Although mentioned several times in the New Testament, Jesus’s brother James remains a shadowy figure. He is named in the Gospel of Mark as one of Jesus’s four brothers along with Joses (“little Joseph”), Judas (Judah), and Simon (Mark 6:3). None of the four gospels report much, if any, participation by the brothers in the earthly mission of Jesus although the Gospel of John seems to presuppose a supportive, if uncomprehending, role for them (John 2:12, 7:3-10).

Despite such ambiguous beginnings, the brothers (and their mother, Mary) are cited in the Acts of the Apostles as being among the very first Christ-believing Jews to form a community in Jerusalem (Acts 1:14). Later, James inexplicably appears as spokesman for the group, seemingly filling that position after Peter had departed “to another place” (Acts 12:17). James then speaks for the Jerusalem community when Paul and other missionaries from Antioch come to discuss the admittance of non-Jews to the growing number of Christ-followers (Acts 15; the details of this “Apostolic Conference” are also given by Paul in his Letter to the Galatians 2:2-10; note also the reappearance of Peter). Paul encounters James once more, according to Acts, when Paul visits Jerusalem for the last time and is questioned by James regarding allegations that he has been telling Jews to abandon Torah observance (Acts 21:18-21).

Paul himself is a source of valuable information about James. It is through Paul that we know that James had a vision of the risen Christ (1 Cor. 15:7). Though we have no details of the encounter in the New Testament, a second-century, apocryphal gospel known as the Gospel of the Hebrews, gives a narrative account of the episode. Paul also relates how he first met James (and Peter) in Jerusalem during a two-week stay several years after he had received his own vision of the risen Jesus (Gal. 1:19). Paul considered James to be one of the three “pillars” of the Jerusalem community along with Peter and John (Gal. 2:9).

Though the Letter of James in the New Testament is traditionally ascribed to James, the brother of Jesus, his authorship is doubtful. That being said, we come to the end of the information on James available to us from the New Testament. For more information, we must consult other historical works.

An account of the history of the early Christ-faith was prepared by a second-century, Jewish Christ-believer known as Hegesippus. His five-volume “Memoirs” apparently contained all sorts of information about the early church and its preaching. I say “apparently” because the work is mostly lost to us. A few passages from it were quoted by the fourth-century Christian historian Eusebius of Caesarea, in a text we do have. Fortunately, the Hegesippus passages preserved in Eusebius’s Church History are mostly about James.

Continue reading “The Death of James, the Brother of Jesus” →

Recently, the United Methodist General Conference for 2019 passed a controversial piece of legislation called The Traditional Plan which essentially affirms “the church’s current bans on ordaining LGBTQ clergy and officiating at or hosting same-sex marriage” (www.umnews.org). Supporters characterized the plan as adhering to “biblical” values. Members who supported a more liberal plan, called The One Church Plan, were disappointed and discouraged. Students, faculty, and staff on my campus have been asked to sign a petition by The Freedom Center for Social Justice that condemns the UM decision citing “Christ’s frustrations with religious conservatives” as a model for action.

Discussions such as the one being conducted in the United Methodist Church, and in many Christian churches, present an excellent opportunity to examine the history of the church’s teaching on same-gender sex. How and why did the earliest Christ-believers address these issues?

During the first decades of the movement founded in the name of Jesus, a small, Jewish sect took their message of Jesus’s messiahship and the imminent end of the age to other Jews and, eventually, to non-Jews throughout the Roman Empire. The original message was simple at first: Repent of your sins, be baptized, receive the Holy Spirit, and wait for the risen Jesus to return and bring about the Kingdom of God (Acts 2:36, 38).

When this message was eventually transmitted from Jewish mouths to non-Jewish ears it was adapted to a somewhat different culture with different requirements. Non-Jews belonged to a culture that was different in many ways from Judaism. For example, religion for non-Jews (pagans, polytheists) did not concern itself with personal beliefs but with ritual practice (known as “cult”): Worship the gods on time and in the right way and one’s religious obligations were satisfied. Jews, on the other hand, were concerned not only with proper cultic practice but with proper behavior as well. Behavioral standards were specified in the Torah (“instruction”; the first five books of the Bible). Christ-believing, Jewish missionaries who brought word of Messiah Jesus to non-Jews had to deal with the fact that non-Jews had no similar moral instruction, the result, they reasoned, of worshiping a variety of gods (“idolatry”). Greek and Roman philosophers did indeed debate moral issues and cultural behavior and often set standards that applied to their philosophical schools but these discussions were limited to the educated elite who had the wherewithal for such reflection. A cultural clash between Jew and pagan was impossible to avoid. In fact, it was already being reenacted everyday somewhere in the Roman Empire.

Hundreds of thousands of Jews had been scattered throughout the empire since before the second-century BCE. They met weekly in their synagogues where they read and discussed Torah and its ethical and moral requirements. It is a historical fact that significant numbers of non-Jews were attracted to the synagogues for this kind of teaching, having few other sources of moral and ethical instruction. Romans valued virtue (generally defined as controlling one’s passions) and it seemed to the non-Jews attending Jewish synagogues that instructions for living a virtuous life could be found in the Jewish Torah. It was largely through these non-Jews, called “God-fearers,” that Christ-believing missionaries reached out into the greater non-Jewish world with their message.

Continue reading “Early Christian Teaching on Same-gender Sex” →