Brothers of Jesus


The New Testament describes James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon as brothers of Jesus. Also mentioned, but not named, are sisters of Jesus. Some scholars argue these brothers, especially James, held positions of special honor in the early Christian church.
Catholic, Assyrian, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, as did the Protestant leaders Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Wesley and their respective movements; John Calvin believed it was possible Mary remained a virgin, but believed the scriptural evidence was inconclusive. Those who hold this belief reject the claim Jesus had biological siblings and maintain these brothers and sisters received this designation because of their close association with the nuclear family of Jesus, as either children of Joseph from a previous marriage, or as nephews of either Mary or Joseph.
The literal translation of the words "brother" and "sister" is an objective problem because there are few quotations and because the words have various meanings in the family of Semitic languages, while the Koine Greek in which the New Testament is written likewise uses the words more broadly.
In the 3rd century, biological relatives with a connection to the nuclear family of Jesus, without explicit reference to brothers or sisters, were called the desposyni, from the Greek δεσπόσυνοι, plural of δεσπόσυνος, meaning "of or belonging to the master or lord". The term was used by Sextus Julius Africanus, a writer of the early 3rd century.

Jesus' brothers and sisters

The Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew mention James, Joseph/Joses, Judas/Jude and Simon as brothers of Jesus, the son of Mary. The same verses also mention unnamed sisters of Jesus. Mark tells about Jesus' mother and brothers looking for Jesus. A verse in the Epistle to the Galatians mentions seeing James, "the Lord's brother", and none other of the apostles except Peter, when Paul went to Jerusalem after his conversion. The "brothers of the Lord" are also mentioned, alongside Cephas and the apostles in 1 Corinthians, in which it is mentioned they had wives. Some scholars claim Jesus' relatives may have held positions of authority in the Jerusalem area until Trajan excluded Jews from the new city he built on its ruins.
That the brothers were children of both Mary and Joseph was held by some in the early centuries. The 3rd-century Antidicomarianites maintained that, when Joseph became Mary's husband, he was a widower with six children, and he had normal marital relations with Mary, but they later held Jesus was not born of these relations. Bonosus was a bishop who in the late 4th century held Mary had other children after Jesus, for which the other bishops of his province condemned him. Jovinian, and various Arian teachers such as Photinus held a similar view. When Helvidius proposed it, again in the late 4th century, Jerome, representing the general opinion of the Church, maintained Mary remained always a virgin; he held those who were called the brothers and sisters of Jesus were actually children of Mary's sister, another Mary, whom he considered the wife of Clopas. The terms "brothers" and "sisters" as used in this context are open to different interpretations, and have been argued to refer to children of Joseph by a previous marriage, Mary's sister's children, or children of Clopas, who according to Hegesippus was Joseph's brother, and of a woman who was not a sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

As church leaders

, founder of the Jesus Seminar, says that according to the Gospel of Mark Jesus' mother and brothers were at first skeptical of Jesus' ministry but later became part of the Christian movement. James, "the Lord's brother", presided over the Jerusalem church after the apostles dispersed and other kinsmen probably exercised some leadership among the Christians in the area until the emperor Hadrian built Aelia Capitolina on the ruins of Jerusalem and banished all Jews from there, after which point the Jerusalem Christians were entirely of Gentile origin. Traditionally it is believed the Jerusalem Christians waited out the Jewish–Roman wars in Pella in the Decapolis. The Jerusalem Sanhedrin relocated to Jamnia sometime c. 70.
According to The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, when Peter the Apostle left Jerusalem, it was James who became leader of the church in Jerusalem and was held in high regard by the Jewish Christians. Hegesippus reports he was executed by the Sanhedrin in 62.
Sextus Julius Africanus's reference to "desposyni" is preserved in Eusebius of Caesarea's Ecclesiastical History:
Eusebius has also preserved an extract from a work by Hegesippus, who wrote five books of Commentaries on the Acts of the Church. The extract refers to the period from the reign of Domitian to that of Trajan, and includes the statement that two Desposyni brought before Domitian later became leaders of the churches:

Degree of consanguinity between Jesus and his brothers

The New Testament names James the Just, Joses, Simon, and Jude as the brothers of Jesus.

Etymology

The etymology of the Greek for "brother" is "of the same womb", a-delphys, although in New Testament usage, the Christian and Jewish meaning of "brothers" is wider, and is applied even to members of the same religious community. In the Bible, the Greek words adelphos and adelphe were not restricted to their literal meaning of a full brother or sister nor were their plurals.
There are several views from an early date over whether the Greek term adelphos, applied in these accounts to people described as adelphoi of Jesus, means they were full brothers, half brothers, stepbrothers, or cousins. Helvidius, quoting Tertullian in support of his view, claims the adelphoi were children of Mary and Joseph born after Jesus; yet Jerome replied Tertullian did "not belong to the Church", and he argues the adelphoi were Jesus's cousins. Some scholars consider Helvidius' view as the most natural inference from the New Testament. In support to this it is occasionally noted James as oldest of the brothers takes the name of Joseph's father, when in Bible times the grandson occasionally gets the name of the grandfather.
The term adelphos is distinct from anepsios. Second-century Christian writer Hegesippus distinguishes between those who were anepsioi of Jesus and his adelphoi. However Jesus and his disciples' native language was Aramaic, which could not distinguish between a blood brother or sister and a cousin. Aramaic, like Biblical Hebrew, does not contain a word for "cousin".
In Aramaic and Hebrew, which were inclined to use circumlocutions to point out blood relationships, calling some people "brothers of Jesus" would not have always implied the same biological mother. Scholars and theologians, who assert this view, point out Jesus was called "the son of Mary" rather than "a son of Mary" in his hometown.

Relationship of Jesus' brothers to Mary

By the 3rd century, the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary had become well established; important early Christian theologians such as Hippolytus, Eusebius and Epiphanius defended it. By then the early church did not accept Mary had any children apart from Jesus. Eusebius and Epiphanius held these men were Joseph's sons from former marriage. Epiphanius adds Joseph became the father of James and his three brothers and two sisters with James being the elder sibling. James and his siblings were not children of Mary but were Joseph's children from a previous marriage. Joseph's first wife died; many years later, at the age of eighty, "he took Mary ". According to Epiphanius the Scriptures call them "brothers of the Lord" to confound their opponents. Origen also wrote "according to the Gospel of Peter the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary".
The apocryphal History of Joseph the Carpenter, written in the 5th century and framed as a biography of Joseph dictated by Jesus, describes how Joseph had with his first wife four sons and two daughters. His sons' names were Judas, Justus, James, and Simon, and the names of the two daughters were Assia and Lydia. Years after his first wife died, he took Mary. Therefore, the brothers of Jesus would be the children of Joseph by his first wife.
The Protoevangelium of James explicitly claims Joseph was a widower, with children, at the time that Mary is entrusted to his care.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, citing the texts contained in the apocryphal writings, writes that:
Jerome, another important early theologian, also held the perpetual virginity doctrine, but argued these adelphoi were sons of Mary's sister, whom Jerome identified as Mary of Cleopas. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church mentions a modern scholar, whom it does not identify, has proposed these men were the sons of Clopas and of Mary, the wife of Cleopas.
According to the surviving fragments of the work Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord of the Apostolic Father Papias of Hierapolis, who lived circa 70–163 AD, "Mary the wife of Cleophas or Alphaeus" would be the mother of James the Just, Simon, Judas, and Joseph. Papias identifies this "Mary" as the sister of Mary, mother of Jesus, and thus as the maternal aunt of Jesus. The Anglican theologian J.B. Lightfoot dismissed Papias' evidence as spurious.
The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which was probably written in the seventh century, states the brothers of Jesus were his cousins.
Roman Catholic and Eastern Christianity maintained the doctrine of Early Christianity that Mary was a perpetual virgin; early Protestant leaders, including the Reformer Martin Luther, and Reformed theologian Huldrych Zwingli, also held this view, as did John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism. Eine Christliche Lehrtafel, issued by Anabaptist leader Balthasar Hubmaier, teaches the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary too. Roman Catholics, following Jerome, conclude that the adelphoi were Jesus' cousins, while Eastern Orthodox, following Eusebius and Epiphanius, argue they were Joseph's children by his first wife. But the Catholic Church only defined a doctrine that they are not biological children of Mary; their exact status, either as cousins or stepbrothers, is not defined as a doctrine. Anglicans, Lutherans, and Methodists concur with this view.
Other Christian denominations, such as Baptists, view the adelphoi as Jesus' half-brothers or do not specify, since the accounts in the Gospels do not speak of Mary's relationship to them but only to Jesus. Certain critical scholars of the Jesus Seminar say the doctrine of perpetual virginity has obscured recognition that Jesus had full brothers and sisters.
In the Hebrew Book of Genesis, all the other sons of Jacob are repeatedly called brothers of Joseph, although they were children of different mothers. Similarly, Abram called his nephew Lot a brother. Also, the Second Book of Samuel describes Tamar as a sister both of Amnon and of Absalom, two of David's sons by different mothers.

Family trees and pedigrees

Explanations of the true relationship of the "brothers" of Jesus within his immediate nuclear family fall primarily into several categories. The first, called "the most natural inference from the New Testament" by the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, is that the brothers of Jesus may have been sons of Mary and Joseph, born after Christ:
Because of the conflict of this reconstruction with the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary, several alternatives are common. Epiphanius made them children of Joseph by a former marriage:
Other reconstructions would make them more distant relatives, the children of 'Mary, mother of James and Joses' by Clophas, though these are linked to Mary and Joseph in different ways. St. Jerome would have this Mary be a sister of the Virgin Mary:
A modern reconstruction would likewise make them cousins, but rather than having the two Marys be siblings, it would follow Hegesippus in making Clophas brother of Joseph:

Rejection of Jesus

According to the Synoptic Gospels, and particularly the Gospel of Mark, Jesus was once teaching a large crowd near the home of his own family, and when this came to their attention, his family went to see him and "they" said that Jesus was "…out of his mind."
In the narrative of the Synoptic Gospels, and of the Gospel of Thomas, when Jesus' mother and adelphoi are outside the house that Jesus is teaching in, Jesus tells the crowd that whoever does what God wills would constitute his mother and adelphoi. According to Kilgallen, Jesus' answer was a way of underlining that his life had changed to the degree that his family were far less important than those that he teaches about the Kingdom of God. The Gospel of John states that Jesus' adelphoi did not believe in him, because he would not perform miracles with them at the Feast of Tabernacles.
Some scholars have suggested the portrayal in the Gospel of Mark of the initial rejection of Jesus by his family may be related to the tension between Paul and Jewish Christians, who – according to them – held Jesus' family in high regard, for example at the Council of Jerusalem.
Karl Keating says that in Jewish culture younger brothers never rebuked, or even advised, their elders, for it was considered great disrespect to do so; but in Mark 3:21, also in John 7:3–4, Jesus' brothers are shown doing that.

Absence of Jesus' brothers

There are some events in scripture where brothers or sisters of Jesus are not shown, e.g., when Jesus was lost in the Temple and during his crucifixion. This is argued to support the view that "brothers" of Jesus are not blood brothers or siblings, although some reject this.
reports the visit of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem when Jesus was 12 years old but does not mention any siblings. Robert Eisenman is of the belief Luke sought to minimise the importance of Jesus' family by whatever means possible, editing James and Jesus' brothers out of the Gospel record. Keating argues Mary and Joseph rushed without hesitation straight back to Jerusalem when they realized Jesus was lost, which they would surely have thought twice about doing if there were other children to look after.
The Gospel of John records the, i.e., the pair of commands "Woman, behold your son!" and "Behold, thy mother!", then states "from that hour the disciple took her unto his own home". Since the era of the Church Fathers this statement has been used to reason that after the death of Jesus there were no other biological children to look after Mary, and she had to be entrusted to the disciple. Constantine Zalalas argues it would have been against Jewish custom for Jesus to give his mother to the care of the disciple if Mary had other living sons, because the eldest son would always take responsibility for his mother. Karl Keating says, "It is hard to imagine why Jesus would have disregarded family ties and made this provision for his Mother if these four were also her sons". Pope John Paul II also says the command "Behold your son!" was the entrustment of the disciple to Mary in order to fill the maternal gap left by the death of her only son on the cross. Vincent Taylor points out difficulties in this interpretation of the text: it ignores both the fact that Jesus' brothers opposed his claims, and the position of honour of John, the beloved disciple.