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To: verga
James is identified as the brother of John and the son of the other Mary. You are wrong.

Check your first century telephone book. Marvin Vincent has done that, and in his "Word Studies" comments on Galatians 1:19, as follows:

The Lord's brother

"Added in order to distinguish him from James the son of
Zebedee (Mt. 4:21; Mt. 10:2; Mk. 10:35), who was still
living, and from James the son of Alphaeus (Mat. 10:3). The
Lord's brother means that James was a son of Joseph and
Mary. This view is known as the Helvidian theory, from
Helvidius, a layman of Rome, who wrote, about 380, a book
against mariolatry and ascetic celibacy. The explanations
which differ from that of Helvidius have grown, largely,
out of the desire to maintain the perpetual virginity of
Mary. Jerome has given his name to a theory known as the
Hieronymian put forth in reply to Helvidius, about 383,
according to which the brethren of the Lord were the sons
of his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Alphaeus or
Clopas, and therefore Jesus' cousins. A third view bears
the name of Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus (ob.
404), and is that the Lord's brothers were sons of Joseph
by a former wife."

Look, pal, I may not always be quite right, but I am never, ever wrong. James is NOT the son of Zebedee, the brother of Beloved John. Neither was James (another Jacob in the Greek) the son of Alphaeus. James was the brother of Jesus, gestated in Mary's womb of Joseph's seed.

You are dead wrong. And why would I spend valuable time to ruin my reputation, as you seem to want to do for your own? Again, I'm not going to be your pet whipping post on this thread, either. Maybe it's OK for others, but your theories will not be calling the tune to which I dance.

372 posted on 03/13/2016 4:29:54 PM PDT by imardmd1 (Fiat Lux)
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To: imardmd1

There has been a wide variety of interpretations on Matthew 12:46. I have found a web site with many different commentaries, too many to post all of them. Following are some of them, the entire comments can be found at

https://www.studylight.org/commentary/matthew/12-46.html

Adam Clarke’s Commentary

His mother and his brethren - These are supposed to have been the cousins of our Lord, as the word brother is frequently used among the Hebrews in this sense. But there are others who believe Mary had other children beside our Lord and that these were literally his brothers, who are spoken of here. And, although it be possible that these were the sons of Mary, the wife of Cleopas or Alpheus, his mother’s sister, called his relations, Mark 3:31; yet it is as likely that they were the children of Joseph and Mary, and brethren of our Lord, in the strictest sense of the word. See on Matthew 13:55; (note).

Copyright Statement
These files are public domain.

Bibliography
Clarke, Adam. “Commentary on Matthew 12:46”. “The Adam Clarke Commentary”. https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/acc/view.cgi?bk=mt&ch=12. 1832.

Coffman’s Commentaries on the Bible

While he was yet speaking to the multitudes, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, seeking to speak with him.

If the mother of Jesus in this passage was his literal mother, then there is no reason to suppose that his brothers were not his literal brothers. Medieval theology has warped the views of expositors on such Scriptures as this and others like it. See more on this subject under Matthew 13:55. What they desired to discuss is not known.

Copyright Statement
James Burton Coffman Commentaries reproduced by permission of Abilene Christian University Press, Abilene, Texas, USA. All other rights reserved.

Bibliography
Coffman, James Burton. “Commentary on Matthew 12:46”. “Coffman Commentaries on the Old and New Testament”. “https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/bcc/view.cgi?bk=mt&ch=12";. Abilene Christian University Press, Abilene, Texas, USA. 1983-1999.

Gill’s Exposition of the Whole Bible

While he yet talked to the people,.... Upon these subjects, which so nearly concerned the Scribes and Pharisees, and which could not fail of drawing upon him their resentment and ill will.

Behold his mother and his brethren: by “his mother” is meant Mary; but who are “his brethren”, is not so easy to say: some are of opinion, that Joseph had children by Mary, who are here meant; but it is more generally believed, that these were either the sons of Joseph by a former wife, whose name is said to be Escha; or rather, Mary’s sister’s sons, the wife of Cleophas, the cousin-germans of Christ, it being usual with the Jews to call such kindred brethren; and so they might be James, Joses, Simon, and Judas: these

stood without: for Christ was within doors, not in a synagogue, as Piscator thought, but in an house; see Matthew 13:1 and his mother and brethren stood without doors, either because they could not get in for the throng of the people; or because they would not, it not being proper to make all within acquainted with what they had to say to him:

desiring to speak with him; not with a pure view to interrupt him in his work, or to divert him from it, lest he should overspend himself; nor from a principle of ambition and vain glory, to show that they were related to him, and that he was at their beck and command; but rather, to observe unto him the danger he exposed himself to, by the freedom he took with the Pharisees in his discourses, and probably to acquaint him with some conspiracies formed against him.

Copyright Statement
The New John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible Modernised and adapted for the computer by Larry Pierce of Online Bible. All Rightes Reserved, Larry Pierce, Winterbourne, Ontario. A printed copy of this work can be ordered from: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1 Iron Oaks Dr, Paris, AR, 72855

Bibliography
Gill, John. “Commentary on Matthew 12:46”. “The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible”. “https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/geb/view.cgi?bk=mt&ch=12";. 1999.

Wesley’s Explanatory Notes

His brethren - His kinsmen: they were the sons of Mary, the wife of Cleopas, or Alpheus, his mother’s sister; and came now seeking to take him, as one beside himself, Mark 3:21 . Mark 3:31 ; Luke 8:19 .
Copyright Statement
These files are public domain and are a derivative of an electronic edition that is available on the Christian Classics Ethereal Library Website.

Bibliography
Wesley, John. “Commentary on Matthew 12:46”. “John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible”. “https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/wen/view.cgi?bk=mt&ch=12";. 1765.

Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers

(46) His mother and his brethren.—Who were these “brethren of the Lord?” The question is one which we cannot answer with any approximation to certainty. The facts in the Gospel records are scanty. In what we gather from the Fathers we find not so much traditions as conjectures based upon assumptions. The facts, such as they are, are these: (1.) The Greek word translated “brother” is a word which has just the same latitude as the term in English. Like that, it might be applied (as in the case of Joseph and his brethren) to half-brothers, or brothers by adoption, or used in the wider sense of national or religious brotherhood. There is no adequate evidence that the term was applied to cousins as such. (2.) The names of four brethren are given in Mark 6:3, as James (i.e., Jacob) and Joses and Juda and Simon. Three of these names (James, Juda, Simon) are found in the third group of four in the lists of the twelve Apostles. This has suggested to some the thought that they had been chosen by our Lord to that office, and the fact that a disciple bearing the name of Joses was nearly chosen to fill the place of Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:23, in many MSS.) presents another curious coincidence. This inference is, however, set aside by the fact distinctly stated by St. John (John 7:3), and implied in this narrative and in our Lord’s reference to a prophet being without honour in his father’s house (Matthew 13:57; Mark 6:4), that up to the time of the Feast of Tabernacles that preceded the Crucifixion, within six months of the close of our Lord’s ministry, His brethren did not believe in His claims to be the Christ. The names, it must be remembered, were so common that they might be found in any family. (3.) Sisters are mentioned in Mark 6:3, but we know nothing of their number, or names, or after-history, or belief or unbelief. It is clear that these facts do not enable us to decide whether the brothers and sisters were children of Mary and Joseph, or children of Joseph by a former marriage—either an actual marriage on his own account, or what was known as a Levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5), for the sake of raising up seed to a deceased brother—or the children of Mary’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas (John 19:25). The fact of the same name being borne by two sisters, as the last theory implies, though strange, is not incredible, as by names might come into play to distinguish between them. Each of these views has been maintained with much elaborate ingenuity, and by some writers these brethren, assumed to be sons of Clopas, have been identified (in spite of the above objection, which is absolutely fatal to the theory) with the sons of Alphæus in the list of Apostles. When the course of Christian thought led to an ever-increasing reverence for the mother of the Lord, and for virginity as the condition of all higher forms of holiness, the belief in her perpetual maidenhood passed into a dogma, and drove men to fall back upon one of the other hypotheses as to the brethren. It is a slight argument in their favour, (1) that it would have been natural had there been other children borne by the mother of the Lord, that the fact should have been recorded by the Evangelists, as in the family narratives of the Old Testament (e.g., Genesis 5, 11; 1 Chronicles 1, 2), and that there is no record of any such birth in either of the two Gospels that give “the book of the generations” of Jesus; (2) that the tone of the brethren, their unbelief, their attempts to restrain Him, suggest the thought of their being elder brothers in some sense, rather than such as had been trained in reverential love for the first-born of the house; (3) that it is scarcely probable that our Lord should have committed His mother to the care of the disciple whom He loved (John 19:26) had she had children of her own, whose duty it was to protect and cherish her; (4) the absence of any later mention of the sisters at or after the time of the Crucifixion suggests the same conclusion, as falling in with the idea of the sisters and brethren being in some sense a distinct family, with divided interests; (5) lastly, though we enter here on the uncertain region of feeling, if we accept the narratives of the birth and infancy given by St. Matthew and St. Luke, it is at least conceivable that the mysterious awfulness of the work so committed to him may have led Joseph to rest in the task of loving guardianship which thus became at once the duty and the blessedness of the remainder of his life. On the whole, then, I incline to rest in the belief that the so-called “brethren” were cousins who, through some unrecorded circumstances, had been so far adopted into the household at Nazareth as to be known by the term of nearer relationship.

The motive which led the mother and the brethren to seek to speak to our Lord on this occasion lies on the surface of the narrative. Never before in His Galilean ministry had He stood out in such open antagonism to the scribes and Pharisees of Capernaum and Jerusalem. It became known that they had taken counsel with the followers of the tetrarch against His life. Was He not going too far in thus daring them to the uttermost? Was it not necessary to break in upon the discourse which was so keen and stinging in its reproofs? The tone of protest and, as it were, disclaimer in which He now speaks of this attempt to control and check His work, shows what their purpose was. His brethren, St. John reports, did not believe in Him (John 7:3-5)—i.e., they did not receive Him as the Christ, perhaps not even as a prophet of the Lord.

Copyright Statement
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.

Bibliography
Ellicott, Charles John. “Commentary on Matthew 12:46”. “Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers”. “https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/ebc/view.cgi?bk=mt&ch=12. 1905.


406 posted on 03/13/2016 7:04:55 PM PDT by rwa265
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