Sean Ingham wrote:This is an assertion meant to deal with 70 odd confirmable uses of αδελφος for a non-biological meaning of brother and none to the contrary.
It's not an assertion, it's a matter of standard lexical practice. When you can prove that we have a sufficiently large corpus of Paul's writings on which to make the claims you're making, please provide your evidence. Hundreds of stylistic survey's of the Pauline and deutero-Pauline letters have been conducted, and all of them come up against the limitation of the corpus, which is well recognized in any professional examination. You haven't taken this into account, nor have you provided any evidence substantiating your claim, so it remains unsubstantiated. In contrast, lexical professionals are well aware of the kind of corpus size necessary to make the kind of judgements you want to make, and they are qualified to speak on the subject.
All you need so is show a few confirmable Pauline uses of αδελφος for blood relations.
No we don't. Proper analysis requires that Paul's use of αδελφος be examined in any given context from both a lexical and a syntactical point of view. In this case it appears in a syntactical context which we know from many other texts would naturally be read as a reference to biological kinship. Your focus on the word to the exclusion of this context is an interpretive error.
Actually this is another assertion. You can claim that it is to identify James, but that needs to be established. Honorifics don't necessarily identify as much as honour.
It's not an assertion, because we have plenty of corroborating evidence; many other passages indicating the same form of phrase with the same usage. You can't treat Paul as if he wrote some kind of 'Holy Spirit' language unrelated to the Greek everyone else was using. Your emphasis on what you think Paul meant independent of the evidence of how he would have been understood, is a serious flaw in your reasoning.
The clause before your semicolon is yet another assertion, as is the following clause.
Neither of them are assertions; they are statements made on the basis of standard lexical methodology. You need to prove that if a person uses a word with a specific meaning in 13 cases out of 14, then in the 14th case they must necessarily be using the same meaning. I have already identified this as the prescriptive fallacy, and you have not provided any evidence for your claim that your method of guessing meaning is actually valid.
As I have already pointed out an argument based on the contextualisation from others' use of a specific structure, here "X brother of Y", needs to show that those others use αδελφος sufficiently consistently in a similar manner to Paul to make the contextualisation relevant.
Why? You haven't explained this. What you are suggesting is not standard lexical procedure, and it's not standard lexical procedure because it is not based on an understanding of how languages work. When a particular phrase is found with a specific meaning in a range of texts, then we can be certain that a reader of the phrase would naturally have understood the phrase with that meaning. To assert that they would have read it as having a meaning which is not attested in any texts at all, is an extraordinary claim without any evidence at all. You need actual evidence for your claim.
The relevance of the first part is not transparent.
You are claiming that Paul uses σαρκος every time he wants to identify biological kinship. However, you have not provided evidence for this claim. That's the relevance.
And I'd say at least four cases where σαρκος accompanies biology.
Regardless of how many there are, you haven't provided any evidence that Paul uses σαρκος every time he wants to identify biological kinship.
Jonathan_Burke wrote:* 1 Corinthians 9:5 has merely the plural form of that which is found in Galatians 1:19, so it does not count as evidence for understanding Galatians 1:19
There is no reason to deny evidence. How do you know what οι αδελφοι του κυριου means in order for you to say that "it does not count as evidence for understanding Galatians 1:19"?
You misunderstood David's statement. He's saying that since 1 Corinthians 9:5 uses the same form of phrase as is under contention, you can't use it to support your claim for the phrase in Galatians 1:19. When the meaning of a word or phrase is under contention, we can't say 'Well of course it means A in passage X, because it means A in passage Y'. That's circular reasoning, assuming your conclusion.
Shouldn't "(X) the brother of Y" mean the same thing in the plural?
Indeed. That's the point; it will mean the same thing, but since what it means is under dispute we can't use it as an example of what it means. That's circular. You're saying 'This phrase means X, because in this passage it means X, and in this passage it also means X'.
The only reason to deny it seems to be because it nullifies the only real attempt at getting to a biological relationship, namely the assertion that "X the brother of Y" must entail biological brotherness.
Not at all. The form in 1 Corinthians 9:5 is also found in other passages as a reference to biological kinship.
OK, all one has to do is produce relevant contemporary texts which over-abundantly use αδελφος as Paul does for a non-biological relation and we'll go from there.
Why? You haven't explained this. What you are suggesting is not standard lexical procedure, and it's not standard lexical procedure because it is not based on an understanding of how languages work.
What we have is:
* An abundance of evidence that the phrase Paul uses in Galatians 1:19 would have been understood by readers as a reference to biological kinship
* No evidence that it would have been understood by readers as a reference to fictive kinship
The only objections you have raised to this are personal opinions which are not based on standard lexicographical methodology. Could I ask if you have studied Greek formally, and if so where and for how long? Which standard grammars and lexical guides support the claims you are making? It's significant that none of the contributors here who are actually sufficiently qualified to address this subject have agreed with you.