Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[IanS]

OK, well lets try the question like this - on what basis does Paul say that he believes Jesus to have been a real living person? Does Paul mention any factual evidence which led him to that belief?

OK, let's try the answer the way I've already answered it:

Paul …. provides little detailed information about the basis for his beliefs.

Not true at all. Paul tells us very clearly and repeatedly where his knowledge of Jesus comes from. He says it comes as revelation from his visions and from his belief in OT scripture.

That is not earthly information of course. That is information which Paul derives entirely from his religious faith. His faith is what reveals Jesus to him.

OK, let's try the answer the way I've already answered it:

Quote eight bits :

Paul professes to believe something about Jesus' earthly life, ….

Paul tells us exactly why he holds any beliefs about Jesus (heavenly, earthly or otherwise). He believes it, as he repeatedly tells us, because of his religious faith (visions and scripture).

Paul gives no other reasons for his beliefs about Jesus. He does not tell us abut any other source of his belief. In fact he specifically says there was no such other source.

None of that is evidence supporting any earthly Jesus. That is only evidence of Paul’s religious faith in visions and scripture.

 

[eight bits]

pakeha

Yes, Paul does have a fine ear for the ching-a-ling of the dough-re-mi.


Tim

Peachy. We'll probably talk again.


Ian

Not true at all. Paul tells us very clearly and repeatedly where his knowledge of Jesus comes from.

Paul tells of extensive personal contact with several natural sources of such information. Paul reports hostile relations with the Way before he converted, civil personal meetings with Cephas-Peter, James and John, and what appears to be a continiung years-lomg conflict with a steady stream of Jesus preachers sniffing around Paul's market base. Paul does not say that he received any biographical information by supernatural or scriptural means about Jesus' natural life.

As for the rest of it, we've been through it. You have your reading of Paul, and you're welcome to it, but it bears little resemblance to what's in the text. Also. you place no evidentiary weight on Paul's letters, as you understand them. Noted, and thank you for sharing your view. Other views are possible.

 

[IanS]

pakeha

Yes, Paul does have a fine ear for the ching-a-ling of the dough-re-mi.


Tim

Peachy. We'll probably talk again.


Ian


Paul tells of extensive personal contact with several natural sources of such information. Paul reports hostile relations with the Way before he converted, civil personal meetings with Cephas-Peter, James and John, and what appears to be a continiung years-lomg conflict with a steady stream of Jesus preachers sniffing around Paul's market base. Paul does not say that he received any biographical information by supernatural or scriptural means about Jesus' natural life.

As for the rest of it, we've been through it. ...

....

None of which is any evidence for an earthly Jesus, is it!

Paul could have met a million people who believed in Jesus, but it would not be evidence unless those other people had told Paul things that really were evidence of Jesus .... but according to Paul, they did not!

The fact that all sorts of people once believed in Jesus (before or after Paul), is not evidence of Jesus!

Unless of course you have testimony from those other people (pre Paul) showing that they actually did have evidence of Jesus? Is that what you are waiting to tell us?

If not .... then still zero actual evidence of Jesus ... only evidence of religious beliefs in an age of superstitious ignorance.

 

[TimCallahan]

I would have to say that Paul's reference to James as, "the Lord's brother" (Gal. 1:19), is a clear indication that Jesus was a real person. However, since nothing in the gospels is really historical, and since Paul's Christ Jesus seems to be based far more on his direct revelation (a.k.a. hallucination) than upon anything he learned of any historical Jesus, even a real, historical Jesus remains more a mythic construct than a real person.

 

[IanS]

I would have to say that Paul's reference to James as, "the Lord's brother" (Gal. 1:19), is a clear indication that Jesus was a real person. However, since nothing in the gospels is really historical, and since Paul's Christ Jesus seems to be based far more on his direct revelation (a.k.a. hallucination) than upon anything he learned of any historical Jesus, even a real, historical Jesus remains more a mythic construct than a real person.

That’s certainly the obvious example to raise. And I did wonder why Eight_Bits had not raised it in any direct way before (perhaps he will tell us). And as I noted above (and in the parent threads), Bart Ehrman and other bible scholars do of course give that as something they believe to be direct and quite certain evidence of Jesus.

However, that particular sentence has of course been well known for 2000 years. And sceptical authors have been writing to say they doubt that as evidence for at least the last century or so. So obviously they don’t think that sentence can be taken at face value as evidence of Jesus.

In the parent threads to this one we have discussed in some detail the sort of reasons given by those sceptical authors. Those reasons inc such things as -


1. According to Alvar Ellegard - that seems be the one and only such reference in any of Paul’s letters.

2. That reference is very brief, consisting of only 3 to 5 words, ie saying “ … other apostles saw I none, save James, the lords brother”.

3. Ellegard says (I assume he is correct) that Paul more often uses the words brother, brothers and brethren to mean brother in belief, not family members.

4. Those 3 words or 5 words, ie “save James … the lords brother”, come at the end of an otherwise competed sentence. They are presented in the form of an afterthought as if added to the end of an already completed sentence, viz. “other apostles saw I none“. ……oh, except for James ……oh, and I should add that he was the “lords brother”.

5. It would obviously have been extremely easy for any later Christian copyist to add either the 3 words or all 5 words to the end of a sentence like that.

6. The reasons why Christian copyists did things like that are well known. They were not necessarily deliberately lying, deliberately trying to invent things, or trying to mislead people. They simply added or changed a few words here and there, wherever they later came to believe that certain information should be added, deleted, or otherwise “corrected”. And they seem to have done that quite regularly in both the OT and NT.

7. There are apparently numerous examples where scholars now agree that biblical texts have been altered in that way. In the YouTube film, John Huddleston says about the OT (he was being asked about the OT at that point) that when the OT was being written, it was really written as theology rather than as the history it appears to be. He says, it was very common for later copyists simply to delete older passages which were no longer in current belief, eg because the prophecies had not been realised, and to just add a new or altered prophecy or story in its place. That is - the OT was a theological work in progress and subject to constant change.

8. There are in the biblical writing several different people named James. So it is not necessarily clear that Paul is talking about the same “James” that later writers and copyists believed to be the actual brother of Jesus.

9. Paul does not tell us how or why he thought this particular “James” was the “Lords brother”. If this “James” or anyone else had told Paul that he was actually the brother of Jesus, then we know nothing of any such conversation from Paul’s letter. In fact there is nothing at all in Paul’s letter to show that he had any conversation with James or the others on that occasion (or on any other occasion) about Jesus. Nothing is said there at all about Jesus by any of them.

10. Again as Ellegard points out - that is very curious (ie their apparent silence about Jesus), because only three years before that meeting Paul’s entire life was supposedly changed by his sudden conversion to belief in Jesus, and yet when he writes of meeting the actual brother of Jesus, he (Paul) never mentions asking the brother a single thing about Jesus. Paul has just met the actual brother of the Son of Yahweh himself, he is discussion with that brother specifically about their religious beliefs, and yet he does not mention ever asking about, or being told, a single thing about Jesus??

11. This same “James” apparently wrote his own surviving gospel. But nowhere in that gospel does this James ever claim to have been the actual brother of Jesus.

12. We do not of course have anything actually written by Paul c.50AD. The letters we have come from later Christian copyists. The earliest copy of which appears to be the so-called Papyrus P-46, which is thought by most biblical scholars to date from around 200AD, though one scholar apparently thinks it might be much earlier than 200AD, and number think it is likely to be a fair bit later that 200AD. So, strictly speaking we do not know if Paul every wrote any part of that passage.

13. Even today many Christians and Muslims still refer to fellow believers as “brother” or “sister”. They may talk in general of going to meet their brothers (plural) or meeting a particular brother or sister (singular). They don’t mean that any of these people are actually family members.

 

[eight bits]

Ian

And I did wonder why Eight_Bits had not raised it in any direct way before (perhaps he will tell us).

As I wrote in post 196 of this thread, in answer to Stone, who had presented the two occasions where Paul referred to living "brother(s) of the Lord,"

I think the "brother(s) of the Lord" are believed by Paul to have been associates of Jesus during Jesus' earthly life. It is specificity of the kinship relationship that I think is hard to establish. (It also doesn't help that I think Paul's James is actually the son of Zebedee and Salome.)

Was there some additional information you were seeking?

 

[pgwenthold]

Re: the "brother of the Lord" comment.

If it is so obvious that "brother of the Lord" refers to an actual blood relative, why can the Catholic Church continue to deny that Jesus had any brothers or sisters, which they must do in order to maintain the "blessed Mary, ever virgin" mantra (unless all of his brothers are sons of God as well?).

If that phrase, and the gospel references to Jesus's brothers were irrefutable, then they couldn't be going with Mary's perpetual virginity. Consequently, we have an example of a very large number of believing christians who don't consider those phrases to be literal. Yeah, you can dismiss a lot of it as biblically ignorant catholics, most of whom are completely unaware that these statements are even in the bible, but you can't say it about the priests or the catholic scholars, right?

OK, these are not historians in any sense, I admit, but these are people who know the bible and aren't convinced that references to Jesus's brothers are referring to blood relationship.

 

[pgwenthold]

I would have to say that Paul's reference to James as, "the Lord's brother" (Gal. 1:19), is a clear indication that Jesus was a real person. However, since nothing in the gospels is really historical, and since Paul's Christ Jesus seems to be based far more on his direct revelation (a.k.a. hallucination) than upon anything he learned of any historical Jesus, even a real, historical Jesus remains more a mythic construct than a real person.

Although I don't agree that the statement is a "clear indication" that Jesus was a real person, I certainly agree with you that even if there was a real, historical Jesus, he remains more a mythic construct than a real person.

 

[TimCallahan]

That’s certainly the obvious example to raise. And I did wonder why Eight_Bits had not raised it in any direct way before (perhaps he will tell us). And as I noted above (and in the parent threads), Bart Ehrman and other bible scholars do of course give that as something they believe to be direct and quite certain evidence of Jesus.

However, that particular sentence has of course been well known for 2000 years. And sceptical authors have been writing to say they doubt that as evidence for at least the last century or so. So obviously they don’t think that sentence can be taken at face value as evidence of Jesus.

In the parent threads to this one we have discussed in some detail the sort of reasons given by those sceptical authors. Those reasons inc such things as -


1. According to Alvar Ellegard - that seems be the one and only such reference in any of Paul’s letters.

2. That reference is very brief, consisting of only 3 to 5 words, ie saying “ … other apostles saw I none, save James, the lords brother”.

3. Ellegard says (I assume he is correct) that Paul more often uses the words brother, brothers and brethren to mean brother in belief, not family members. 4. Those 3 words or 5 words, ie “save James … the lords brother”, come at the end of an otherwise competed sentence. They are presented in the form of an afterthought as if added to the end of an already completed sentence, viz. “other apostles saw I none“. ……oh, except for James ……oh, and I should add that he was the “lords brother”. 5. It would obviously have been extremely easy for any later Christian copyist to add either the 3 words or all 5 words to the end of a sentence like that.
6. The reasons why Christian copyists did things like that are well known. They were not necessarily deliberately lying, deliberately trying to invent things, or trying to mislead people. They simply added or changed a few words here and there, wherever they later came to believe that certain information should be added, deleted, or otherwise “corrected”. And they seem to have done that quite regularly in both the OT and NT.

7. There are apparently numerous examples where scholars now agree that biblical texts have been altered in that way. In the YouTube film, John Huddleston says about the OT (he was being asked about the OT at that point) that when the OT was being written, it was really written as theology rather than as the history it appears to be. He says, it was very common for later copyists simply to delete older passages which were no longer in current belief, eg because the prophecies had not been realised, and to just add a new or altered prophecy or story in its place. That is - the OT was a theological work in progress and subject to constant change.

8. There are in the biblical writing several different people named James. So it is not necessarily clear that Paul is talking about the same “James” that later writers and copyists believed to be the actual brother of Jesus.

9. Paul does not tell us how or why he thought this particular “James” was the “Lords brother”. If this “James” or anyone else had told Paul that he was actually the brother of Jesus, then we know nothing of any such conversation from Paul’s letter. In fact there is nothing at all in Paul’s letter to show that he had any conversation with James or the others on that occasion (or on any other occasion) about Jesus. Nothing is said there at all about Jesus by any of them.

10. Again as Ellegard points out - that is very curious (ie their apparent silence about Jesus), because only three years before that meeting Paul’s entire life was supposedly changed by his sudden conversion to belief in Jesus, and yet when he writes of meeting the actual brother of Jesus, he (Paul) never mentions asking the brother a single thing about Jesus. Paul has just met the actual brother of the Son of Yahweh himself, he is discussion with that brother specifically about their religious beliefs, and yet he does not mention ever asking about, or being told, a single thing about Jesus??

11. This same “James” apparently wrote his own surviving gospel. But nowhere in that gospel does this James ever claim to have been the actual brother of Jesus.

12. We do not of course have anything actually written by Paul c.50AD. The letters we have come from later Christian copyists. The earliest copy of which appears to be the so-called Papyrus P-46, which is thought by most biblical scholars to date from around 200AD, though one scholar apparently thinks it might be much earlier than 200AD, and number think it is likely to be a fair bit later that 200AD. So, strictly speaking we do not know if Paul every wrote any part of that passage.

13. Even today many Christians and Muslims still refer to fellow believers as “brother” or “sister”. They may talk in general of going to meet their brothers (plural) or meeting a particular brother or sister (singular). They don’t mean that any of these people are actually family members.

Concerning the hilited areas: If James is only Jesus' brother as a brother in faith, why isn't Peter likewise mentioned as the "the Lord's brother"? James seems to be a very important person in the jerusalem church (Gal 2:11, 12):

But when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.

The words "circumcision party" should probably be translated as, "those of the circumcision." However, what's important in this passage is that James is in charge, and that Peter (Cephas) is afraid to cross him.

Ironically, a number of Christian apologists, particularly Roman Catholics, also argue that James wasn't the literal brother of Jesus, but, of course, for very different reasons from the one for which you argue. The perpetual virginity of Mary, while a Catholic doctrine, is often unofficially championed by certain Protestants, who are uncomfortable with the idea of Mary, as the sacred vessel bearing Jesus, doing the nasty with Joseph and popping out a bunch of siblings to the divine child. To adherents of the perpetual virginity doctrine, James and the other siblings are from a previous marriage, Joseph being an older man and a widower (another extra-biblical flourish). So, since Joseph never gets it on with Mary, Jesus is the son of Mary and God, while James and the other siblings are the children of Joseph and his previous (late) wife.

 

[IanS]

Ian



As I wrote in post 196 of this thread, in answer to Stone, who had presented the two occasions where Paul referred to living "brother(s) of the Lord,"


Quote:
I think the "brother(s) of the Lord" are believed by Paul to have been associates of Jesus during Jesus' earthly life. It is specificity of the kinship relationship that I think is hard to establish. (It also doesn't help that I think Paul's James is actually the son of Zebedee and Salome.) Was there some additional information you were seeking?

You think “Paul's James is actually the son of Zebedee and Salome”?

Do you think that Jesus Christ was also the son of Zebedee and Salome, so that James would still have been the brother of Christ?

Or do you think that Jesus was not the son of Zebedee and Salome, and thus not the family brother of Paul’s “James”?

It would not surprise me if, to paraphrase you, “Paul believed Jesus had various real people as associates during his life”, but the question is why would Paul believe that?

Afaik, nowhere in Paul’s letters does he give any reliable evidence of how he might have known people who had met Jesus. If he ever did know any such thing, then he would have to know it from someone who had told him about Jesus. But in his letters Paul says he got no information about Jesus from any man. Instead he got it all as direct revelation from the heavenly Christ and from OT scripture. So if Paul “knew” that Jesus had earthly associates, then according to Paul himself it seems he “knew” it as a result of his religious faith, not as a result of ever meeting anyone who really was an associate of Jesus (except perhaps as an associate in spirit, ie a “brother” of the lord in faith).

There is a far simpler explanation of course. Namely that when Paul said “brother” he just meant, as theists do to this day, a brother in belief.

If I had to guess, then I think a constant stumbling block in trying to untangle what people like Paul really meant by their words, is that they quite literally did not distinguish clearly between fact and fiction where their faith was concerned. Thus, if Paul thought he had received a revelation from the heavenly spirits, then to Paul that was as real as any earthly reality. In fact, it was even more real, because it was ordained as absolute certainty by God himself.

Thus, if Paul thinks the spirits have told him of Jesus Christ the Messiah on earth amongst his faithful followers, then to Paul that makes it a certain fact that Jesus was once upon the earth with his faithful disciples … he believes it not because of any earthly information from any mere man, but instead as an absolute certainty revealed to him through the heavenly spirits and through his certainty of knowledge revealed in the old testament.

 

[IanS]

Concerning the hilited areas: If James is only Jesus' brother as a brother in faith, why isn't Peter likewise mentioned as the "the Lord's brother"? James seems to be a very important person in the jerusalem church (Gal 2:11, 12):

But when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.

The words "circumcision party" should probably be translated as, "those of the circumcision." However, what's important in this passage is that James is in charge, and that Peter (Cephas) is afraid to cross him.

.

Oh, I think the answer is very simple. Namely, just that sometimes Paul (or anyone) might refer to a person just by their name, and at other times they would call them a "brother" or "sister". That's exactly what theists do today for example (they do it all the time).

For example, just look at your own second sentence quoting Paul's words about Cephas and James, where I have highlighted the name James. In that sentence Paul decides not to call James a "brother"; on that occasion he just uses the mans name ("James").

 

[Brainache]

Oh, I think the answer is very simple. Namely, just that sometimes Paul (or anyone) might refer to a person just by their name, and at other times they would call them a "brother" or "sister". That's exactly what theists do today for example (they do it all the time).

For example, just look at your own second sentence quoting Paul's words about Cephas and James, where I have highlighted the name James. In that sentence Paul decides not to call James a "brother"; on that occasion he just uses the mans name ("James").

Yes, but whoever he is, he is the man in charge. Josephus wrote about him. Early Xtian writers said Josephus blamed the revolt against Rome on the stoning of James. They were outraged by this. Surviving copies of Josephus don't have the offending passage.

The audience of the letter apparently know who James is, and why he is ordering people in foreign cities around. Paul only ever mentions one James - The Lord's Brother.

If some later copyist added "The Lord's Brother" part, it is only because that is how James was known in other early traditions. AKA: "James The Just", "James The Righteous" and "James the Brother of Jesus".

 

[eight bits]

Ian

It would not surprise me if, to paraphrase you, “Paul believed Jesus had various real people as associates during his life”, but the question is why would Paul believe that?

Factors were: what Paul believed about the Way that led him to take the trouble of persecuting them, what he learned from Cephas during a two-week confab (and some contact with our James) early in his career, a further meeting years later with Peter, James and John (James' full brother, perhaps) and friction with a steady stream of fellow Jesus preachers over the years.

I believe in treating similar cases similarly. Like Sylvia Brown, Paul claims to be in contact with a ghost. If Sylvia spent that much time with reputed associates of a dead man, and then came up with a few scraps of information about him, then nobody here would believe that she was in contact with the dead man's ghost based on her reciting those scraps. Nobody here would ask how she could possibly know the dead man's predictable religion, cause of death, and highlights of an incident from just before he died.

I also believe in treating differenct cases according to their differences. Unlike Sylvia, Paul doesn't say he learned any facts about Jesus' life from the ghost, and doesn't offer his knowledge as proof of contact. Unlike Sylvia, such proof as Paul offers is that so many other people saw the ghost before he did. Also unlike Sylvia, Paul tells us about the extensive contacts with the ghost's purported survivors, more than enough contact to account naturally for the little he says.

It appears that some real people living in Jerusalem enjoyed a reputation for having been associates of Jesus before he died (and so, in Paul's apparent view, before Jesus became the Christ). Paul reported encountering people with this reputation Whether he investigated to verify their actual acquaintance with Jesus, he doesn't tell us in anything available to us to read.

Jesus having or not having surviving associates is irrelevant to Paul's religious faith. Before and after his conversion, Paul seems to think that the world would be better without them, which suggests that before and after conversion, Paul had the same opinion about who they were.

Brainache

Yes, but whoever he is, he is the man in charge.

Actually, the governance structure in Jerusalem, if there was one, is entirely unclear from Paul. The trio "Peter, James and John" are jointly the closest associates of natural Jesus in Mark. Paul makes his market sharing deal with all three simultaneously.

The Antioch story is ambiguous. James sends people, and it is those people's presence that coincides with changes in Peter's behavior, according to Paul. It doesn't follow that who sent the people causes Peter's reaction, nor is it clear that Paul would know what did cause the change. The point of the story is that Paul wins an argument with Peter, and secondarily, that Peter (and maybe James, too) hasn't fully lived up to the agreement the Big Four had reached earlier.

It is interesting that Peter is depicted elsewhere in the New Testament as vacillating and easily influenced by the flow of people and events around him. (Um, now, why would Jesus have sought those traits in a disciple?) The Slapdown in Antioch is the earliest occurrence of that character sketch.

 

[IanS]

Yes, but whoever he is, he is the man in charge. Josephus wrote about him. Early Xtian writers said Josephus blamed the revolt against Rome on the stoning of James. They were outraged by this. Surviving copies of Josephus don't have the offending passage.

The audience of the letter apparently know who James is, and why he is ordering people in foreign cities around. Paul only ever mentions one James - The Lord's Brother.

If some later copyist added "The Lord's Brother" part, it is only because that is how James was known in other early traditions. AKA: "James The Just", "James The Righteous" and "James the Brother of Jesus".

Why is it relevant that James was, or was not, in charge of anything? That has no bearing at all on whether this person "James" was the family brother of a messiah named Jesus Christ.

The "fact" that anyone called James may, or may not, have been in charge of anything, does not make him the brother of the son of God in heaven.

 

[TimCallahan]

Oh, I think the answer is very simple. Namely, just that sometimes Paul (or anyone) might refer to a person just by their name, and at other times they would call them a "brother" or "sister". That's exactly what theists do today for example (they do it all the time).

For example, just look at your own second sentence quoting Paul's words about Cephas and James, where I have highlighted the name James. In that sentence Paul decides not to call James a "brother"; on that occasion he just uses the mans name ("James").

I don't recall Paul referring to anyone but James as "the Lord's brother." He certainly never referred to Cephas (Peter) as "the Lord's brother."

 

[eight bits]

Tim

I don't recall Paul referring to anyone but James as "the Lord's brother." He certainly never referred to Cephas (Peter) as "the Lord's brother."

1 Corinthians 9:5

Do we not have the right to take along a Christian ("sister") wife, as do the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?

So, yes, Paul distinguishes within the apostles the brothers of the Lord from the rest of the apostles, and Cephas is distinguished from both groups.

 

[Brainache]

...
Brainache


Actually, the governance structure in Jerusalem, if there was one, is entirely unclear from Paul. The trio "Peter, James and John" are jointly the closest associates of natural Jesus in Mark. Paul makes his market sharing deal with all three simultaneously.

The Antioch story is ambiguous. James sends people, and it is those people's presence that coincides with changes in Peter's behavior, according to Paul. It doesn't follow that who sent the people causes Peter's reaction, nor is it clear that Paul would know what did cause the change. The point of the story is that Paul wins an argument with Peter, and secondarily, that Peter (and maybe James, too) hasn't fully lived up to the agreement the Big Four had reached earlier.

It is interesting that Peter is depicted elsewhere in the New Testament as vacillating and easily influenced by the flow of people and events around him. (Um, now, why would Jesus have sought those traits in a disciple?) The Slapdown in Antioch is the earliest occurrence of that character sketch.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to call the Antioch incident ambiguous. Peter is happily scoffing pork chops with his Greek buddies until "Some from James" come to town and Peter is back to Kosher food.

Paul calls it hypocrisy because followers of The Way famously call no man "Lord", only God, yet here is Peter being cowed by the Authority of James the super-Apostle.

Paul claims Authority directly from God, not men like James.

Why is it relevant that James was, or was not, in charge of anything? That has no bearing at all on whether this person "James" was the family brother of a messiah named Jesus Christ.

The "fact" that anyone called James may, or may not, have been in charge of anything, does not make him the brother of the son of God in heaven.

It's relevant because this James is widely attested in Ancient sources as the brother of Jesus.

Of course that doesn't make him the "brother of the son of God in heaven", just the brother of a 1st century Messianic Jewish preacher called Jesus.

 

[eight bits]

Brainache

As always in these discussions, my interest in reading the text as it reaches us in no way inhibits your reading it any way you like. Nevertheless, I am interested in staying close to the text.

Peter is happily scoffing pork chops with his Greek buddies until "Some from James" come to town and Peter is back to Kosher food.

There's nothing whatsoever in the text that about what Peter ate, before or after the arrival of the newcomers. (Galatians 2: 11-14)

And when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he clearly was wrong. For, until some people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to draw back and separated himself, because he was afraid of the circumcised. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not on the right road in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of all, “If you, though a Jew, are living like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

There's nothing in the text about the people who "came from" James conveying commands to Cephas from James. After their arrival, Cephas is "afraid" of "the circumscised." That could be the Jewish community of Antioch, stirred up by the newcomers, or just the newcomers.

Finally, Paul says, after the change of behavior, that Cephas is, present tense, living "not like a Jew." The only personal behavior change cited is the drawing back and separation from the Gentiles, withholding table fellowship. There's nothing about Peter changing his own diet.

Paul calls it hypocrisy because ...

“If you, though a Jew, are living like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

followers of The Way famously call no man "Lord", only God,

There is no evidence for that practice in Paul, and Cephas does not call James "Lord" in the text. The only extended treatment of Way practices is in Acts, where Jesus is referred to as Lord, for example at 1:6, 21 and 24. Jesus is a man. Even dedicated apologists can't get Jesus up to God without John, which is years after Acts and generations after the Way.

yet here is Peter being cowed by the Authority of James the super-Apostle.

James isn't there, and Paul doesn't say that anybody who is there is acting according to James' instructions, or in his name. Paul never says who is and who isn't one of his "super apostles." It is entirely possible that Cephas was one of them, or that the cheeky title was entirely ironic and referred to nobody we've ever heard of by name from subsequent authors.

Paul claims Authority directly from God, not men like James.

The source of Paul's authority is, briefly, from having an individual "appearance" of the risen Jesus. Both Cephas and James also enjoy that status (1 Corinthians 15: 5 and 7). Paul specifically rejects authority based on personal history (presumably acquanitance with an earthly Jesus, and of course his own personal history is a source of regret to him), shortly before the Antioch passage (Galatians 2: 6 "what they once were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality").

The Antioch Slapdown is a dispute among equals, so fas as Paul is involved. Paul criticizes Cephas personally, not James. Part of Paul's criticism of Cephas is for being swayed by undistinguished "circumcised." As I mentioned in my earlier post, the ease of swaying Peter-Cephas was also remarked upon by later authors. If true, it was a character flaw, but then and now, character flaws do not rule out exalted status or power. Inconstancy does not imply anything about the status or authority of the people by whom the inconstant person is swayed.

 

[IanS]

Ian


Factors were: what Paul believed about the Way that led him to take the trouble of persecuting them, what he learned from Cephas during a two-week confab (and some contact with our James) early in his career, a further meeting years later with Peter, James and John (James' full brother, perhaps) and friction with a steady stream of fellow Jesus preachers over the years.

I believe in treating similar cases similarly. Like Sylvia Brown, Paul claims to be in contact with a ghost. If Sylvia spent that much time with reputed associates of a dead man, and then came up with a few scraps of information about him, then nobody here would believe that she was in contact with the dead man's ghost based on her reciting those scraps. Nobody here would ask how she could possibly know the dead man's predictable religion, cause of death, and highlights of an incident from just before he died.

I also believe in treating differenct cases according to their differences. Unlike Sylvia, Paul doesn't say he learned any facts about Jesus' life from the ghost, and doesn't offer his knowledge as proof of contact. Unlike Sylvia, such proof as Paul offers is that so many other people saw the ghost before he did. Also unlike Sylvia, Paul tells us about the extensive contacts with the ghost's purported survivors, more than enough contact to account naturally for the little he says.

It appears that some real people living in Jerusalem enjoyed a reputation for having been associates of Jesus before he died (and so, in Paul's apparent view, before Jesus became the Christ). Paul reported encountering people with this reputation Whether he investigated to verify their actual acquaintance with Jesus, he doesn't tell us in anything available to us to read.

Jesus having or not having surviving associates is irrelevant to Paul's religious faith. Before and after his conversion, Paul seems to think that the world would be better without them, which suggests that before and after conversion, Paul had the same opinion about who they were.

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Sylvia Brown?? Anything she has ever said or done is 2000 years late I’m afraid.

You say Jesus would have learned things about Jesus from talking to "Cephas during a two-week confab (and some contact with our James) early in his career, a further meeting years later with Peter, James and John (James' full brother, perhaps) and friction with a steady stream of fellow Jesus preachers over the years." ? .... OK, so what does Paul tell us that he learnt from them about the earthly life of Jesus?


What does Paul say that he was told about Jesus by any of those named people?

 

[IanS]

It's relevant because this James is widely attested in Ancient sources as the brother of Jesus.

Of course that doesn't make him the "brother of the son of God in heaven", just the brother of a 1st century Messianic Jewish preacher called Jesus.

Authors like Josephus were not even born at the time of Jesus, so any mention they might have made of Jesus can only be hearsay obtained from what had once been said by earlier generations of Christians themselves (there are no other earlier sources except the biblical writing itself).

Also of course, we do not actually know what, if anything, later authors such as Josephus ever wrote about James or Jesus, because all we have under the name of those authors are copies written by Christians themselves around 1000 years later.

That's not credible or reliable evidence that James was the actual brother of Jesus. That’s only evidence that later Christians were repeating what had been attributed to Paul as early as circa. 55AD.