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"Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?" (Mt. 13:55-56). Mary was very busy and had a lot more than these few children, didn't she?

After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once... (1Cor 15:6)

And that doesn't even include all his sisters.

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Which Bible are you using? I can find the common usage of "Brethren" in the KJV and Douay-Rheims. All modern "approved" versions use "Brother" in Matt 13:55.

Let's look a little closer at Matt. 13:

54 Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?" they asked.

55 "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?

56 Aren't all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?"
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Coming to his hometown there were so few "brothers" in his hometown that they could be named individually???

They could not, of course, have been among these hometown "brothers"?????? Who were they then, sisters or strangers who just happened to visit the synagogue?

As for 1 Corinthians, read all of it for context, then twist it to imply "brethren" or "brothers" are used in the same way as in Matthew 13. Good job!

Coming to his hometown there were so few "brothers" in his hometown that they could be named individually??? They could not, of course, have been among these hometown "brothers"?????? Who were they then, sisters or strangers who just happened to visit the synagogue?

Reggie I don't think anybody is arguing that just any old person from Jesus' hometown is being called a "Brother" of him in this context. The use of "Brother" in this setting is to refer to (pay attention now) related people, that is "kin," who are not actually sprung from the same uterus.

Please stop arguing against this "hometowners=brothers" strawman.

As for 1 Corinthians, read all of it for context, then twist it to imply "brethren" or "brothers" are used in the same way as in Matthew 13. Good job!

Oh my. I apologize if you have the impression that my post was meant to show that "brethren" had the same meaning in both 1Cor and Matt 13. I was attempting to demonstrate, in a humorous example, that the word did not have the same meaning in each of these passages. I guess I need to be very careful around you folks, and type really slowly.