism is getting clearer and clearer. But, it is a proposal hard to settle definitely because Jews long ago tried to expunge any trace of it and Christians have played the Joshua record but at their own speed.

The Persians already had the concept of a saviour, the Saoshyant, who would come to redeem the world. So, there is nothing peculiar in thinking that Judaism had the same concept right from its inception.

..Christians will accept that a messiah was proclaimed in the Jewish scriptures they renamed the Old Testament but they will not accept that anyone could have begun to worship this messiah before he actually appeared.

The Christians are on strong ground in that direct evidence of a pre-Christian Jesus cult is thin. Circumstantial evidence is easily dismissed by Christian believers immune to persuasion even when it does not impact in any way on their faith. Yet, circumstantial evidence is evidence. More recently Robert A Kraft has gathered some of the clues available and published them in Ioudaios of June 1992 ...

..The scrolls from Qumran might support a synthesis of the two views. A sect of Palestinian Jews might have had the idea of a messiah god before the Jews of the Diaspora had it. They show that first century Judaism was anything but monolithic in belief, as the Christians and Rabbis have made out. The Persian influence was much stronger than anyone in the last two millennia had thought, so Judaism then was not as rigidly monotheistic as its derivative religions like to think they are.

..Early Christians quickly saw their messiah had the same name as both Moses’s general who succeeded him as leader of the Israelites, and the mysterious high priest in Zechariah, a scriptural book full of Christian precedents. The name Iesous (Jesus) was used throughout the Greek version of the Jewish Scriptures, the Septuagint, as the Greek translation of the Hebrew name Jehoshua or Joshua. Jesus is Joshua—in Greek—and in the original Greek of Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8 the scriptural Joshua is called Jesus. Most modern Christians do not know this simple fact, so what was clear to the first Christians is obscure to modern ones. Christian clergymen are not keen to make it known that Jesus is Joshua because their flocks might come to see that Jesus was not as unique as they like to make out. It might look as though Jesus was trying to be Joshua!

The principal Jesus of the Old Testament is Joshua son of Nun who led Israel into the promised land after the death of Moses ..

In Deuteronomy 18:15, Joshua is the “prophet like Moses” and his successor.

The lesser Jesus of the Old Testament is Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priestly associate of Zerubbabel and Nehemiah during the “return” of the Jews from Babylon and the rebuilding of the temple. In what seems to be an investiture, he stands before the Angel of the Lord, with the adversary, Satan, opposing him. The Lord rebukes Satan and Joshua is addressed as “a brand plucked from the fire”. He is told to remove his filthy clothing and to put on apparel prepared for him by the Lord. The angel challenges Joshua to walk in the way of Yehouah then promises:

Hear now, O Joshua the high priest… for behold, I will bring forth my servant the ”Branch”.​

Here the Branch, “zemach”, is the equivalent of “Netzer”—Greek, “anatole” meaning a rising or sprouting. In the following context, the Branch seems to refer to Zerubbabel, and in 4.14, the seer receives a vision of “two olive branches” which symbolize “the two anointed ones that stand by the Lord of the whole earth”—apparently Iesous and Zerubbabel.
http://www.askwhy.co.uk/christianity/0190JoshuaCult.php#WilliamBSmith

That article also gives some counter argument -

Adolf Deissmann, whom Smith cites in his own favour, demurs in that the word “Hebrews”, when used in this period, always meant Palestinian Jews, not Diaspora Jews, as it does too in the Acts of the Apostles, and this detail refutes Smith’s hypothesis because he thought the “Joshua Messiah” cult had arisen in the Diaspora among Hellenized Jews.​

The point that there were other expectations of other, non-Jesus messiahs still stands.

It means "elected by God for being a perfect guy", as far as I know. What else can it mean, in your view?

Selected, as outlined in Eusebius's 'Letter on the Council of Nicaea' which was "read in the presence of our most pious Emperor, and declared to be good and unexceptionable".

 

[Mcreal]

You were the one making the assertion about what sources say. What sources did you have in mind, exactly? Of did you just make up your claim from vague memory with no idea what sources supported your assertion and are now asking me to do your work for you?

Sorry, but when you wrote

? Eusebius? My books are all packed away right now so I can't check for earlier sources

I took that to mean that you were unable to check because your books were packed. I did not realise you meant that you were refusing because you thought my asking was out of order. If you meant that, you should have said so.

The only work it seems to me that you will be obliged to do will be the unpacking, and I hope it goes well.

That is gaslighting.​

Craig B had said

One or two sources suggest it was dynastic: that Jesus was indeed a traditional messiah to his followers. A King sent to redeem Israel. That was the view of the late Hyam Maccoby. I'm sympathetic to it.

And when Jesus died, his brother simply succeeded him. There are sources suggesting that the earliest Christian leaders were blood relatives of Jesus.

It would be appropriate for Craig B to adhere to the ethic that "he who avers must prove" or, in this case, provide:

i.e. for Craig B to provide the sources he, Craig B, was alluding to.​

Note Craig B was replying to vridar asking/saying

If James had been the brother of Jesus then how can he have taken over the movement when all the indications in the gospels are that he was not a followe of Jesus?

Was it because he claimed that his deceased brother belatedly appeared to him after he was dead -- after he had heard the stories of his followers having those hallucinations?

It doesn't sound very plausible that Jesus' followers would accept such a James as their leader.

 

[Brainache]

I don't follow how that answers my question. Why did the gospels (which you suggest were written to support Paul's Christianity) say Peter and John were followers of Jesus but not James.

If James alone was never a follower of Jesus how could he ever have become the leader of the church?

First, James was a follower of Jesus. James was the first leader of the "church" after Jesus. Unfortunately for James, the Jerusalem church was pretty much wiped out by the wars with Rome. They were reduced to a few pockets here and there in the east and were considered "heretical" because their theology didn't match what was being taught in the west in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

Meanwhile the church in Rome in order to consolidate its position as the central Christian church claimed that Peter, not James, was chosen by Jesus to be the leader of the religion. They consistently marginalised James and built up Peter as "the rock upon which the church will be built" (or whatever). Thereby they claim their "Apostolic succession" directly from Jesus. Eastern churches even to this day don't necessarily agree with the catholic view.

It basically boils down to early church politics and the "gentilisation" of the Christian message. This explains things like the passage in Acts where Peter has a vision of a table cloth before visiting a Roman house where he learns that he doesn't have to obey Jewish food purity rules:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+10&version=ESV

...9 The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. 10 And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance 11 and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. 12 In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. 13 And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” 15 And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” 16 This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven...

So Peter happily trots off to meet a "god-fearing" Roman Centurion having just recently learned that pork chops and bacon are cool with god. The thing is that one would think he would already be aware of this, if his best buddy Jesus had ever taught any such thing.

The gospels and Acts consistently try to minimise anything too "Jewish" in the Jesus story, to the point where they actively vilify the Jews and celebrate anti-semitism to a shocking degree.

James was famously "Zealous" for the Jewish laws and so didn't fit in with the developing Christian orthodoxy which was heavily pro-Roman and anti-Jewish. Consequently he was written out of the story or replaced by different characters with similar names.

As a brother of Jesus he also posed a problem for the developing doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary, for which later writers came up with a variety of ret-cons.

I hear your argument. But to discuss the evidence for it would require a thread of its own. Eisenman is a brilliant mind but his case for James and the DSS is really built on making a lot of circumstantial connections like the one you are making here. We can just as easily approach the evidence with quite different assumptions and come up with very different reconstructions.

Well, it's been said before, but nothing is 100% certain in the study of Ancient History. It's pretty much all circumstantial and different assumptions will yield different results. I'm of the opinion that some "circumstantial connections" are more likely than others and that Eisenman's make a lot more sense than the mainstream ideas that I've seen.

 

[Mcreal]

Unfortunately for James, the Jerusalem church was pretty much wiped out by the wars with Rome. They were reduced to a few pockets here and there in the east ...

Do we have any indications where these pockets were?

 

[Brainache]

That is gaslighting.​

Craig B had said

It would be appropriate for Craig B to adhere to the ethic that "he who avers must prove" or, in this case, provide: i.e. provide the sources he, Craig B, was alluding to.​

Note Craig B was replying to vridar asking/saying

See the underlined word "relatives" in CraigB's post? That is a link. Specifically this link to his source:
https://katachriston.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/richard-j-bauckham-on-the-relatives-of-jesus/

 

[Brainache]

Do we have any indications where these pockets were?

This is from wiki, so take it as you will:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebionites

...After the end of the First Jewish-Roman War, the importance of the Jerusalem church began to fade. Jewish Christianity became dispersed throughout the Jewish diaspora in the Levant, where it was slowly eclipsed by gentile Christianity, which then spread throughout the Roman Empire without competition from "judaizing" Christian groups.[30] Once the Jerusalem church was eliminated during the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135, the Ebionites gradually lost influence and followers. According to Hyam Maccoby (1987) their decline was due to marginalization and "persecution" by both Jews and Christians.[4] Following the defeat of the rebellion and the expulsion of all Jews from Judea, Jerusalem became the Gentile city of Aelia Capitolina. Many of the Jewish Christians residing at Pella renounced their Jewish practices at this time and joined to the mainstream Christian church. Those who remained at Pella and continued in obedience to the Law were deemed heretics.[31] In 375, Epiphanius records the settlement of Ebionites on Cyprus, but by the mid-5th century, Theodoret of Cyrrhus reported that they were no longer present in the region.[28]
.
Some scholars argue that the Ebionites survived much longer and identify them with a sect encountered by the historian Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad around the year 1000.[32]
There is another possible reference to Ebionite communities, existing some time around the 11th century, in northwestern Arabia, in Sefer Ha'masaot, the "Book of the Travels" of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, a rabbi from Spain. These communities were located in two cities: Tayma and "Tilmas",[33] possibly Sa`dah in Yemen.
The 12th-century Muslim historian Muhammad al-Shahrastani mentions Jews living in nearby Medina and Hejaz who accepted Jesus as a prophetic figure and followed traditional Judaism, rejecting mainstream Christian views.[34] Some scholars argue that they contributed to the development of the Islamic view of Jesus due to exchanges of Ebionite remnants with the first Muslims...[13][35]

It has a lot of footnotes you can follow up on if you want...

 

[Craig B]

That is gaslighting.​

Craig B had said

It would be appropriate for Craig B to adhere to the ethic that "he who avers must prove" or, in this case, provide: i.e. provide the sources he, Craig B, was alluding to.​

I think Mcreal's use of the expression "gaslighting" is objectionable. Google definition

Gaslighting or gas-lighting is a form of psychological abuse in which a victim is manipulated into doubting their own memory, perception, and sanity. ... The term owes its origin to the 1938 play Gas Light and has been used in clinical and research literature.​

I agree that positive statements should be sustained, and when I made one I provided a link to the source of my information, as vridar notes. Vridar, too, made some interesting statements, which are what I was referring to. My bold, in the posts cited below. I have now added specific questions about them, for which I would be grateful to have answers, if that is practicable.

In my initial questions I alluded to several factors that become problematic in the extreme if the dynastic hypothesis is to be accepted.

What are these?

ETA: Your link to Bauckham adds no weight to the dynastic hypothesis. Bauckham has as good as admitted he wrote his Eyewitnesses as a work of apologetics.

Where and in what terms did he admit this?

 

[Mcreal]

I agree that positive statements should be sustained,

You said

One or two sources suggest it [the supposed post-Jesus, early-Christian movement] was dynastic: that Jesus was indeed a traditional messiah to his followers. A King sent to redeem Israel. That was the view of the late Hyam Maccoby. I'm sympathetic to it.

Please provide those sources.

You also said

And when Jesus died, his brother simply succeeded him. There are sources suggesting that the earliest Christian leaders were blood relatives of Jesus.

You provided a link to an article about "blood relatives of Jesus".

It would be appropriate for you to provide a source about those [supposed] "blood relatives of Jesus" being "the earliest Christian leaders".

 

[Mcreal]

And when Jesus died, his brother simply succeeded him. There are sources suggesting that the earliest Christian leaders were blood relatives of Jesus.

See the underlined word "relatives" in CraigB's post? That is a link. Specifically this link to his source:
https://katachriston.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/richard-j-bauckham-on-the-relatives-of-jesus/

Note what that article says (my italization emphasis):

Various relatives of Jesus are the subject both of historical traditions and of legendary imagination in early Christian literature. Historical traditions attest the important role they played in the leadership of the early Christian movement. Legendary developments focus especially on Jesus’ mother.

1. The Known Relatives of Jesus
2. The Brothers and Sisters of Jesus
3. The Relatives as Early Christian Leaders
4. Mary and Joseph

 

[Mcreal]

First, James was a follower of Jesus. James was the first leader of the "church" after Jesus. Unfortunately for James, the Jerusalem church was pretty much wiped out by the wars with Rome. They were reduced to a few pockets here and there in the east and were considered "heretical" because their theology didn't match what was being taught in the west in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

Meanwhile the church in Rome -in order to consolidate its position as the central Christian church- claimed that Peter, not James, was chosen by Jesus to be the leader of the religion. They consistently marginalised James and built up Peter as "the rock upon which the church will be built" (or whatever).

This seems to contradict Craig B's claims that

a. sources suggest [the post-Jesus, early-Christian movement] was dynastic, and

b. when Jesus died, his brother simply succeeded him. There are sources suggesting that the earliest Christian leaders were blood relatives of Jesus.

(or, vice versa, Craig B's assertions contradict Brainache)

 

[Craig B]

You said

Please provide those sources.

You also said

You provided a link to an article about "blood relatives of Jesus".

It would be appropriate for you to provide a source about those [supposed] "blood relatives of Jesus" being "the earliest Christian leaders".

I'm sorry. I can't take your #112 seriously.

 

[Brainache]

This seems to contradict Craig B's claims that

a. sources suggest [the post-Jesus, early-Christian movement] was dynastic, and

b. when Jesus died, his brother simply succeeded him. There are sources suggesting that the earliest Christian leaders were blood relatives of Jesus.

(or, vice versa, Craig B's assertions contradict Brainache)

I'm not following you.

I provide sources that claim that Jesus' brother James was the first leader after Jesus of the Jerusalem church, but somehow this contradicts the idea that blood relatives of Jesus were leaders of the early church?

Even though Craig and I don't always agree, I see no contradiction here. Can you explain what I'm missing?
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf08.vi.iii.vi.xxxv.html

“Wherefore observe the greatest caution, that you believe no teacher, unless he bring from Jerusalem the testimonial of James the Lord’s brother, or of whosoever may come after him.746 For no one, unless he has gone up thither, and there has been approved as a fit and faithful teacher for preaching the word of Christ,—unless, I say, he brings a testimonial thence, is by any means to be received. But let neither prophet nor apostle be looked for by you at this time, besides us. For there is one true Prophet, whose words we twelve apostles preach; for He is the accepted year of God, having us apostles as His twelve months...

 

[Mcreal]

I'm not following you.

I provide sources that claim that Jesus' brother James was the first leader after Jesus of the Jerusalem church, but somehow this contradicts the idea that blood relatives of Jesus were leaders of the early church?

"Meanwhile the church in Rome -in order to consolidate its position as the central Christian church- claimed that Peter, not James, was chosen by Jesus to be the leader of the religion. They consistently marginalised James and built up Peter as "the rock upon which the church will be built" (or whatever)."

 

[vridar]

Sorry, but when you wrote I took that to mean that you were unable to check because your books were packed. I did not realise you meant that you were refusing because you thought my asking was out of order. If you meant that, you should have said so.

The only work it seems to me that you will be obliged to do will be the unpacking, and I hope it goes well.

Dear dear buddy Craig old son,

You made some assertions and I would love to check up the sources I recall that have some bearing on your assertions. Till I do that (and that time will be some weeks away) why don't you help me out and tell me the sources that inspired you to make your assertion.

Your assistance in presenting some substantive source or justification for your assertion would be appreciated -- it might even help jog my memory and I might even find something online as a substitute for unpacking my own books.

 

[vridar]

First, James was a follower of Jesus.

I'm trying to understand how your view of Christian origins would explain why the gospels said James was NOT a follower of Jesus.

 

[Craig B]

"Meanwhile the church in Rome -in order to consolidate its position as the central Christian church- claimed that Peter, not James, was chosen by Jesus to be the leader of the religion. They consistently marginalised James and built up Peter as "the rock upon which the church will be built" (or whatever)."

What has that to do with the claim that the earliest church was based on dynastic ideas, as I tentatively suggested? Obviously when the city of Rome became the centre of the Church, Jesus' family had ceased to count for anything long before that, whether Jesus' community was dynastic or not.

The Church in Rome claimed universal primacy for its own (real or imagined) founder, it goes without saying.