I saw a video interview of Jame Tabor today on the Mythvision podcast which was very interesting to me. Apparently Tabor has been doing a lot of research on James “the Just,” the brother of Jesus mentioned by Paul as well as in other sources. He connects James with the Ebionites, an early Christian group that was more Jewish in orientation than the kind of Christianity that eventually prevailed.
The Ebionites were said to have regarded Jesus as a just man but not God. They may have been part of the early church in Jerusalem, where James was a leader. Tabor makes the case that James, not Peter, was the first recognized head of the church after the death of Jesus. All very intriguing. Tabor is hawking an online course and I may decide to take it.
I remember quite a while ago I reflected on the possibility that the Jerusalem church did not regard Jesus as divine before his resurrection and elevation to God’s “right hand,” and that the Ebionites preserved this tradition after the Jewish wars drove the Jerusalem Christian community into exile abroad.
Tabor’s thesis also has bearing on the debate whether Jesus was an actual historical person.
Yet another thread to follow and see where it leads!
–Alan
Jesus Reconstructed 