First, you have continually failed to provide evidence to back up your statement that there is a "division in scholarship" over whether James was an actual brother. You have, in the past, misrepresented your sources. Now it is also clear you simply make things up when it suits you.
You must know I'm getting a kick out of watching you running around changing the positioning of the goal posts. It would never do to find another instance, it wouldn't satisfy your criteria, whatever that is. No, Origen is best because he specifically refers to Paul's wording and defines how it is to be interpreted, it doesn't get more to the point than that.
You seem to have difficulty grasping the difference between interpretation and usage. Paul uses a particular phrase. A century and a half later, Origen provides a particular interpration of that phrase, based on his theology. It hardly supports your view.
Let me explain this clearly for you:
Paul uses a specific syntactic formula to indicate a blood relation of Jesus. Throughout the NT, and Greek literature, this syntactic formula (Y the brother of X) is used in this fashion. In order to provide evidence that Paul is not using it in this way, you could do a number of things:
1) You could point to numerous places in greek literature which indicate that this syntactic formula has a range of semantic variation. In other words, you could point to a number of places in greek literature where this syntax is used in a different sense.
2) You could point to that "division of scholarship" you made up.
3) Finally, you could provide alternative evidence from sources contemporary to James or near contemporary that state he was not a brother of Jesus. Unfortunately for you, Paul, Josephus, Mark, and Matthew all state that he was.
Instead, you point to a theologian over a century after the text was written, who
interprets it in a particular light. So what? The catholic church has done this throughout most of its existence. It isn't evidence that the phrase Paul uses has a range of semantic variations, only that theologians interpret texts according to preconceived theology.
I presented an example of an early Christian scholar explaining the specific phrase and how it is to be interpreted. Label him a theologian, or a martian if you like, I don't care what you call him, he's our guy, and he tells it like it is.
Right. Again, evidence that later authors interpret the phrase (based on theological motives) in a different light IS NOT EVIDENCE THAT PAUL USED IT THAT WAY!
In fact, your source weakens your case, because Origen specifically uses that syntactic formula shortly before your quote to indicate James as a literal brother.
Not according to Paul, they merely got "acquainted." Gal.118Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days.
Again, your failure to understand greek limits your understanding of the text. Paul uses a specific word here:
ιστορησαι/historesai. It is the verbal form of the greek word "history." It doesn't simply mean "get acquainted," but rather refers to inquiry into. If Paul had simply wanted to mean he wanted to "get to know" Peter rather than that he was learning the tradition, he would have used gignosko or something similar.
Gal1,11I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel [the good news] I preached is not something that man made up. 12I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
Again, Paul is referring to his legitimacy as an apostle based on his personal revelation from Christ. Others, as he well knows, knew Christ during his life. Hence his fifteen day stay with Peter.
There are no contemporaries of Jesus either, no one noticed or cared enough to write about him.
Wow. A highly illiterate culture has no writings of a figure until two decades after his death. Definitely no one cared. Oh wait, that amount of writing on Jesus in the timespan it occurs is more than most ancient figures. I am afraid you are wrong again.
