And all of the early church fathers, and Josephus...
You think Josephus and “church fathers” personally knew James and knew his family members one of whom was Jesus? Where did any of them ever write to say that?
Or do you really mean that later writers such as Josephus, who’s writing is only known as copies written by Christians 1000 years later, repeated the stories that had once been told by 1st and 2nd century Christians, who as far as we know got the idea from that one line in one letter attributed to Paul around c.55AD (although only actually known as yet another Christian copy actually dating from about 200AD)?
As far as we can tell, the original (earliest) suggestion that someone called “James” was a “lords brother”, appears in that letter of Paul. But there is no evidence that any later writer such as Josephus actually had any other sources of information about who that “James” really was … all those routes lead back to just three words in a 200AD copy of a letter attributed to “Paul”.
That Gospel appears to have been written centuries later with the express purpose of denying that James was Jesus' brother. But the cat was already out of the bag by then.
Written “years later” than what? What date was that gospel of James written? We don’t actually know when any of these gospels, letters or any of it (eg Josephus) was actually written or what any original writing from those authors may have said.
What you are calling the “cat coming out of the bag” is just three words “the lords brother” at the end of an otherwise completed sentence in just one letter attributed to Paul, written in fact by later Christian believers circa 200AD or even later … we don’t have any original writing of Paul to see if the original ever contained those three words. And that’s apart from the fact that he may only have been referring to a brother in faith anyway, and that was something he often did.
Yes the bible is a confusing mish-mash of rewrites, overwrites and spin, which is why we need to rely on extra-biblical sources. Sources that aren't preoccupied by the Blessed Virgin schtick. When you do that, most of the confusion disappears.
Well it’s even worse to rely on non-biblical writing from authors like Josephus and Tacitus, where their writing is only known to us a copying produced by Christians 1000 years later, and where any mention of Jesus (or James etc) can only have been hearsay in any case (ie just repeating what Christians of the time were saying about their religious beliefs).
None of that is the original source of those claims. The earliest known source of any claim about James is the letter of Paul, which is ambiguous on the point anyway. Anyone writing after that, can only be said to be repeating Paul’s remark as hearsay, unless the later writer is presenting his version as credible first hand original witness…and none of the later writers are doing anything remotely like that.
I didn't say it was surprising. But if they knew Paul's Gospel, they knew it was about a god-man called Jesus. If Jesus never existed, James, Cephas and John (apostles before Paul), would no doubt be aware of that fact. Don't you think?
No! lol
. No, they certainly would not be “aware that Jesus never actually existed” … like Paul, they merely
believed that a messiah who they called Yehoshua had once existed. But like Paul, they did not know this messiah, they thought he had died at some unknown time in the past.
I think you are mixing up, and confusing, what was later written in the gospels claiming various named people as personal witness disciples of Jesus, with Paul’s letters which afaik do not describe any personal named disciples of Jesus as in any way credible living witnesses who told Paul anything at all about what they personally did with Jesus.
Eg, James would only know if Jesus was real if he was indeed his family brother. But we have no evidence that any such thing was true at all. And James apparently never said any such thing, and never said anything about it to Paul either! So it’s a huge error if anyone then says “oh well, James must have known Jesus, hence Jesus must be real” (incidentally, Bart Ehrman actually does say that. In fact, astonishingly, that is his main proof for saying Jesus definitely existed) that would be utter nonsense because we certainly do not have any evidence whatsoever that anyone called James really was a family brother of anyone called “Jesus”.
And the same applies to the gospels where they talk of named disciples being with Jesus when Jesus performs his constant miracles. That is - these are claims made by anonymous gospel authors writing long after the claimed events, but where there is no evidence at all that any of those named disciples ever knew any messiah called Jesus at all.
And to make matters even worse, if you read the short book by Randel Helms, you can see straight away where those gospel stories of Jesus were taken from what the gospel writers believed was God's truth written centuries earlier in their OT.
You missed the point that Paul's Gospel is about Jesus. It's irrelevant whether or not James was his brother, as a disciple of Jesus he should be aware of whether or not Jesus was a man. Paul's Gospel includes things like; "He was born of a woman under the law", "died and was buried" etc, not things you would say about a spiritual being. No one takes Paul to task for humanising an abstract concept of "salvation", they took him to task for preaching against the Law.
I don’t know what you are trying to say there. If you are saying James must have known Jesus because he was a personal disciple of Jesus, then we have to ask what is the evidence to show that anyone called James was ever a disciple of any messiah called Jesus? I don’t know of any credible evidence for that anywhere in all of written history, do you?
As far as Paul’s words saying “He was born of a woman under the law, died and was buried" etc”, that is something which Paul himself says he believes from the theology of the OT … he specifically says that he never got any such information about Jesus from any man … he specifically says he knew it from what he believed was the correct interpretation of the OT.
But if you watched that clip of bible historian John Huddleston in conversation with Richard Dawkins, then you will notice that Huddleston says that almost all such revered figures at that time, eg messiah figures, gods, great leaders etc., were said to be born of a woman but with a god as their father! That was the standard claim for anyone who was regarded as a great historical leader of the people … you could presumably check to see if Huddleston is right about that.
Paul is not talking about any real earthly events that he personally knew of, or at least he gives zero evidence to support any such idea, he is talking about what he believes as OT theology, and that is what he is preaching. And he says that directly and specifically throughout his letters.
He doesn't tell us what he had for breakfast every day, either. Can we assume from that that he never ate breakfast? ..
Well it has to be true that Paul would need to eat to survive as a human being, so I would not question it if he said he ate breakfast every day. However, the existence of a prophesised messiah who rises from the dead in front of 500 people and floats off to join his father in a heavenly sky from where they “speak” to Paul and the gospel writers etc., is (unlike eating to survive) not something that has to be true, is it!
On the contrary, it’s something that, unlike your breakfast, cannot possibly be true … although it’s very useful here to keep clearly in mind that in the 1st century everyone did think that such miracles really did happen every day, they did not question such claims at all, they were quite certain that messiahs, gods, devils, demons, angels, spirits and miracles were all around them every day … so these stories were something the people were only too ready to believe and repeat (even though none of them actually saw any such things themselves) … and the only reason we are not taking those details literally today, is because we now accept that modern science has long since shown that miracles stories like that cannot be true.
He says that James and Cephas and John were following Jesus before he was. He says that Pilate killed Jesus. He calls James "The Lord's Brother". He knew when Pilate was governor, he must have had some idea how old these people were. ..
Well, just be very careful about that. Because when you say that Paul says those things, what you really mean is Christian copies of letters written from about 200AD onwards say that Paul once wrote/said those things. We don’t actually know if Paul wrote any of those things, because by that date we are getting it only from Christian copies where by then it’s agreed by everyone that the religious copyists were altering things to add details that they had later come to believe about a legendary messiah that none of them had ever known.
However, that general caveat aside - you are still repeating that “James” was actually the real brother of Jesus, even though we have just discussed how contentious and uncertain that is. So really I think that argument is a non-starter for all the reasons given here so many times before. It is certainly far from being reliable evidence that anyone called “Paul” ever knew anyone who was actually ever a family brother of Jesus.
As far as James, Cephas and John following Jesus, what does that actually mean? Does it mean, as you are suggesting, that Paul knew these individuals were personal companions of a living Jesus? I don’t think that’s a plausible conclusion at all. For a start Paul gives no credible evidence of any of those “followers” telling Paul anything at all about their escapades with a living Jesus - there is simply no reliable or credible evidence that Paul (or anyone else) knew anything believable from any “followers“ of Jesus. And that’s apart from the obvious fact that terms like “followers”, “apostles”, “disciples”, “brothers”, “brethren” etc. were far more often being used simply to mean followers of the faith, not people who tagged along behind Jesus whilst he was walking about!
And then we come to claims about Pilate. Hmm. Well where does that claim actually come from? In fact afaik it comes from 1-Timothy, which is one of the universally agreed “fake” letters not actually written by Paul at all. And that’s apart from the aforementioned fact that we are talking only about Christian copies written 150 years and more after Paul had died (nearly 200 years or more after Jesus was supposed to have died), where the copyists were by that time known to be making all sorts of alterations to the biblical writing wherever they thought something needed to added according to their evolving religious beliefs.
Do you think he means they were following a teacher called "Jesus" without actually meeting a teacher called "Jesus"? I don't..
See above re words like “following”, and what such terms might have meant, or who actually wrote such things at what date.
Well, there are the epistles of James and Jude. There is evidence, just not direct evidence.
Well it’s not evidence of Jesus. It may be evidence of all sorts of other things, such as evidence that religious fanatics wrote things like this 2000 years ago. But that is not evidence that what they wrote about an impossible supernatural messiah was ever actually true.
Can you think of, or provide, anything which is actually reliable credible evidence of a real living Jesus? Anything at all? Because, in point of fact, I can’t actually think of anything.
Now you might say, as most apologists in these threads have said at various times, that the request for actual firm evidence is unreasonable and that we don’t ever have such clear evidence for any figures in ancient history, but afaik that is 100% untrue nonsense. Julius Caesar is the most common example where apologists try to say that the evidence of his existence is no better than that for Jesus, but at risk of letting myself in for a thankless task, and possibly an embarrassing apology, I’m willing to bet I can find masses of credible evidence for Julius Caesar. But for Jesus? … No,…
apparently no real evidence at all.
