JWeinCom said:
I don't think the evidence is very strong. I don't believe that Paul necessarily met the birth brother of Jesus. It may have been the case that James was his birth brother, but the word brother (or its translation) is also used in other contexts, like a follower or close friend. As for Josephus, he was born in 37 AD, so he wouldn't have been an eye witness and there is speculation that the passages on Jesus may have been later interpolations. I really don't have the scholarship to address that, but it's not a fringe view. Overall, the evidence is very limited. I tend to side with historicity, because it honestly doesn't matter too much to my beliefs, and I think arguing his non-existence is more difficult than addressing the way more obvious flaws. But I would tenuously agree that there is no good evidence. |
Paul
I saw none of the other apostles--only James, the Lord's brother - Galatiians 1:19
If Paul had meant spiritual brother, or friend then the above would have been worded like the following...
"I saw none of the other brothers--only James, the Lord's brother"
There's no reason for Paul to use two separate words to describe the apostles if they are the same. After all, if Paul had meant spritual brother, or friend, then why use the word apostle at all? After all aren't all the apostles brothers in that sense?
Josephus
Josephus was one of the first historians. He would have had access to official Roman government documents, and witnesses. Much of what he reports on isn't based on his own first person accounts, but on what he found out through investigation. Should we throw out everything else he reports on? Should we toss out every piece of investigative journalism in the modern world, because the reporters were not there to witness every single event they report on? There was an Islamic copy found without the interpolations added in. http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/books/pines01.pdf
Go to page 16 of that pdf to see the comparisons between the interpolated version and the non-interpolated version. We've known about this since the early 70's but Jesus Mythicists continue to ignore the evidence.
In addition to this both John the Babtist and James show up in Josephus. Here is the Josephus passage concerning James.
https://pages.uncc.edu/james-tabor/ancient-judaism/josephus-james/
(This adds even more weight to the Paul argument above.)
And here is the one concerning John.
https://pages.uncc.edu/james-tabor/ancient-judaism/josephus-john-the-baptis/
