Why are Paul's writings in the Bible?

[The Grand Nudger]

I mean, Paul Bunyan actually did have a sibling, and tons of the stories about paul bunyan are about his mom and dad and childhood. I think it would be more accurate for you to state that because the church was invested in mystical virginity they elected not to include these types of stories in their canon...though, even for jesus, they did exist - and no one thinks they were biographical.

Its pretty clear that the people who included the story we're discussing still didn't read it as though it was referring to jesus actual brother. Think it through. Any rate, they did invent some brothers of the lord. There's a whole cast of apostles that follow magic man around constantly surprised by his miracle act no matter how many times they've seen it and it's a yuuge sausage fest. For at least some mythicists, this is actually closer to the truth than the official version. Describing an inner circle of people witness to the mysteries of the cult in fraternity - common for the time.

I think one of the more illustrative details here is that james is supposed to be the brother of the lord, not jesus, the lord. Obviously this is not something that anyone would have said before there was already a christian movement. By the time whoever wrote the lines put them in pauls mouth jesus had become a god. Speaking of the words in his mouth, brother falls out quite a bit, and usually not in reference to blood family.

[LinuxGal]

I think one of the more illustrative details here is that james is supposed to be the brother of the lord, not jesus, the lord.  Obviously this is not something that anyone would have said before there was already a christian movement.  By the time whoever wrote the lines put them in pauls mouth jesus had become a god.  Speaking of the words in his mouth, brother falls out quite a bit, and usually not in reference to blood family.

Only with reference to James does Paul ever say "the brother" (ton adelphon) of someone other than himself.  In every other passage, he says ho adelphos, which is translated something along these lines:

"Quartus a brother"

"Sosthenes our brother"

"our brother Apollos"

Tychicus, a beloved brother

"Tychicus...who is a beloved brother"

"Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother"

[The Grand Nudger]

Paul does use the same term to refer to other people who no one thinks he's trying to communicate as a fraternal brother. The distinction as scholars have it is contextual, not linguistic. Or, idk, I guess you could make the claim by proposing that paul didn't actually write the other uses of the term (which is, I suspect, how that claim got legs to be repeated here by you)?

Either way, the mention isn't really about the geneology of jesus - it's just the preamble to a screed against judaism that is clearly intended to boost the narrators authority - not report the results of gods 23 and me. Paul the romanizer strikes again. The idea that this reference pertains to an actual brother of christ is more a product of trying to arbitrarily demytify christ than it being something that even the people who included it believed..though, hell, maybe "paul" really did believe it, heretic that he was to the religion allegedly based on his purported letters.

I'm just throwing this out there. Maybe Paul, whoever he was, if he was, was a really gullible dude. Some rando from another country he'd just met said he was gods brother and paul was like "sure, sounds legit".