to his blog, but since I don't know whether he will delete it, the text is pasted below:
Mr. Minton,
I find it reasonable to accept the Christian scholarly majority view which says
Mark 3:21, 6:3-4 and John 7:5 are teaching that Jesus' own family rejected his
claims before Jesus was crucified.
I also find it reasonable to deny that Galatians 1:19 and anything else in the
NT expresses or implies that James the Lord's brother ever converted to the
faith.
I also find it reasonable to say that among the various extra-biblical accounts
about James the Lord's brother, the one we get from Josephus, ie., the one that
attributes no specifically Christian faith to this James, to be the most
historically reliable version.
I also find it reasonable to say that the other similar accounts about this
James as supplied by Hegesippus, Eusebius and Jerome, which sometimes make it
seem James was a Christian, are less historically reliable, so that not even
the extra-biblical information about James which seems to impart Christian
faith to him, is sufficiently historically reliable as to compel an objective person
to accept it...leaving me with no good reason to think this skeptical brother
of Jesus EVER converted to the faith...implying that he found nothing too
compelling in the reports of his contemporary Christian friends about Jesus
rising from the dead.
I also find that because the Christian scholarly majority
translation/interpretation of Mark 3:21, 6:3-4 and John 7:5 give skeptics a
certain bit of ammo, these passages are thus "embarrassing" and thus
pass a criteria of embarrassment which other NT texts, which say Jesus did real
miracles, don't pass...so that it is reasonable to say these particular
passages have greater claim to historical truth than those which say Jesus did
real miracles. That is, the NT stories which say Jesus did miracles, are trumped
by these three passages.
I have considered the various ways Christian apologists might try to
"reconcile" or “harmonize” the biblical truth that James was
skeptical of his brother Jesus, with the other biblical truth that Jesus surely
did rise from the dead (i.e., maybe James was always out of town when Jesus did
a magic show, or maybe James was always drunk, stupid, looking the other way,
etc, etc), and I find all such attempts to be purely speculative, far more
lacking in historical support than my own theory that says James was skeptical
because Jesus' miracles really were fake.
I therefore conclude, reasonably, even if not infallibly, that Jesus was
nothing more than the first-century equivalent of Benny Hinn, i.e., long on
whipping people up into a religious frenzy, but short on actually delivering
the miraculous goods).
It's a very small conjectural leap from "the miracles Jesus did were
fake" to "God likely would not premise his Second Covenant on the
words and works of a deluded deceiver (i.e., the God of the OT likely wouldn't
raise a deluded trickster from the dead for the purpose of ratifying or
promoting the Second Covenant)."
My main contention is that if a person can be reasonable to "accept
Christ" and thus conclude the bible is the word of God, at a time in their
life before they know how to refute the skeptical arguments of bible critics,
then fairness and consistency dicatate that you extend that courtesy to
skeptics, and acknowledge that they likewise can also possibly be reasonable to
conclude that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, at a time in their life before
they know how to refute the arguments set forth by Christian apologists.
Reasonable requires neither confirmed accuracy nor exhaustive
comprehensiveness.
If you would be willing to challenge the thesis that says the skepticism toward
Jesus by his brother James reasonably justifies denying that Jesus rose from
the dead, I'd be willing to dialogue with you about it, either by private
email, or by responding through whatever blog or website you wish.
Sincerely,
Barry Jones
barryjoneswhat@gmail.com
Update: November 27, 2018.
Evan responded and I now reply in point by point fashion. Since I didn't want to be falsely accused of "flaming" merely because I reply in comprehensive fashion, my full reply is here, and I only posted a short summary reply at Evan's blog.
----------beginquote
I find this position you take on James to be strange.
I'll take that as a compliment. Indeed, my argument from James' lifetime skepticism of Jesus is not exactly easy to find addressed in apologetic literature. And as the merits of my argument show, this isn't beause the argument is specious.
You say "I also
find it reasonable to deny that Galatians 1:19 and anything else in the
NT expresses or implies that James the Lord's brother ever converted to
the faith." -- but Galatians 1:9 says "I saw none of the other
apostles-only James, the LORD's brother." The meaning of this verse is
obvious, The Lord's brother James was an apostle.
You say the meaning of Galatians 1:19 is obvious, that James
the Lord’s brother was an apostle.
First, this is not the case, as in 1975 bible scholars were admitting
that a large number of other scholars don’t think Paul is calling James an
apostle here. See L. Paul Trudinger, Ἕτερον
δε των αποστολων ουκ ειδον, ει μη ιακωβον: A Note on Galatians I 19, Novum
Testamentum, Vol. 17, (Jul., 1975), p. 200, fn. 3.
Furthermore, not much has changed since 1975, apparently, as
even Christian scholars who adopt inerrancy (i.e., scholars who have the most
motive of all Christian scholars to interpret ambiguous biblical data in a
pro-Christian way) admit 20 years later that the meaning of Galatians 1:19 in
the Greek cannot be definitively resolved:
1:19 Paul claimed that he saw none of the other
apostles except James, the brother of Jesus. The expression is ambiguous in
Greek, so we cannot be sure whether Paul meant to include James among the other
apostles. Did he mean: “The only other apostle I saw was James,” or “I saw no
other apostle, although I did see James”? Probably he meant something like
this: “During my sojourn with Peter, I saw none of the other apostles, unless
you count James, the Lord’s brother.”
George, T. (2001, c1994). Vol. 30: Galatians
(electronic ed.). Logos Library System;
The New American Commentary (Page 74). Nashville: Broadman &
Holman Publishers.
T. George said this in 1994, about 100 years after J.B.
Lightfoot dogmatized about how clearly this passage said James was an
apostle…and it is furiously unlikely that George would be unaware of the
conservative scholarly attempts to justify the view you take. That should be quite enough to refute your contention that the meaning of that verse is "obvious". But if it isn't obvious, then you run the risk of discovering that Galatians 1:19 doesn't imply James' specifically Christian faith as much as you think, and therefore, that verse really isn't a substantive defeater of my hypothesis that this particular James maintained skepticism toward Jesus even after others began to say Jesus rose from the dead.
Second, Peter’s criteria for apostleship was that the candidate had to have followed Jesus since the time Jesus was baptized by John up until He
ascended (Acts 1:20-21), and while Jesus’ “brothers” are present in this
context (Acts 1:14), it is interesting that neither James nor any other brother
of Jesus is one of the two men the church put forward as possible replacements
for apostle # 12.
This would confirm, at least for inerrantist, that yes, James the Lord's brother indeed remained skeptical of Jesus' claims for the entire duration of Jesus' public ministry.
Thus Peter's conditions for apostleship were criteria that Paul obviously disagrees with, since he
considers himself an apostle (1st Cor. 9:1) despite the fact that he
failed Peter's condition that an apostle be somebody who was a follower of Jesus from the beginning of the earthly public ministry. The point is that since
Paul’s ideas of apostleship are radically different than those held by Peter,
it is not reasonable to pretend that Paul’s assertion that James was an
"apostle", has an obvious meaning.
Third, generically, “apostle” doesn’t mean “faith in
Christ”, but “sent one”. Whether an apostle has faith in Christ is no more ridiculous than asking whether a church pastor has faith in Christ. We might expect the man in that office to have such faith, but in fact there are so many cases where the answer is "no" (i.e., prosperity gospel preachers whose heresy is so bad it makes them appear more as intentional deceivers than as innocently mislead leaders).
Even assuming
James was placed into leadership over the Jerusalem
faction of the church, are you quite sure the only reasonable implication is
that they must have thought James converted to the Christian faith? Not so.
For example, assuming Paul is calling James an apostle in Gal. 1:19, and
assuming the James of Galatians 2 is the same guy, notice that Paul flippantly
dismisses the authority of James that others viewed him as having (2:6). Since this flies directly in face of the fact
that Jesus gave earthly authority to the apostles (Matthew 10:1, Luke 10:16,
John 20:22-23, i.e., Jesus wanted others to recognize that these original apostles carried special authority on earth), it is reasonable, even if contrary to conservative Christian
sentiment, to classify Paul as the kind of guy who would call another Christian
leader an “apostle” while not intending to say anything good about their level
of faith or authority. Hence, even if
Paul was calling James “apostle” in Galatians 1:19, it can be reasonable to say
that this falls far short of implying Paul thought James converted to the
faith.
Fourth, I can also mount a persuasive case that even if James told others he had a Christian faith, he was lying, and likely only said such things for the sake of keeping peace.
I am reasonable therefore to insist that you are wrong for
saying the meaning of Galatians 1:19 is “obvious”.
If you would “refute” my contention that
there is no good historical evidence that James the Lord’s brother converted to
Christian faith, you cannot do so by simply pointing to Galatians 1:19…unless
you provide specific grammatical argument that the scholars who disagree with
you on the meaning of that verse, are unreasonable.
Until that day, I can hardly be considered
unreasonable to view Galatians 1:19 as too ambiguous to draw definitive
conclusions from.
Now, since you
conceded "the Christian scholarly majority view which says Mark 3:21,
6:3-4 and John 7:5 are teaching that Jesus' own family rejected his
claims before Jesus was crucified." on what grounds do you say that we
"no good reason to think this skeptical brother of Jesus EVER converted
to the faith"?
As I said, any NT statements to that effect either don't exist are sufficiently ambiguous as to allow my skeptical interpretation to be equally as reasonable as the conservative Christian view. This, and the fact that Josephus' account on James is more historically reliable than the accounts of Eusebius Hegesippus and Jerome, leaves you without a reasonable historical basis for alleging that this James converted to the faith.
If Galatians 1:9 says James was an apostle and
Mark 3 and John 7 say that he was an unbeliever in his brother during
his brother's lifetime, then it entails that James went from unbeliever
to believer at some point for some reason.
That's good logic, but the entailment cannot be borne out by the available evidence. yes, I contend that Christians who think the NT says James converted to the faith, have made an unjustifiable leap that they cannot provide NT support for. And I say that after having reviewed several apologists contentions otherwise, such as Licona in
Historiographical Approach (2010).
The only way to deny this
conclusion is to say that Mark and John independently fabricated the
embarrassing detail of James' skepticism or say that Paul has a
completely different James in mind in Galatians 1; a proposal I have not
heard from either Christian or non-Christian scholars. Or you could say
that James was lying about his conversion, but his martyrdom at the
hands of the sanhedrin make this option untenable.
What historical evidence says James the Lord's brother was "martyred". Nothing in the NT and the accounts from Eusebius, Hegesippus and Jerome concerning James' execution are not as reliable as Josephus' version, the version that suspiciously doesn't ever express or imply that this James was a Christian. And I say that after having reviewed Licona's attempt to deduce from the "law-breaker" term common to Acts and Josephus that Josephus was saying James was killed for being a Christian. Licona is wrong.
You said that
the historical attestation for James' martyrdom is less reliable in
Hegessipus and Clement. Fine. You still find Josephus a reliable source,
right? Okay, so perhaps if you're right, Jame's martyordom isn't
multply attested.
Well, I wasn't trying to justify skepticism on the basis of singular attestation.
But it is still, even by your reckoning, found in a
source very close to the execution (i.e Josephus) which makes it pass
the criterion of early attestation. Why not just trust what Josephus has
to say?
I do. He says nothing that expresses or implies that James had a Christian faith. The fact that the more scrupulous of the non-Christian Jews opposed this execution and appealed to higher authority is not consistent with the assumption YOU must make (i.e., that as a Christian, James had been telling all the Jews that Jesus was God manifest in the flesh). Apparently, whatever James was preaching to them, it wasn't the same thing Jesus did.
Moreover, what exactly is the issue with saying "maybe
James was always out of town when Jesus did a magic show, or maybe James
was always drunk, stupid, looking the other way, etc, etc"? From my
reading of the gospels, I get the impression that while Jesus was doing a
lot of traveling, his family for the most part stayed at home.
Then read John 2. Jesus' mother is present for his first miracle of changing water into wine (v. 1-2), then afteward his disciples and his brother join him in his travels for a while (v. 12). Sorry, but you cannot reasonably pretend that James was somehow just "never there" when Jesus did a magic show, in order to "explain" how James could remain skeptical of Jesus' claims for so long.
James
probably didn't witness a good majority of the miracles, but only heard
reports of them.
If you heard reports that your brother was raising the dead and curing incurable diseases, wouldn't you put forth an effort to check out these claims for yourself? Yes, and yet you say that as a western individualist. But James and Jesus lived in a collectivist honor/shame society, where criticism of a person didn't end with them but was viewed as criticism of the family as well. So in that society, the safer presumption is that the more Jesus was crticized by the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders, the more effort his family would put toward investigating his claims for themselves in first-hand fashion. Again, I'm sorry, but you will only die a quick intellectual death if you try to pretend that James just didn't happen to be around that much whenever Jesus did a magic show. My hypothesis that the whole family would have put forth an effort to witness Jesus in action for themselves to decide whether the rumors were true, is far more reasonable and accords more smoothly with the foregone conclusion that these things happened in an honor/shame society.
In fact, the text even says that most of Jesus'
miracles weren't done in his home town (see Mark 6).
...because the people of his hometown refused to believe in him, to the extent that Jesus "wondered" at their unbelief (Mark 6:6). Those people of his hometown knew of reports that he had done miracles (v. 3), so if they still persist in unbelief, and are even "offended" at him (Id) to the point that nobody in his hometown, including his own relatives wish to honor him (6:4), you might be open to the possibility that the only way Jesus could do miracles is if the people viewing him first "believed" that he could. After all, Mark admits that it was their unbelief that prevented Jesus from doing as many miracles there was he would have wished (6:5). That "could not" was indeed a low-Christology that means what I think it means, is clear from the fact that Matthew was motivated to change it in just the right way (from "could not" to "did not") so that the reference to Jesus inability was deleted (Matthew 13:58). Inerrantist scholars admit Matthew here was "toning down" Mark's wording
Mark 6:5 This statement about Jesus’ inability to do something is one of the most striking instances of Mark’s boldness and candor. It is omitted by Luke 4:16–30 and toned down by Matt 13:58.
Brooks, J. A. (2001, c1991). Vol. 23: Mark (electronic ed.).
Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 100).
Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
Matthew would hardly be motivated to "tone down" Mark's wording if Matthew saw nothing objectionable therein.
In any case,
you should take into account ALL of the minimal facts; Jesus' death by
crucifixion,
Irrelevant, I agree he was crucified.
His empty tomb,
Legendary embellishment. I agree with the conservative Christian scholarly consensus that Mark was the earliest gospel, and that Mark originally ended at 16:8 n9i.e., the earliest form of the gospel did not say anybody actually saw the risen Christ). Since I deny apostle Paul's credibility, for many good reasons, I find the original ending of Mark to be an earlier form of the gospel than the "creed" of 1st Corinthians 15:3-8. And I am quite aware of the efforts of Snapp, Lund, N.T. Wright and others to avoid admitting 16:8 was where Mark stopped writing. Mark did not end on a sour note, the women's "fear" was reverential awe, and they are rushing to tell the others the good news that Jesus has risen from the dead. So there's no "sour ending" and thus nothing in the endinig rendering it sufficiently unlikely as to justify trying to make it sound better.
His postmortem appearances to the disciples
and Paul.
Sorry, but many Christian scholars take the 40-days of resurrection appearances of Acts 1:3 literally, which implies an awful lot of instruction from the risen Christ during that period on the Kingdom of God...yet Matthew, allegedly one of the 11 present for those 40 days, thinks the reader worthy of not more of such teaching than a snippet that could be spoken in less than 15 seconds. I'm sorry, but it just rings hollow to say Matthew might have good reasons for wish to telescope down 40-days worth of risen Christ teachings into 15 seconds. Amazingly transformed, Matthew was
not. My skepticism on this basis will always be at least as justifiable as any what-if scenario that apologists can conjure up. Which means you cannot deduce my skepticism unreasonable merely because you can drum up a logically possible scenario that can also account for the data. Your religion doesn't just say we are wrong, it says we are "foolish", so because my skepticism of Jesus' resurrection isn't foolish, your religion takes a direct hit. That epithet might be true if the atheist you are dealing with just runs away from the evidence, but that isn't the case here.
Even if you were skeptical of the appearance to James, these
would still be historical facts in need of an explanation. And I have
found no naturalistic explanation that satisfactorily explain even just
those 4.
Then apparently you've never dialogued with me before. I have naturalistic explanations that DO sufficiently account for each "minimal fact". What I've relayed so far isn't even the tip of the ice-box. But whether you ever hear my full arguments depends on how long you are willing to discuss the issues.
As further reason to believe that "skepticism toward
Jesus by his brother James [[does not]] reasonably justiy denying that
Jesus rose from the dead" consider the fact that there have been times
that I haven't even mentioned this minimal fact, mostly due to time
constraints in dialogue, instead opting to mention the empty tomb and
appearances to The Twelve and Paul. Take away the appearance to James if
you want. The case only loses one line of evidence.
Technically correct, but that's not the only line of minimal-fact evidence that gets lost when you consider my arguments.
I look forward to further dialogue.
-------------
Evan replied:
--------------------------
I replied:
Evan replied:
---------My response:
Well first, you started out saying that the meaning of Galatians 1:19 was 'obvious'. But having discovered the negative comments admitted by T. George, can you agree with me that the meaning of that verse is something less than "obvious"?
Second, not sure why you are asking me what would be wrong with the truth that emerges from all of the possible interpretations, i.e., that Paul went to see a brother of Jesus whose name was James. I see nothing wrong with that truth. My argument doesn't say James wasn't an apostle or wasn't a brother to Jesus, only that there is no good historical evidence that James the brother of Jesus ever came to Christian faith.
My "problem" is that Galatians 1:19 cannot be reasonably considered a good rebuttal to me if the only part that might imply he had a Christian faith (i.e., the part that says he was an apostle) is considered ambiguous by even conservative inerrantist Christian scholars, who otherwise have every motive to view the biblical evidence in light most favorable to their conservative Christian belief that James came to believe Jesus rose from the dead.
You say I'm missing the forest for the trees by focusing so much on the legitimacy of one minimal fact. There are two problems with this:
1 - I've refuted ALL of Habermas' "minimal facts", you just haven't seen these arguments of mine yet.
2 - The statements supporting James' skepticism toward Jesus (Mark 3:21, 6:4, John 7:5) are more historically likely than other biblical statements that Jesus did real miracles, because these three passages fulfill a historical criterion that the others don't; the criterion of embarrassment. That is, James probably REALLY WAS skeptical of Jesus' claims at all points between the start of Jesus' public ministry and the crucifixion...because this is not the type of claim that a forger would likely invent...while the claim that Jesus did miracles clearly IS something a forger would find useful to invent.
I maintain that the contention that Jesus' family saw nothing supernatural about Jesus' miracles, will always have at least a bit more historical plausibility than any excuse apologists can come up with to reconcile their belief that Jesus' miracles were real, with the undeniable NT fact that his own family found nothing about his miracle-ministry very convincing.
Please clarify:
Can an atheist bible critic's belief that Galatians 1:19 is fatally ambiguous about James' apostolic status, be rendered reasonable in light of conservative inerrantist Christian scholars who admit the meaning of this verse cannot be determined with any degree of confidence? If so, then kindly move away from that verse and give me another piece of historical information that you think reasonably shows that the specific James known as "the Lord's brother" ever came to adopt the Christian faith at any time in his life.
How *DO* you explain the undeniable NT fact that Jesus' own family maintained skepticism toward him throughout the duration of his earthly miracle ministry? You don't want to say they caught him deluding gullible crowds with purely naturalistic tricks...so your options are quite limited, choose wisely:
"Jesus' family was skeptical of him throughout the duration of his miracle-ministry because whenever Jesus was doing miracles..."
-they were out of town
-they were always looking the other way
-they were always drunk
-they were mentally disabled
-they were too jealous of Jesus' popularity to reason correctly
-Mark 3:21, 6:4 and John 7:5 are textual corruptions
-the majority Christian scholarly translation/interpretation of Mark 3:21, 6:4 and John 7:5 is incorrect, the NT never says anybody in Jesus' family were ever skeptical toward him
-something else?
I will be happy to comment on any other "minimal fact" you think is a powerful support for Jesus' resurrection, but I maintain that the James-problem I've brought to your attention cannot be reasonably resolved by apologists in way that will harmonize with their trusting acceptance of everything in the bible as historically reliable.
You mention the empty tomb, but the majority scholarly opinion is that Mark was the earliest gospel, and the resurrection appearance stories in ch. 16 are a late corruption, so that the earliest gospel did not assert anybody actually saw the risen Christ. Because the traditions in Mark reach back earlier than the date of composition, those traditions, which lack resurrection-appearance stories, are just as likely to go all the way back to 37 a.d., as you think the resurrection-appearance "creed" in 1st Cor. 15 does. Hence, there exists even at the earliest historical point the sources will allow, a tradition conspicuously lacking resurrection appearance stories, a lacunae that is unexpected if in fact those appearances really happened.
-----------------
Evan replies:
Evan
MintonDecember 1, 2018 at 10:24 AM
So you concede
the following historical statements
1: James'
brother was a hardened skeptic of His brother during His ministry.
2: James had Christian faith after the
crucifixion of Jesus.
You concede
that both of these historical facts? Am I correct?
Also, whether
a **person** is reasonable to adopt a certain proposition or hypothesis is
irrelevant. I'm more concerned about whether the evidence favors more strongly
a given hypothesis than another, and what is more reasonable in light of that
evidence.
You want other
evidence that James was a Christian? He's called one of the "pillars"
of the Jerusalem
church. This is mentioned in both the book of Acts (21:17-20) as well as by
Paul in his letter to the Galatians (2:9). Paul and Luke are independently
reporting this. Thus, we know this on the principle of multiple attestations.
From the
criterion of embarrassment, as you yourself said, we saw that he was a skeptic
prior to the death of Jesus. Yet from the independent attestation of Acts and
Galatians that James converted after the death of Jesus. This prompts the
question: WHAT HAPPENED to James to cause him to go from thinking Jesus was an
insane con to the risen Lord of Lords? I would argue that what happened was
that he saw His brother alive after His death. Now, we can debate the nature of
this postmortem appearance experience if you want to. We can debate whether it
really was a miraculous resurrection or whether it was a hallucination, a
dream, a Twin of Jesus, or whatever. But that James had an experience which he
at least believed was the resurrection of his brother is the best explanation for
why he went from skeptic (Mark 3, John 7) to pastor of the Jerusalem church
(Galatians 2, Acts 21).
Also, notice
that I made this argument tossing Galatians 1:19 completely to the side. That's
the beauty of the minimal facts method. I can concede so much and yet still
make my point.
"How *DO*
you explain the undeniable NT fact that Jesus' own family maintained skepticism
toward him throughout the duration of his earthly miracle ministry?"
Simple: Jesus
traveled. His family didn't. James had better things to do than follow his
brother around like a lost puppy. He had a job. He had bills to pay. And we're
explicitly told that Jesus didn't do miracles in his home town (see Mark 6).
You seem to be under the impression that Jesus did all of his miraculous feats
in his own backyard. But if Jesus were in other towns and villages (and he was)
and James and his family stayed at home (which is never explicitly said in the
text but is a likely inference), then the reason they would be skeptical is
that they simply didn't witness the miracles firsthand. Why? Because they
weren't even in the same town.
If you want to
contest this, you need to produce some good evidence that James and his
brothers did accompany Him on all, most, or many of his travels. You cited John
2 as one example, but as I said, that miracle was so subtle that it could have
easily been missed. It was perhaps the most quiet miracle Jesus ever performed.
------------------
I respond:
You raise too many points to justify trying to answer them all, so let's just focus for now on your belief that the Christian faith of James the brother of Jesus is proven from the fact that you think this is the specific James who is being called a "pillar" in Galatians 2:9.
Since you admit you can still prove your case even by forgetting about Galatians 1:19, ok...but even assuming James the brother of the Lord is the pillar-James Gal. 2:9 is talking about (a possible but by no means necessary inference), you are still inferring "Christian faith" from "pillar". I don't think that is necessarily inconsistent or wrong, but because Josephus says the more scrupulous Jews objected to the execution of this James, this tells me that the kind of "faith" James went around preaching, did not offend the more scrupulous Jews at all...which is a shocking departure from Jesus and Paul, whose preaching was highly offensive to the more scrupulous Jews.
And I have good reasons to be suspicious of Paul's credibility, so I wouldn't find it very compelling if indeed Paul meant to say James the Lord's brother was an apostle with true Christian faith. That's just Paul saying something, hardly the end of the debate, and this would justify an inquiry into his general credibility, since such a statement cannot be independently corroborated and thus it's truth turns exclusively on Paul's credibility.
Notice: Paul curses the Judaizers in Gal. 1:8. Then he calls Peter a pillar in 2:9, then he gloats that this pillar and two others gave him the right hand of fellowship (2:9), then he describes Peter as a hypocritical Judaizer in 2:14. The issue then is how smart it is to suppose that Paul's choice of description of other people is sufficient to establish historical likelihood where his assertions are without independent corroboration. As you probably know, conservative 19th century Christian scholar J. B. Lightfoot famously remarked that the beginning few verses of Gal. 2 are a "shipwreck of grammar"
So my theory about Paul's confusing of concepts could indeed be correct; that is, when Paul says somebody is an "x", it is legitimately debatable whether he would agree to all the implications of his chosen wording that a reader might normally draw.
Evan
MintonDecember 3, 2018 at 5:17 PM
So how could
you be a "pillar" of the Jerusalem
church, (alongside which Paul mentions Cephas/Peter and John) without being in
the Christian faith. Let's look at what the verse actually says
"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. "
And look at
the entire context. What did Paul go to James, Cephas, and John to talk about?
Whether or not he and they were preaching the same gospel (see Galatians
2:1-2). Paul wanted to make sure he and the other apostles were preaching the
same message. What was the result of such an inquiry? Paul says "They
added nothing to me." (verse 6). Now, this seems very indicative that
James was a believer in Christ. Not only the does the context seem to demand
this, but if James wasn't preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ whereas Paul
clearly was, he couldn't say that he and James were on the same page.
"And I
have good reasons to be suspicious of Paul's credibility" -- Why would
you? Don't you think a man who endured as much hardship for preaching as he did
(as his multiply attested by himself and Luke in the book of Acts) would make
sure he got his info correctly? I know that if I went through as much turmoil
as Paul did, I would want to make darn sure my credibility didn't suffer in the
course of my preaching.
As for Paul
calling Peter a hypocritical Judaizer, I'm looking at the passage right now on
BibleStudyTools.com and I don't see that anywhere even hinted at the text.
Rather, what I see (and this is the interpretation I've heard the majority of
the commentators that I have read make) is that Peter trying to compromising
with the Judaisers to get on their good side, not that Peter was a Judaiser
himself. Paul says Peter ate with the Gentiles, but when the Judaizers came, he
stopped.
"For before
certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they
arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because
he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews
joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led
astray. " (2:12-13).
barry
December 4, 2018
at 5:02 PM
Are you going to
answer my prior question? Was I reasonable to use an inerrantist Christian
scholar’s admission that Galatians 1:19 is fatally ambiguous, to justify
disagreeing with your belief that the meaning of that verse was ‘obvious’?
Also, the debate
we’re having might need to take a different turn, since you are assuming the
truth of various Pauline statements, while I don’t find Paul very credible. Of
course, I’ve done a massive amount of research on that single topic, and I cannot
give you all the reasons here and then go back to discussing the issue of
James.
When I said my
theory of Jesus not rising from the dead because James’ lifetime skepticism
cannot be more reasonably accounted for by any other theory, I did not express
or imply that I could reconcile my theory with every statement made by anybody
in the NT. All I committed to was the premise that I can show that my theory to
explain the biblical data has stronger epistemic warrant, than any Christian
theory.
Would you like me
to justify my contention that it is reasonable for a modern day person to be
suspicious of Paul’s uncorroborated assertions? That's a whole 'nother
discussion.
For now, Acts 15
and 21 do not show James the brother of Jesus to be a pillar, only that a
“James” was, and once again, there were two fully qualifying “Jameses” among
the original 12 apostles, who were not the brother of Jesus. Things are NOT as
simple and straightforward as your bible-believing faith makes it seem.
You puzzle over
how James could be a “pillar” in the church if in fact he didn’t have
Christian. But the early church’s beliefs and the degree to which they cared
about Jesus are plagued with mystery. For example, the gospels all attest that
Jesus had just as big of a ministry to Gentiles as he had to Jews, which would
make it reasonable to infer that the post-resurrection church was quite aware
of the reality of Gentile salvation.
And that would be
a reasonable deduction if the NT contained nothing beyond the 4 gospels. But in
Acts 11, they only learn such truth from Peter and his “vision”, and in v. 18
they respond as if Gentile salvation was some new shocking unexpected
theological development they’d never have guessed was true unless Peter
reported that vision.
One apologist has
tried to get around this rather unexpected bit of ignorance in the early church
by trifling that the church was only marveling that Gentile salvation was a
one-step process instead of a two-step process, but that’s foolish. The words
of the church in 11:18 are “God has granted to the Gentiles the repentance that
leads to life”. They are marveling that God has granted REPENTANCE to Gentiles,
i.e., they marvel that God has enabled the Gentiles to take that very first
step toward salvation, thus implying they never previously believed God had
ever done this. They would hardly marvel about the “repentance” being granted,
if they believed Gentile repentance was made possible by God previously. If
that early church was so unexpectedly ignorant of something the gospels present
as almost a daily reality (Gentile salvation), the door opens to the
possibility that the early church's "pillars" were less compliant
with the gospels that one might otherwise expect.
In other words, we
engage in unreasonable error if we simply read common Christian presuppositions
back into the early post-resurrection church.
