Posted: May 08, 2012 10:21 am
IgnorantiaNescia wrote:It is about that phrase, yes. The point is that Carrier suggests a meaning for that word without bringing any evidence along.
Brother Ignorantia is right, hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
Paul regards every Christian as a brother of Jesus.
Luke/Acts , the only even halfway attempt at a history of the church, goes out of its way to disconnect any idea anybody may have had that James the church leader was a brother of Jesus.
Of course, 'brother of the Lord' is prima facie evidence of a historical Jesus.
But that is all it is. Just as pictures of the Maitreya are prima facie evidence that the Maitreya exists.
But Benjamin Creme invented the Maitreya.
If one religion can start with a totally invented person (and produce photographs of him), it is simply naive for Brother Ignorantia to claim that one phrase settles the matter.
Especially as Brother Ehrman has written that he cannot give 'some assurance' that we have the original text of Galatians. Who knows? It might possibly be an interpolation. Ehrman's whole schtick is that these texts were changed so often, that we just don't have the manuscripts to say what the original texts said. He is probably writing another book to say that even as we speak.