No amount of Failures will ever prove Success is Impossible.

That is my opinion as an optimist, and it's why it's so annoying how often discissions about Communism in a Facebook group just come down to the Anti-Communist treating every failure of every ML State as the ultimate trump card.  I have no interest in defending or excusing them since no matter how I feel about them our objectives for the future should be to build something new.

It's doubly annoying when it happens in specifically a Christian group, all the Christian Facebook Groups I'm in are espousing fairly niche currently outside the mainstream forms of Christianity.  So we should all agree that no Church serving as the mainstream majority religion of it's Nation has ever succeeded in being what Jesus intended The Church to be, if not I feel you have fairly impure notions of what The Church is supposed to be.

So if all those failures don't debunk Christianity then the same should go for Communism.  And so when I start arguing to you that The Bible supports Communism, ranting about all the people Mao killed is NOT a Sola Scriptura response.  The failures of Atheistic Communism certainly do not debunk Christian Communism.

And claiming there have been no successful Communist Societies is predicated on limiting that discussion to States founded upon Marxism, more specifically in fact Leninism.  It ignores the existence of Anarcho-Communist societies that have existed in many forms both Christian like the Anabaptists and Secular.

Capitalism has incredibly obvious and unavoidable conflicts with Christian values.  So The Christian response to the failures of Secular Communist Societies should be how can we use Christian values to avoid repeating those failures.

Seleucia on The Tigris is Babylon of 1 Peter 5:13.

 Seleucus Nicator founded Seleucia in 305 BC, in order to quickly make it a Metropolis he forced most of the population of Babylon to resettle there, there is a tablet dated to 275 BC recording this.  It spent very little time as the actual Capitol of the Seleucid Empire, but it did spend most of the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC as a larger city then Antioch.

Diogenes of Babylon was a Stoic Philosopher commonly referred to as being "of Babylon" but he was actually born in Seleucia and neither city is where he spent most of his life, he was educated in Athens and obviously mostly lived there during his time as head of the Stoic School based in Athens until he died around 150-140 BC.

1 Maccabees 6:4 and 2 Maccabees 8:20 call a City in Mesopotamia Babylon even though it's population is Macedonian.

In 141 BC the Parthian Empire took it from the Seleucids and made it their western capital, but it remained a fully Hellenistic city.

Josephus's references to the city confirm that even the remaining Jewish diaspora of Babylon were in fact mostly living in Seleucia during the first century.  The Jews of Seleucia and other northern Mesopotamian cities revolted during the Kitos War. That of course was a factor in Trajan destroying the City in it's original form in 117 AD.

Hadrian gave Babylonia back to Parthia however and they then quickly rebuilt Seleucia in a Parthian style.  That version of the city was destroyed by Avidius Cassius during another war between Rome and Parthia in 165 AD.  It then became a Sassanian city commonly called Seleucia-Ctesiphon.  This city became the seat of the leading Bishop of the Ancient Church of The East who was formally called the Patriarch of Babylon.

If people really find it so unlikely Peter was in actual Babylon when he wrote his First Epistle simply because some first century sources make it sound like it was a mostly abandoned ruin already, then Seleucia is probably where he was.  It was home to an important Jewish population and Paul calls Peter the Apostle to The Jews in Galatian 2:8.

The idea that Peter said "Babylon" in place of "Rome" to fool Roman officials who might read the letter is stupid.  

1. He doesn't actually say anything bad about where he is, it's only the negative connotations the name of Babylon often has in the Judeo-Christian mind that makes it seem that way.

2. Roman customs officials would have known where the letter was actually mailed from.  So using an easy to interpret as insulting name instead of the real name would have only caused problems.

If Peter meant by Babylon a city other then the exact same city where Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar ruled, it would have been the one other similar Greek texts were calling Babylon during the Greco-Roman Era due to being the regional capital and largest city of the region called Babylonia.

The Curse of Balal was lifted at Pentecost

 It's common for Fundamentalist Christians, particularly ones who are Conspiracy Theorists, to argue against the concept of Globalism by pointing to Genesis 11, Global Government is evil because it's a do over of the Tower of Babel.

The thing is this ignores how much of The New Testament is about Jesus and The Holy Spirit through The Church undoing the various curses inflicted upon mankind because of our sins over the course of the Book of Genesis (and beyond).  Culminating in us returning to Eden in Revelation 21-22.

And the undoing of the confusion of tongs in Genesis 11 is explicitly one of the things Acts 2 is about.  And we later see in Corinthians that in addition to a spiritual gift for speaking in other Tongs there is a also a gift for interpreting tongs.

In Romans 11 Paul explains that God is going to graft the fullness of the Gentile Nations into Israel and THEN All of Israel will be Saved.  In Revelation 21 the Gates of New Jerusalem are never closed and all the nations bring their treasures into it.

The main person speaking in Acts 2 is Peter who in his First Epistle tells us he is now at Babylon.

And the Veil being torn in The Temple when Jesus was on The Cross symbolized Man no longer being separated from God. At Pentecost we became His Temple.

None of this means I'm enthusiastic about the Capitalist Global Government the Billionaires and Mega-Corporations are trying to impose on us.  But that's a Socio-Economic issue not a National Sovereignty issue.

Objecting to Globalization simply on the grounds of saying "God divided the nations at Babel" displays a really insulting Biblical illiteracy.

For those confused by the title of this post.  It is partly a Symphogear reference, I think I might be the only Western Symphogear fan who knows that Balal is the Hebrew word for Confusion used in the text of Genesis 11.  The comments section on Crunchyroll I remember assumed it was a reference to Baal.

The Star of David, Occult or Hebrew?

The Star of David, also called the Shield of David or Magen David, is a six pointed star that is a popular symbol in modern Judaism, it appears on the flag of modern Israel.

It is also a Hexagram/Sexagram, which is a symbol the Occult uses, in Freemasonry and other traditions it's called the Seal of Solomon.  This fact is often pointed out to smear the symbol, including by myself in the past.

Thing is, Satan commonly takes and corrupts Godly symbols.  And some of the Christians most determined to use this symbol similarity to smear modern Judaism and modern Israel are all for using the contrived Pillar of Enoch mythology to claim the Great Pyramid of Giza as a Godly symbol.

To start with, claiming the symbol's affiliation with Judaism began with the Rothschild family is simply false, there are known Jewish usages of the symbol that predate the 18th Century (when Mayer Rothschild and his father Moses Baur lived).  There is evidence that early Kariates had used it, those are Jews deliberately rebelling against Rabbinic and Kabalistic traditions.  The Book Art in Ancient Palestine (which can be found on Amazon) documents six pointed stars being found in Archaeological sites in Ancient Israel.

170. Kafr Yasīf III. L. f. Page 326
The report in Qobeṣ speaks of panels containing doves, serpents, cups, various fruits, a six-pointed star, &c.; intertwined crosses said to be later additions.

172. Khān El Ahmar XVIII. O. t. Page 327
Field: circle within square, the borders interlacing eight times, four times by a simple knot, in corners loops of type I 9. In circle six-pointed star, with trefoils filling the space between its re-entrant angles and the circumference.
--
Avi-Yonah, M. Art in Ancient Palestine: Selected Studies. Ed. Hannah Katzenstein and Yoram Tsafrir. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1981. Print.

It's popular to imagine the symbol being mentioned in The Bible negatively as the Star of Chiun in Amos 5:26 also called the Star of Rempham in Acts 7:43.  I think that reference is about actual worship of the Planet Saturn, (Chiun coming from the Akadian Kawanu, and the Babylonians called it Sukkot/Tabernacle, and Rempham comes from Repa a Coptic name for Saturn).  The Greeks tended to identify the main El the Pagan Canaanites worshiped with Kronos, who was Saturn to the Romans.

But if critics of the Symbol can read it into a Bible verse that just says "star" with no indicator of how many points it's depicted as having.  Then a supporter of the symbol can just as validly see it in the Star out of Jacob of Numbers 24:17, a Prophecy that refers first to David but ultimately to The Messiah.  Or for Christians the Star of Bethlehem, which we've often linked to the Star out of Jacob.

But what has become interesting to me lately is the Biblical significance of Lilies.  Hosea 14:5 uses The Lily as a symbol of Israel in a Prophecy of Israel's restoration.  The Song of Solomon uses it of Shulamith.  1 Kings 7:19&22 says the tops of the Pillars of Solomon's Temple were of Lily Work.

Lilies have 3 pedals and 3 sepedals that can look like pedals.  A Hexagram is a six pointed star that looks like two superimposed triangles.  Because of this Lilies can often look kind of like Hexagrams.  In fact there is a plant named Solomon's seal (Polygonatum multiflorum) in the lily family.  I've even seen in Japanese Anime (like YuriKuma Arashi) examples of lilies looking Hexagram like where making a Jewish reference was not likely the Author's intent.

So maybe The Lily is the key to figuring out where the Star of David/Seal of Solomon came from?

One element of this I originally didn't want to include is how people say this has something to do with the Number of the Beast.  But I decided I should address that.

The Number of The Beast from the last verse of Revelation 13 is Six Hundred and Sixty Six.  Not Six-Six-Six.  So no, not every usage of the number 6 is about the Mark of The Beast.  And that is all that should need to be said to refute that absurdity.

Six is a number that is used positively sometimes in Scripture.  12 and 24 and 72, and 144,000 are numbers that are multiples of Six.  The Sixth day of a Biblical Week was the preparation day for The Sabbath.  Which I'd argued in the past was the day Jesus was buried, but I've also recently become more open to a Friday Crucifixion model. Adam was created on the 6th Day, Jesus is the Last Adam.

However the importance the symbol has to modern Judaism is also as an act of reclamation, how it was used by the Nazis to mark for Persecution and ultimately extermination.  (Something which makes me rethink how intentional the Star's appearance in YuriKuma was since it definitely used the Pink Triangle intentionally.)

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/jewish-badge-during-the-nazi-era

So those who want to go again seeing the symbol as proof of the Evilness of Judaism or Zionism are unwittingly agreeing with the Nazis.

The Vexations of an Anti-Origen Universalist

I don't have any personal problem with Origen, I'm sure he was a nice guy and a Faithful follower of Jesus.  But as far as internal disagreements between Christians go Universal Salvation is about the only thing I agree with him on.  

He played an important role in the development of so many Middle Platonist/Neopythagorean tendencies that I consider at the root of everything wrong with Mainstream Christianity.  From his weird views on The Resurrection and the Immortality of the Soul to Divine Transcendence and Immutability and Impassability to Ascetism and Puritanical Sexual Morality and Infant Baptism and Free Will and his hyper allegorical approach to Scripture not to mention the Proto-Arianism in his Logos Doctrine founded on the bad Septuagint translation of Proverbs 8:22-25.

I recently purchased A Larger Hope?, Volume 1 by Ilaria L. E. Ramelli off Amazon and found it very frustrating.  I feel it's counterproductive for Universalists to play along with the idea that Origen is the main character in the history of Universalism.  Because if everyone after Origen is getting it directly or indirectly from Origen then that weakens the doctrine, if it all goes back to one guy who was controversial even while he was alive being exiled from Alexandria by it's actual Bishop, that's not a good look.  Not to even mention how that narrative reinforces the Great Man Theory of History.

Even when talking about people before Origen she says it's not "fully developed" yet.  To me the Doctrine of Universal Salvation is fully developed by Scripture itself, it's departing from it that required post Biblical Theological innovations, and the main Pre-Nicene culprits I blame for laying the groundwork are Tatian (who said he was Anti-Plato even though his theology was identical to contemporary Middle Platonism and was Proto-Arian in the same way Origen was) then Tertullian perhaps unintentionally and Cyprian of Carthage.  But the different forms of Infernalism are fully developed during the Theodosian era by Augustine of Hippo, Pelagius of Britannia, John Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria.

What we need to stress is not just that the earliest critics of Origen didn't include his Universalism in their critiques of him but that Methodius of Olympus is even teaching Universal Salvation in the exact same text he wrote to refute Origen On The Resurrection.  If Origen taught Universal Salvation more clearly and explicitly then anyone prior to him, it may be in response to Cyprian being the first to teach that there is no Salvation outside The Church.

Because the thing is those first Theodosian enemies of Universal Salvation were weaponizing the association with Origen from the start, Pelegius explicitly said when defending himself that anyone who accepts a face value reading of Romans 5 is an Origenist and that is why that council exonerated him.  Ironically I feel Arminians should stop embracing Pelegius for the same reasons, the association of Pelegius with Arminianism began as a Calvinist attack on Arminainism.

When Ramelli gets to discussing the Antiochene School even then she still wants to define their Universal Salvation as being argued with arguments similar to Origen's.  But it was that school that was founded on opposition to Origen's influence being the opposite of him in their approach to Scripture.  That they taught Universal Salvation even more clearly and unambiguously should be the death nail to labeling it as inherently Origenist.

She also began her discussion of Antioch with Diodorus of Tarsus.  Theophilus of Antioch taught Universal Salvation in the 2nd Century and died around the same time Origen was born.  And then there is the representative of Antioch at the Council of Nicaea, Eustathius of Antioch.

Eustathius is one of the least talked about major theologians of the Fourth Century, and thus his absence from Ramelli's book was one of my major disappointments with it.  The most in-depth discussion of Eustathius I've found was an article titled The Theological Anthropology of Eustathius of Antioch by Sophie Hampshire Cartwright.  Thing is I can't find that PDF simply googling it anymore which is why I'm glad I'd downloaded it.  

This article talks about how firmly Anti-Origen Eustathius was, however my main criticism of it is when it talks about Universal Salvation starting on page 370.  It acknowledges the Universalist implications of a lot of what Eustathius taught, yet insists he ultimately didn't believe in Universal Salvation because he referred to "Aionios Punishments" and "unquenchable fire" even though both those Biblical concept are acknowledged by all Biblical Universalists.  Aionios means "The Age" not Eternal and refers to when the Punishments happen not for how long, the Fire is described as Unquenchable to tell us about the Fire itself not how long anyone will be in it, the Fire is the very presence of God, it is the Baptism of The Holy Spirit.

It also talks about Eustathius as a bit of a Proto-Nestorian showing that his connection to the later Antiochene School isn't just a coincidence of location.

Athanasius of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea were both fans of Origen to some extent.  And even Gregory of Nyssa had also probably read Origen but is still not following some of his more out there ideas.  In fact the Alexandrians were probably the first in the East to depart from Universal Salvation as we see with Cyril of Alexandria who had at one point thought even Augustine was too merciful.  

And the relationship between Origenism and Caesarea has a nuance I feel many overlook.  Theophilus of Caesarea was the teacher of Clement same as Clement was the teacher of Origen, so they could have got it from Caesarea rather then the other way around, then awkwardly mixed it with their Platonism which was very native to Alexandria.

It is I suppose also important to me to stress that Origen's belief in Universal Restoration was in-spite of his interest in Platonism not because of it.  The traditional view of Hell is another mainstream Christian Doctrine that comes from Platonism not Scripture being taught in Gorgias.  Plato may not have meant it to be taken literally, but Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism were all about taking Plato literally and nothing else.

But the final act of my rant here shall be about what Salvation even is to Origen.  

Origen's Salvation involves everything becoming one with God in a way that implies a loss of individuality.  It likely has it's Biblical roots in Ecclesiastes 12:7, but that verse is about what happens at physical death, Christians who have a proper Understanding of The Resurrection believe that is undone at The Resurrection, to Origen however it seems that Resurrection is only a step in making that happen.  The only time Origen's ideas resemble Stoicism is the one aspect of Stoic Metaphysics I consider incompatible with The Bible.

What Origen believed about the ultimate destiny of every Human Soul doesn't sound like Salvation to me at all, it sounds like the Human Instrumentality Project.... and that's the real reason I hate Origenism so much, talking about it causes me to make a Neon Genesis Evangelion reference.

The Gospel is the Bodily Resurrection, that we all live Forever with God in a perfectly restored but still Material and Physical Universe.

I've changed my views on Bible Prophecy

 Here's my new Prophecy Blog.

https://materialisteschatology.blogspot.com/2023/10/launching-my-new-prophecy-blog.html

I figured I should let followers of this Blog know since my views on Prophecy are occasionally mentioned here.

Update December 4th 2023: I'm also redoing here some posts that weren't really specifically about Eschatology all that much to begin with.

A theory about the Death of James The Just, The brother of Jesus

According to a passage found in existing manuscripts of Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews, (xx.9) "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" met his death after the death of the procurator Porcius Festus, yet before Lucceius Albinus took office (Antiquities 20,9) — which has been dated to 62 A.D.. The High Priest Hanan ben Hanan (Anani Ananus in Latin) took advantage of this lack of imperial oversight to assemble a Sanhedrin (although the correct translation of the Greek synhedion kriton is "a council of judges"), who condemned James "on the charge of breaking the law," then had him executed by stoning. Josephus reports that Hanan's act was widely viewed as little more than judicial murder and offended a number of "those who were considered the most fair-minded people in the City, and strict in their observance of the Law," who went as far as meeting Albinus as he entered the province to petition him about the matter. In response, King Agrippa II replaced Ananus with Jesus son of Damneus.

But early Christian tradition (recounted in Hegesippus as related by Eusebius) says James was thrown off the Temple in 66-70 AD.  Simeon becoming the second Bishop of Jerusalem is consistently dated to that time. Later post Constantine Christian historians tried awkwardly to reconcile these accounts.

Also, some skeptics of the Historicity of Jesus insist that "who was called Christ" is a latter addition not in Jospehus's original.  But the majority of legitimate scholars reject that.

However, a poster on IMDB who's username was austenw (who doesn't view The Bible to be inerrant) had an interesting theory that it's the name of James that was added latter.

 it's a matter of Greek grammar; the sentence reads:

    "Ananus ...brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was named Christ - James his name - and some others;"

In this quotation, blue = nominative (subject); red = accusative (object), green = genitive (possessive), purple = dative (a difficult one to define, but can be a bit like possessive).

Crucially, the words "his name, James" in the nominative, does not fit into the architecture of the sentence; it could be removed without altering the grammar whatsoever, between the two accusatives "the brother" and "some others".

More importantly, however, the "traditional" theory - that the name James is original and the reference to Jesus is the interpolation - simply can't be correct, because were this to be so, then "James" would have had to have originally been in the accusative, or else he wouldn't have been knit into the architecture of the sentence at all, and the "[was] his name" would have been entirely redundant. This means that the supposed interpolator would have had to go to the trouble of changing a perfectly acceptable accusative case for "James" to the nominative case, and adding "his name", and for no reason whatsoever. Why bother to do this, when he could simply have added the clause "the brother (accusative).. etc", after the name?

However, if "James [was] his name" was originally a marginal note - written in the nominative, playing no grammatical part within the sentence - all makes sense. A later scribe included the marginal note, verbatim, in the only place he could - after the words "the brother of Jesus called Christ" - since nowhere else would have done.

 So basically that would mean it was possibly another Brother of Jesus (not named by Josephus) who was stoned in 62 A.D.  But someone leaving a marginal note later assumed it was the most famous of them.

Two of Jesus half brothers are known to have served as Bishop of Jerusalem. first James from the beginning of the Church until whenever he died. Then Simon from around 69 (Traditions agree he became Bishop just before the Destruction of the Second Temple) till 107 A.D.

We don't know much about Joses or Jude however.  Jude we know had later descendants, two grandchildren who were alive during the reign of Domitian, and Judah Kyriakos who was the last Jewish Bishop of Jerusalem. Though the start of his period as bishop of Jerusalem is not known, Judah is said to have lived beyond the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-136), up to about the eleventh year of Antoninus Pius (148 A.D.) though Marcus was appointed bishop of Aelia Capitolina in 135.

Matthew 27:56 refers to some of the Women at the Cross when Jesus was crucified.  "Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children."  Mark 15:40-161 refers to the same first two women, but the third is simply a woman named Salome, (the only time that name is used in the New Testament).  Luke doesn't name the women at all.  John's Gospel in chapter 19 alone informs us clearly that Mary the Mother of Jesus was there.

Joses is a shortened form of Joseph.  The only other Joseph refereed to as Joses in The Gospels is the half-brother of Jesus (and an ancestor of Jesus in Luke's genealogy).  At face value John's Gospel is the only one that obviously tells us the Mother of Jesus was among those women. 

I think in Matthew and Mark, the Mary mother of James and Joses is the same as the Mother of Jesus, but why is she not refereed to as such?  Maybe because of the events of Matthew 12-13 and Mark 6 the narrative voice ceases to refer to Jesus biological relatives as such after he effectively temporarily disowns them.

Why name only two of her four other Sons?  Who knows, but in Mark later references to clearly the same Woman refer to only one.  James and Joses are the two oldest in the list of Jesus brothers.

As far as the more popular view of making the mother of James and Joses the same as Mary the Wife of Cleophas/Clopas.  Cleophas/Clopas I feel is likely the disciple (probably one of the 70 but not one of the 12) Cleopas from Luke 14, the Road to Emmaus.  He's probably the same generation as the 12.

That view conflicts with making this person the same as the Alpheaus who is the father of the James and Jude among the 12.  Cleopas being a parent of any among the 12 is unlikely.  The tradition making Clopas the brother of Joseph has it's origin among those early fathers seeking to deny the siblings of Jesus were of Mary.

Certain authors devising alternative history theories have sought to say that Joseph of Arimathea was an uncle of Jesus, and one that he was the same person as James the half-brother of Jesus.  Logically it would make more sense if you want to make him a half-brother of Jesus to go with Joses.

Joseph of Arimathea is introduced in essentially the same narrative that deals with the Women at the Cross.  I think it would make sense to use the full name when referring to him and the shortened form when referring to someone else as a relative of him.  The last verse of Mark 15 refers to Mary only as the mother of Joses while finishing the narrative of Joseph of Airmathea arranging the burial of Jesus.

There is also the fact that this responsibility Joseph of Arimathea takes, burying the body, is one that in Jewish Custom belonged to the nearest living relatives.

The only problem with that theory is that the traditional assumption is none of Jesus brothers became Believers till after the Resurrection.  We know none were when John 7 occurs, half a year before the Crucifixion.  That fact refutes any theory reliant on making any of the 12 Disciples the same as any of the people refereed to as his siblings (a strategy used by some both for and against them being children of Mary).

But a lot can change in 6-7 months.

He could have moved from Nazareth to Arimathea (I agree with the theory that NT Arimathea is one of the OT Ramah or Ramaths, or perhaps Ramoth which was in Issachar in 1 Chronicles 6:73 and thus near Nazareth), sometime after their father died. But it's also possible Arimathea was an epithet not meant to identify a city, there is a lot of speculation involved here.

If Joses was Joseph of Airmathea then he was in the Sanhedrin.  Antiquities 20.9 does not explicitly say this half brother of Jesus was a Sanhedrin member, but the over all theme of Josephus in depicting these murders leading up to 70 AD is about people that were prominent but against doing a violent revolution against Rome.

Catholics like to argue the references to these four brothers and unnamed sisters are using the words loosely, referring to cousins or close friends or something.  The Greek words for brother and sister are sometimes used in similar senses, I've seen interesting theories about Lazarus, Martha and Mary of Bethany, but context tells us the difference.

Mark 6 is about contrasting a strict literal definition to one that widens it.  As I said above Jesus effectively disowns His biological family who didn't yet believe in Him, and said His true family are those who believe in Him.

And if the New Testament writers felt this word for brother could apply to a cousin, as is popularly suggested.  Why not use it of John The Baptist who is more undisputedly then anyone else in The Gospel narrative a cousin of Jesus?  Maybe they'd say he's not a first cousin, he'd be second at the closest.

Another attempt to reconcile this with the perpetual virginity heresy is to say they are sons Joseph had by a different wife.  Because these same people are uncomfortable with acknowledging polygamy still went on in Judaism at this time, they insist a wife who died before he married Mary.  But if Jesus isn't the First-Born Son legally to both parents then He isn't the rightful Heir to David.  Yes a younger son superseding the actual First-Born is a common theme in Scripture, but if Jesus were an example of that the Gospel writers, especially Matthew, would have stressed it.  Those supercedings happen to help show how God doesn't really care about the formalities of The Law.  But Jesus himself had to be a perfect fulfillment of The Law.

The wording in Mark 6 of "the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him."  Starts with Mary and doesn't even mention Joseph (who is generally theorized to have died by then).  That tells me these siblings are siblings via being also sons and daughters of that same Mary.

Some will use that James the Brother of Jesus is called an Apostle by Paul in Galatians to prove he's one of the 12.  I already showed why these individuals can't be counted among the 12.  Apostle applied to any eye witness of the Resurrection.  Which is why Paul used it of himself calling himself the last Apostle.  And in Roman 16 identifies as among the Apostles a couple not even mentioned anywhere else in Scripture.  Paul also distinguishes this James from the 12 in 1 Corinthians 15.

Matthew 1:25 says of Joseph.  "And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son." This verse isn't just saying he didn't know her before, it also clearly tells us he did know her after.