Posted: May 08, 2012 8:40 am
Ignorantia, is this the same lexicographical stuff that magicrooster brought up a while back, about how 'X the brother of Y' usually means biological? If so, I can't say that at that time I found it conclusive. For one thing, it seemed, at least to a large extent, to compare to non-Pauline sources, when it seems that this was arguably a special case (not to mention that the gospels also explicitly quote Jesus himself as having defined 'his brothers' as non-sibling). Second, it didn't seem to offer any parsimonius answers to brothers plural in 1 Cor 9:5, given the lack of any evidence for siblings as travelling missionaries, or even just bigwigs, though I think travelling missionaries seems more plausible.