Tittus stated.....
"You raise an old question. There was James the elder, the apostle. James the less, an apostle. And James the younger brother of Christ."
Christ had no "brothers" as we understand OUR cultural use of the word, let alone "younger brothers" since Christ was the ONLY Child of Mary. Be that as it is, I'll elaborate on this as we go along here.
Tittus continued.........
"I had concluded through my studies that the book of James was written by the brother of Christ, Elder in the Jerusalem Church. Is this wrong?"
In a word, yes. But, this is a common misunderstanding because there's nothing but wholesale confusion regarding which James is which and which Mary is which if Original Scripture and Original Intepretation, with their Original Cultural references, are not used.
Both James the Less and James the Greater, or Elder, were Apostles, but.............
Let's take care of the ladies first:
The Virgin Mary is the Mother of Christ and Christ was her ONLY Child. NO where in any bible does it state, at all, that Mary, the Mother of Christ, had any other child/children of her own. In addition, the phrase "first-born" did not mean, and does not mean, there were/are any other children because a first-born is ALSO an only-born.
The other "Marys".....
Mary Clopas [or Cleopas] was the mother of James the Less and the Apostle St. Jude and she was either the cousin or the sister-in-law of Christ's Mother. Mary Magdalen was a disciple of Christ and Mary of Bethany was the prostitute.
Now for the Jameses:
The Apostle St. James the Less is identified as the son of Alpheus and the son of Mary Clopas. Whereas the names Alpheus and Clopas are not two different transcriptions of the ARAMAIC name HALPAI, the fact remains it's not unusual that one person was known by two different names...e.g., Simon-Petrus and Saulus-Paulus and, because of this, it must be admitted that two different names have been carried by the same man, the Apostle St. James the Less. Also, Mary Clopas, the mother of St. James the Less and St. Jude, could have been widowed and could have re-married; therefore, St. James the Less may have been known by both names. St. James the Less is referred to as "the brother" of Christ ONLY because it was a CULTURAL referrence to relationship, BUT, in THEIR culture, "brother" was not meant in the specific way we mean it in OUR culture. In their culture it mean "kin" and St. James the Less and Christ were kin. In addition, this kinship connection was further strengthened and pointedly made because St. James the Less WAS the Bishop of Jerusalem, he and Christ were considered as being in the same "brotherhood", and because of these two facts, St. James the Less was martyred by the Jews of Jerusalem.
St. James the Greater, or the Elder, was called "greater" or "elder" because he was either taller or older than St. James the Less, or, maybe both. St. James the Greater/Elder was the brother of the Apostle St. John, they were the sons of Zebedee, and their mother was Salome who was definitely the sister of Christ's Mother, Mary. However, since St. James the Greater/Elder was NOT the Bishop of Jerusalem, he is not referred to as "a brother" of Christ the same way St. James the Less is. At the same time, it is St. James the Greater/Elder who is the one who's mentioned with Sts. Peter and John. In fact, St. James the Greater/Elder is always mentioned before St. John in the "trio"...e.g., Peter, James, and John, because he was probably the elder brother of St. John. Also, St. James the Greater/Elder was with Sts. Peter and John at the Transfiguration of Christ. He was martyred in A.D. 44 under the Christian persecution of Herod Agrippa I, a pagan and the grandson of the insane, blood-thirsty tyrannt, Herod.
Tittus stated.........
"I ask because so many of the finer points of James 1 and James 5 read as if Jesus could have written them."
There is no way of knowing how Christ wrote because there is nothing in existence that was written by Christ and, therefore, there's no way to seriously compare anyone's writing to that of what Christ's style might have been. Anything to the contrary of this is not even speculation but wishful thinking. What's more, it was determined by or before 100 A.D. that St. James wrote his own Epistles.
Tittus stated.........
"I could almost imagine the boys sitting around discussing the sacred scriptures while Joseph was teaching them the finer aspects of furniture and carpentry."
Original Scripture never mentions St. Joseph after Christ was twelve years old and when Christ began His Ministry, St. Joseph is noticeably absent. In addition, St. Joseph was not present at the foot of the Cross so, it's a safe bet to assume St. Joseph passed on before Christ began His Ministry or during His Ministry.
Tittus continued..........
"My point concerning "is" is that so often Churches have split arguing over the simplest of words in the scripture. Often without anyone ever seeking to see if the Greek or Hebrew actually read the way the New American Standard, King James, Revised King James or whatever has translated."
First of all, Hebrew has nothing to do with the New Testament and the New Testament was written in Greek. The Greek Orthodox Church agrees with the Catholic Church that the word "is" means exactly what the word means. When the Western Church...the Catholic Church...translated the NT Geek into the NT Latin, the word "is" is exactly what the word "is" means. When the NT Greek and the NT Latin were each translated into English, BOTH translations are exactly the same...word for word....and the word "is" STILL means exactly what the word means.
The only ones who have a problem with the simple meaning of the word "is" are the Protestants. This is because Luther could no longer be a priest once he made himself a heretic and, therefore, he could no longer consecrate communion...so, he "decided" that the word "is" somehow means "isn't" in German even though this is not true. The same nonsense happened when Henry VIII became a schimatic of the Church and, consequently, the Catholic priests in England were either slaughtered by Henry or they became schimatics with Henry. That means the former Catholic English priests also could no longer consecrate communion, so, they thought Luther's non-existent "definition" of the word "is" also somehow meant "isn't" in English which is not any more true in English than it is in German. In short, politics makes for distorted, albeit wrong, language useages.
One more point on Luther: After his political movement got underway, he realized that he had changed the Original New Testament so much...e.g., he removed the Epistle of St. James...that he couldn't justify his own movement. So, he restored some of the Original New Testament...e.g., he put the Epistle of St. James back into his "bible revision".
Tittus concluded.........
"Form my in depth studies I like to use a variety of sources that include the The Catholic Encyclopedia and BibleGatgeway.
www.newadvent.org/cathen/15367a.htm"
The New Advent site is entitled "Versions of the Bible", which is full of great information on the language versions of the Original Bible...the Catholic Bible. Language versions of the Catholic Bible are as close to the Latin as is humanly possible and, therefore, each language version is as close to eachother as is humanly possible.
As you read further down, the information on the site shows, as non-politically as possible, that language versions are not at all the same as "revisions", or changes, which only happen with the Protestant bibles and those bibles have been changed in an ongoing manner with the Protestants since the 16th Century when Luther and King James both took the only Bible in existence at that time....the Catholic Bible....and changed it to create their own brand of "bibles". In comparing any Protestant bible to the Catholic Bible, there's hardly a verse that the Protestants left unchanged.
