Full Text for Dogmatics 2- Volume 29 - Did Jesus have brothers and sisters? (Video)

ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CUENet AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION DOGMATICS 2 LESSON 29 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 10 E. 22nd Street Suite 304 Lombard, IL 60148 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >> I have no idea if this question is important but I've always wanted to know the answer, especially after all of those news reports years ago about that burial box with the inscription regarding James, the brother of Jesus. Did Jesus have brothers and sisters? >> DR. DAVID SCAER: I'm an armchair archeologist which means I'll read newspaper articles, occasionally pick up a copy of the biblical archeologist and that I have no intention of going to Turkey, Greece or Palestine and digging around in the sand. Being bitten by bugs at 5:00 o'clock in the morning. Eating a diet of yogurt and cucumbers. But I am totally fascinated by these things. And for many, many years I was a proponent of the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. In fact, I even used to take out my handkerchief in class as a symbolic gesture for my devotion to that shroud. That shroud was an amazing document -- I can call it a document because that's what it did. It had a history to it. And was it a forgery or was it authentic? Well, about oh, 15 years ago, it was decided by the test that they give, the carbon test that they give, that it was a fraud. So basically my faith was completely shaken. So I gave up on it and destroyed all of the film strips I have on it. And of course now the evidence is beginning to lead that this is an authentic relic. But so much time has passed that my enthusiasm and devotion for it cannot be reignited. I would have to -- I would have to assume an entirely new collection of articles and books. And I'm not up to that. But just at that same time, they uncover this ossuary. An ossuary is a box in which they put bones. You might have an idea about what this would be from New Orleans. Because in New Orleans the water table is so high that they bury people above the ground. They don't have enough burial space. So as the body deteriorates, they simply push the bones back into a bin. Well, the custom in the day of Jesus was quite similar. After a year they would collect the bones and they would put it into this box called an ossuary so that it could be -- so that they could be kept. And so several years ago they discovered this box with James, the brother -- really -- the inscription was James, the Son of Joseph, the brother of Jesus. And it was a -- there was a great deal of enthusiasm for this particular ossuary as you are undoubtedly aware of it. They even brought -- had this bone box over to a meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Toronto. And any number of scholars visited it. It was really quite an amazing artifact because we would be getting very close to the person of Jesus. And I was equally enthusiastic about it. Strangely in taking that box back to Israel, the cover was cracked. And the Israeli authorities got involved in this thing. And they claimed that while the box itself is authentic, the inscription may not be authentic. As with the Shroud of Turin -- I am not a professional and I do not have the capacity to judge the authenticity of the inscription. Apparently the man who brought this ossuary to the forefront has been known for other forgeries. However, there are any number of scholars who say that's authentic. Now, apart from the fact that it may or may -- that it may be a fake or that it may be authentic -- and I'm not so sure that any conclusion -- one conclusion will satisfy everybody, the inscription is informative. Because it identifies a certain James who had as his father a man by the name of Joseph and had a brother by the name of Jesus. Now, they did some statistical data on this. What would be the possibility of the population of Jerusalem at this time that there would be such an individual. There would be many people who would be Jesus who were the Son of Joseph. But how many would be James? So from that point, it's a very interesting thing. Now, why this is really an issue, there are any number -- there's I'll say -- I'll call it a movement. Any number of people in the Lutheran Church who believe that Mary was a virgin for her entire life. And they based this on a phrase in the Latin version of the Smalcald Article, the Latin is ***bavergo, always a virgin. And if you've been in the military, you know about the military, it comes ***simper fadalis, always faithful. The motto of the Marines. I have very strong feelings about this. I think all of the biblical evidence points to the fact that Mary and Joseph had other children. That Jesus had sisters. And that he had a normal life. Now, the people who believe that Mary was always a virgin throughout her entire life have really taken a very militant stand against people who do not accept the way they think. They call them Nostorians and heretics, all kinds of uncomplimentary things. But I look at this from two different ways. First of all, I think all of the biblical evidence suggests that Mary and Joseph had other children. There is -- just before Jesus preaches the parables, he's told that his mother and -- his mother and his sisters and his brothers are outside. And Jesus says, "Whoever does the will of my Father is my mother, my brothers and my sisters." The way that -- what are you going to do with a phrase like that where it says brothers and sisters? They say, "Well, this just means close relatives." Well, the cousins, we would call them cousins. But it doesn't fit. Because Jesus doesn't say that if we do the will of his Father, that we are his cousins. He says we are his brothers and sisters. And at the resurrection, Jesus says to the women "Go tell my brothers." That with the coming of Jesus, an entirely new family relationship has been set up. It must have been -- it must have been quite disappointing to the family of Jesus to be disenfranchised. Because certainly in the Jewish way of thinking, relationship counts a lot. Afterall, the priesthood was by blood descent, Father to Son, nephew, son-in-law, things like that. It was by descent. The kings of Israel were by descent. And if Jesus in any way -- you wouldn't have to really have a completely formed theology about him. You could just believe he was the Messiah, which means he was the king of Israel. It would be a great advantage to say that you were the brother and the sister of the new king. Throughout the world it always counts. Think of Saudi Arabia with all of those brothers and half brothers over there. I had to address this particular question when I began teaching a course on James. It was -- I was penalized by the academic dean at that time. So they gave me the worst book in the Bible of which I knew absolutely nothing and which Luther called the epistle of straw. And when an instructor doesn't know too much he always has the students do the papers. And somehow the papers never really worked out. Because when I think, I have to see things hanging together. I came to a conclusion on James' doctrine of justification was that he was teaching just what Jesus was teaching. And that is we're justified by our works. That's true. We are justified by our works. I can tell you that I'm musical. But if you give me a piano and I can't play, then I'm not justified by my works. I can say to you that I'm innocent. But I had better prove that I was not at the scene of the crime. We are all justified by our works. Students are justified by their works. The postman is justified by his works. We don't know. He's the postman until he delivers the mail. Then he's justified. And then I go and look at the person of James. And he is a very prominent figure in the New Testament. Paul says in Galations that he saw nobody except James, the brother of the Lord. James is mentioned before Peter and John. And in the resurrection appearances that Paul mentioned in I Corinthians, he says, "First he appeared to Peter, then to the 12, then to 500 brethren. Then he appeared to James. And then there's Jude who calls himself the brother of James. And becomes a fan- -- I haven't done too much lately of this James. And I've become a fan of him because people who believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary have had to push this James out of existence. This James came to be prominent. He was the most prominent person in Jerusalem even excelling Peter in his importance in that city. And of course, he had the -- he had both the credentials and the ability. He is -- he is -- there is a certain James who was the chairman of the Council of Jerusalem in Acts Chapter 15. And he's mentioned by Josephus as living up to the year 62. And then there's an epistle called Jude. And Jude calls himself the brother of James. Well, you can say, "Why didn't James and Jude call themselves the brother of Jesus?" Well, if we're going to follow the footsteps in Christ, we're not going to pull rank. You don't go around saying, "I'm the brother of Jesus." Other people can say that about you but not yourself. So I think all of the evidence points to this. And then there's another factor, too. We'll get to discussing the humiliation and the exaltation of Jesus. The phrase for the humiliation of Jesus in the Creed is "And he was made man." The Latin really carried it nicely, ***homo facitus, he was humiliated. I don't believe that Jesus was an only child. I believe that part of his humiliation was having to be in an absolutely ordinary family where siblings squabble among themselves. And do they squabble. They squabble for attention and they squabble for things. So his life was not isolated. Perhaps you're acquainted with the Roman Catholic figure of the infant of Pirogue. If you have some Catholic relatives, aunts and uncles, you may see this figurine in their house. It's a picture of Jesus as a child with a nice red coat and gold on the coat and a nice crown, the infant of Pirogue. It wasn't like that at all. He was, pardon the expression, an ordinary child. And he had brothers and sisters. And there was maybe an awareness that he was a little bit different. Because they -- in the Gospel, the family of Jesus is always there on the outskirts looking -- looking in. And I think for a full picture of Jesus, we have to see him as being brought up in an ordinary family. You know, soon after a century later after he lived, they developed all of these fantastic nativity stories about Jesus, how when he threw mud at other people, they became birds. And he did these extraordinary miracles with this child. Jesus' ministry did not begin until he was around 30 years of age. He was not preaching anything before that particular time. He was just, pardon the expression, one of the gang. Do we -- can we call Mary ***sempa vergo, always a virgin? I think we can as a title of honor. That's how she is to be remembered in the church. But I think all of the arguments that are used to say that she had no other children I think are totally unfounded. And here we get back to the situation again that somehow if Mary was not a wife in the ordinary sense, she was inferior. That's what you're saying. And so much of our devotion, Christmas devotion about this, you may know the Christmas Carol "The Cherry Tree." And it begins by singing, "Joseph was an old man. An old man was he. He married sweet Mary, the queen of Galilee." Of course if you have a guy 80 years of age, marries a gal around 16, then maybe the perpetual virginity of Mary becomes feasible. But I think that's all fable. ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CUENet AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION DOGMATICS 2 LESSON Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 10 E. 22nd Street Suite 304 Lombard, IL 60148 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***