I appreciate your post. You argue respectfully and sincerely. That’s not always seen on the religion forum [though to the moderater’s credit, the absence not infrequently carries reprocussions].
Ravenwolf, when it comes to the brothers—adelphoi—of Jesus, we have two things. One, what the Scripture says, and Two, our opinions. We can’t prove anything by our opinions, because as often as not they cancel each other out. So if we really want to get anywhere, we need to see what the Holy Spirit, via His inspired Scripture, has told us.
I looked around and found a quote by John Ankerberg [a Baptist] that does a better job than I have done in discussing, ‘adelphos,’ vs, ‘anepsios.’ Please let me know what you think.
‘[T]here is a big problem in [claiming that Jesus’ brothers and sisters were actually cousins or other kinsmen]. The reason being that there was an exact term for cousin, anepsios, a very well known word in New Testament times. This word for cousin is not used in any of the passages [that refer] to Jesus’ brothers or sisters. On the other hand, the word for cousin is used in Colossians 4:10 where Paul writes, “Aristarchus sends you his greetings as does Mark, the cousin (anepsios) of Barnabas.”
So the New Testament writers knew the exact word for cousin but didn’t use it in referring to Jesus’ brothers. In addition, the word for kinsmen (suggenes) occurs eleven times in the New Testament [such as in Luke 1:36 to identify Elizabeth as Mary’s “relative”]. But it never appears in any of the passages describing the children of Mary and Joseph.
So, if the writers of the New Testament really meant to say that the brothers of our Lord Jesus were merely cousins or kinsmen, it seems strange that they never used the correct words to do so, words they used in other passages to describe other people’s cousins or kinsmen.
Finally, the word for brother which is used in speaking about Jesus’ brothers is the word adelphos, and for “sister” it is adelphe. Adelphos and adelphe can sometimes be used in a wider sense. But their primary meaning speaks of a relationship of shared parentage. Unless the context suggests otherwise — and in none of these passages is that the case — this must be the primary meaning of the word that is intended.’
‘adelphos,’ vs, ‘anepsios. i looked them up and it seems to be as you say.
But as you say they can have other meanings for instance i believe anepsios can mean nephew and ‘adelphos can mean brother of more than one kind
As i mentioned before, Navajo`s calls cousins brothers even though we have the exact names for each one.
They do not pay much attention to strong`s concordance.
But to be fair to you, you seem to be right on concerning the definitions which i can see i know very little about.