Posted on 07/22/2004 11:27:00 AM PDT by dangus
Your whole arguement hinges on them being cousins, not brothers. The Bible obviously does distinguish different levels of family. If they were really Cousins instead of Brothers, I think that the Bible would have spelt that out. It does elsewhere.
Tradition going back to Papias, cited by Eusebius, indicates that Matthew was originally composed in "Hebrew" (which may mean Aramaic), not in Greek.
There are oddities in parts of Luke, too -- word plays and anagrams which only appear when the Greek is translated into Hebrew. There's also a Hebraicism used several times in Luke called the "apodotic vav," which isn't typical of Greek, but might well appear in a text very carefully translated from idiomatic Hebrew into Greek.
First of all, the argument does not "hinge" on them being cousins. The claim is merely that they were not biological children of Mary. One possibility, which seems consistent with the text, is that they were cousins.
It's really beyond dispute that neither Hebrew nor Aramaic have specific terms for cousin or nephew or brother in-law or half-brother That is why Philip the Tetrarch is identified as Herod's "brother" in Scripture, though he was really Herod's half-brother, and why Abraham addresses Lot as "my brother," though the text elsewhere makes it clear that Lot was really his nephew.
I think you need to read Ruth. Ruth is CLEARLY named as Naomi's Daughter -in-law. So, appearently, you are wrong. If the Bible says that they are brothers, then you HAVE to assume they are brothers, UNTIL compelling arguement comes forth that demonstrates otherwise. So far all I have seen is supposition. That won't do.
Abraham called his wife his sister, also, which got him into all sorts of trouble.
Yes, I've heard that theory. I didn't want to confuse the issue by sounding like I was suggesting that what is now Holy Scripture was simply a poor translation, so I allowed the likelihood that it was Matthew who wrote in Greek.
My best guess, having read about the authorship from historical critics, is that Matthew's original gospel consisted of the testimony of Jesus' preaching days. Luke possibly even used this as a source. (I reject the "Q" theory as anti-Christian.) Then, Mark was added to it, leaving only a single passage from Mark not represented in Matthew. Why would Matthew be compelled to add Mark's gospel to his own? Perhaps that Mark, as Peter's secretary, represented the authority of what would later become known as the papacy.
There are some problems. Textual critics do not include the infancy narrative as part of the original Matthew. I'm not qualified to evaluate if this assertion is sound. It does leave the source of the narrative undetermined.
This is also been criticized from an apostolic viewpoint, since it suggests an editor other than Matthew. I don't see why, however, Matthew couldn't have been the editor that approved the insertion of the Marcan passages. What is problemmatic is there are a few changes from Mark to Matthew where the two versions disagree with each other. Whereas the passages original to Matthew suggest an intimate familiarity with Palestine, the edits of Mark seem like someone was trying to "correct" Mark and introduced errors which are hard to reconcile with Mark or history.
My only response to these is to cling to the promise of Jesus to Peter, that the gates of Hell would not withstand the Church, and so I satisfy myself with the knowledge that the gift of infallibility was given not only to the disciple, but to whoever edited Matthew.
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