Originally posted by robbie carrobie
The New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967, Vol. IX, p. 337) admits regarding the Greek words adelphoi and adelphai, used at Matthew 13:55, 56, that these “have the meaning of full blood brother and sister in the Greek-speaking world of the Evangelist’s time and would naturally be taken by his Greek reader in this sense. Toward the end of the 4th century (c ...[text shortened]... eated by a Greek font but through the use of certain punctuation symbols, not supported by RHP.
I do not have access to that volume at the present time. There are, indeed, multiple editions of the Catholic Encyclopedia. Some, such as the most recent
Encyclopedia of Catholicism, have been condemned as heretical. The 1917 encyclopedia, however, explicitly states 'Finally, the "brothers of Jesus" are neither the sons of Mary, nor the brothers of Our Lord in the proper sense of the word, but they are His cousins or the more or less near relatives.'
I am not, however, particularly concerned what the
Catholic Encyclopedia (1967) states. Even if Galveston has accurately quoted it and represented the meaning of it (which I doubt), I don't see why this should be important because: 1. an encyclopedia is not a catechism and is not an authority on the faith; 2. Liddell and Scott is the most famous lexicon of the Greek language and is a much more authoritative source.
Also noteworthy from your quotation from Liddel and Scot is the omission of the first reference, why is that? To what does the term initially refer to? brothers and sisters? Are you really being intellectually honest in this instance Conrau?
There is no mystery. I had already acknowledged the first meaning of
adelphos. Of course its original meaning is a brother with the same mother:
delphos is in fact Greek for womb. The fact however is that it does not necessarily mean that and by the time of Koine Greek, I don't think it was even the primary meaning. As a student of Koine Greek, I encountered such alternative meanings quite a few times. The point of my quotation was to illustrate other meanings. There is no underhanded conspiracy here.