fantôme profane;3638402 said:
Right. The question is how do you think that Jesus would have felt about that issue? Would he have sided with Paul against the apostles? Against his own brother James the Just?
If we can trust the Q sayings source discerned to be underneath the Synoptics (and its really all we have to go on), Jesus does not appear to have thought all that highly of his own family:
Mark 3:31-35
31 And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. 32 And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you." 33 And he replied, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" 34 And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother."
Matthew 19:29
And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life
Luke 14:26
If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple
Matthew 10:21
Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death
As you can see, he considered his "family" not to be his genetic one but a spiritual one defined by common adherence to the Father's will. He would thus have seen his group of disciples as his "brothers" more properly than an unbelieving genetic brother.
Consider:
Matthew 23:8 ESV
But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.
This is a very universalistic understanding of "brotherhood" that is not limited to nor defined by familial bonds.
He told his disciples to "detach" themselves from the restraints of familial relations: going so far as to use the very strong word "hate".
He taught that those who abandoned their families for the sake of the kingdom would be "blessed".
He even believed that family loyalties could not
ipso facto be relied upon in times of persecution: envisioning brothers betraying brothers to death.
He doesn't look to have been much of a "family" man to me.
This image is corroborated by the traditions underlying the Gospel of John as well:
John 7
Lexham English Bible (LEB)
Jesus’ Brothers Do Not Believe in Him
7 And after these things Jesus was going about in Galilee. For he did not want to go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. 2 Now the feast of the Jews—the feast of Tabernacles—was near. 3 So his brothers said to him, “Depart from here and go to Judea, so that your disciples also can see your works that you are doing. 4 For no one does anything in secret and yet he himself desires to be publicly recognized.[a] If you are doing these things, reveal yourself to the world!” 5 (For not even his brothers believed in him.)
Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles
6 So Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I am testifying about it, that its deeds are evil. 8 You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, because my time is not yet completed. 9 And when he had said these things, he remained in Galilee.
So yes, I could actually see him siding with someone like Paul over James, based upon the fact of him being a genetic "brother" alone. He would have likely seen Paul's controversialist tendencies and passionate nature to have been cut from the same psychological cloth as himself.
James must have distinguished himself later as a disciple for Jesus to admire him. As I said, he seemed to place little value on family bonds and certainly would not have esteemed them. He would have seen James as a true "brother" the minute he believed in him which he evidently ended up doing and doing well I might add based upon his notable stature in the early church.
At least we can't accuse Jesus of nepotism!
Since the two never met in life, we will of course never know so I am only speculating.
