[Chicory]

They could have been his cousins, they could have been adopted, Joseph could have been widowed and had children beforehand...

[MHGinTN]

AND the really plausible one, Joseph might have died leaving Mary with a passel of young children who were by the custom of that epoch many sent to be raised by aunts and uncles. By the time Jesus began His ministry, all would have been grown and would be called into family discussions like what might have prompted them as a group of Mother with brothers and sisters coming to the house where He was teaching and urgently seeking an audience with 'the oldest son of Joseph and Mary'.

[metmom]

They could have been his cousins, they could have been adopted, Joseph could have been widowed and had children beforehand...

Maybe, could have, would have, should have, might have been.

Pure foolishness to build a doctrine on nothing more substantial than idle speculation and the convoluted thinking of *Well, the Bible didn't say it DIDN'T happen, therefore we can extrapolate and twist Scripture, teach it as Truth, and create a doctrine and then demand someone disprove it.

Scripture states that Mary and Joseph had sex after Jesus was born and He was part of a large family and it even names His brothers.

It can't be much more clear than that and yet Catholics still desperately cling to the notion that Mary HAD to be a virgin for her WHOLE life.

[PAR35]

Those weren’t the verses with which I was interacting. The precise question here isn’t whether or not he had (half) siblings; it is whether or not they enjoyed normal marital relations after Jesus was born.

[Elsie]

They could have been his cousins, they could have been adopted, Joseph could have been widowed and had children beforehand...

Could is such a WONDERFUL word.

It can be used to introduce DOUBT in all kinds of settings: