Vanity: An argument that James was not Jesus' brother

One Protestant argument is that the word, "first-born" implies that there were others born later. That's simply false, and not worthy of serious consideration. We see the word "first-born" used for only children throughout history; it signifies status as a preferred heir.

The Protestant argument I want to address is that the bible specifically mentions that Jesus had brothers (Mark 6:3: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? Are not his sisters here with us?")

The Catholic counter-argument is that these are Jesus' cousins. Hebrew culture does not distinguish between brothers and cousins, and even lacks a word for "cousin." Greek does have a word for cousin, but often uses the word "adelphi," the word used in the bible, to refer to cousins.

Protestants are unswayed by this, pointing out that it's odd to use the word to mean male cousins and female cousins separately in the same context. But would it be wierd for a Jew, thinking in Hebrew, to do so? The Greeks have always treated the Bible as if it were written in perfect classical Greek, but isn't it likely that a Greek-speaking Jewish culture would "over-translate" certain words? I remember reading in "Confessions," that in sinful younger years, St. Augustine had contempt for the gospels because they were filled with what he considered poor grammar. It would be such a help for the Catholic argument if it could be asserted that Jesus did, in fact, have cousins with those names.

John 19:25 lists the women at the cross of Jesus as "his [Jesus'] mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the [wife] of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene."

In other words, you have three "Marys:" Jesus' mother (who I'll call BVM, for "the Blessed Virgin Mary," Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. The King James bible actually gets it right with the punctuation: John always puts the word "and" (trans. of "kai") between each item in a list. So, we know that "his mother's sister, Mary the [wife] of Cleophas" is actually one person.

This seems strange. How could a woman named Mary have a sister named Mary? That simply wasn't done! Well, in ancient times, there was no concept of an "in-law." Mary of Cleophas was apparently BVM's sister-in-law.

From the books of Luke, Matthew and Mark, we find that there is again another "Mary" at the resurrection. This Mary is defined as the "mother of James the lesser and of Joses." (Mt 27:56)

James the less also has a brother named Jude, according to Luke 6:16: "and Judas, [the brother] of James." We can't be mixing up Jameses either, because Luke 6:14 pairs the other James up with John. We know the other James is the brother of John. For instance, Matthew 4:21 refers to, "...James [the son] of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father."

So, we have James, Joses and Judas who are sons of a woman named Mary who is not the mother of Jesus. And we know that we have at the same time a sister-in-law of the mother of Jesus who is also named Mary. But don't we know that James, Joses and Judas are sons of Alphaeus? How could they be sons of Mary, the wife of Cleophas?

Here's where the business of translation gets tricky. The King James bible calls James, "the [son] of Alphaeus." Why the brackets? Because the word, "son" does not appear in the original text. James is simply James of Alphaeus. Judas is simply Judas of James. Mary is simply Mary of Cleophas.

[Actually, that's Mary of "Clopas," in fact. The "e" and the "h" are inventions of the King James Bible. The authors of the King James bible sometimes changed names to distinguish between two people of the same name. For example, Judas the saint became known as Jude, while Judas Iscariot remained Judas. Why change "Clopas" into "Cleophas?" One of the disciples on the road to Emmaus was named Clopas, and there's no reason to doubt he's Mary's husband.]

While we know Clopas is a person, there is a city called Alphaeus in Northern Palestine. It seems odd for Jesus to have in-laws from that far North, but it seems stranger still for a Jew to be given the Greek name of a city. So, the two disciples who are called "[sons] of Alphaeus" are probably simply from Alphaeus.

In any event, we know that one apostle James is James of Alphaeus, and brother of Judas and Joses. We know the other James cannot possibly be the brother of Jesus, because he is the son of Zebedee. And in this case, we know that Zebedee is the name of James' father, because we meet him in Matthew 4:21, fixing the boat.

So, at this point, it seems more than likely that Jesus had cousins named James, Joses and Judas, and that neither James is Jesus' brother.

Not so long ago, newspaper headlines screamed that a New-Testament era ossuary had been found bearing the inscription, "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." The inscriptions later proved to be a fraud, newly scratched on an ancient ossuary. (Didn't anyone check this out BEFORE publishing??? I mean, "Duh!") And the inscription did not say what people claimed it said. It said, "Yacoub [James] of Joses [Joseph] of Yasou [Jesus]." That would imply to me that James was a relative of Joseph, who was the closer relative of Jesus, but I digress. The point is that we had a parade of scholars opining that it was inconcievable, inconcievable that these three names could be mere chance.

Is it possible that Jesus had brothers named James, Joses and Judas, and then went out and found another group of brothers who also had a mother named Mary and who also were named James, Joses and Judas? In addition to disciples named who were also brothers and were also named James and Judas who also had a brother named Joses?

And where were these brothers when Jesus told Mary, "There is THE son of you." And, yes, in the Greek, the article means implies that there are no other sons.

Another odd thoughts: The bible lists five brothers of Jesus, and uses the plural, "sisters." That's seven siblings. When Jesus was twelve, there's no mention of other siblings. Now, here he is at 30, and he's got at least seven? Could "James the elder" have been only 17 when Jesus died?

Later thought: Just to clarify, Mathew 27:56 refers to "Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children." These are two separate people and not simply a truly bizarre way of expressing one woman's relations. I've established that James and Joses are also Judas' brothers. But the James who is the son of Zebedee is also the brother of John. The bible pairs one James and John as brothers, and in the same list that James and John are mentionned together, calls another James and Judas brothers.

Matthew writes in Greek

Tradition going back to Papias, cited by Eusebius, indicates that Matthew was originally composed in "Hebrew" (which may mean Aramaic), not in Greek.

There are oddities in parts of Luke, too -- word plays and anagrams which only appear when the Greek is translated into Hebrew. There's also a Hebraicism used several times in Luke called the "apodotic vav," which isn't typical of Greek, but might well appear in a text very carefully translated from idiomatic Hebrew into Greek.

It does elsewhere.

First of all, the argument does not "hinge" on them being cousins. The claim is merely that they were not biological children of Mary. One possibility, which seems consistent with the text, is that they were cousins.

It's really beyond dispute that neither Hebrew nor Aramaic have specific terms for cousin or nephew or brother in-law or half-brother That is why Philip the Tetrarch is identified as Herod's "brother" in Scripture, though he was really Herod's half-brother, and why Abraham addresses Lot as "my brother," though the text elsewhere makes it clear that Lot was really his nephew.

Yes, I've heard that theory. I didn't want to confuse the issue by sounding like I was suggesting that what is now Holy Scripture was simply a poor translation, so I allowed the likelihood that it was Matthew who wrote in Greek.

My best guess, having read about the authorship from historical critics, is that Matthew's original gospel consisted of the testimony of Jesus' preaching days. Luke possibly even used this as a source. (I reject the "Q" theory as anti-Christian.) Then, Mark was added to it, leaving only a single passage from Mark not represented in Matthew. Why would Matthew be compelled to add Mark's gospel to his own? Perhaps that Mark, as Peter's secretary, represented the authority of what would later become known as the papacy.

There are some problems. Textual critics do not include the infancy narrative as part of the original Matthew. I'm not qualified to evaluate if this assertion is sound. It does leave the source of the narrative undetermined.

This is also been criticized from an apostolic viewpoint, since it suggests an editor other than Matthew. I don't see why, however, Matthew couldn't have been the editor that approved the insertion of the Marcan passages. What is problemmatic is there are a few changes from Mark to Matthew where the two versions disagree with each other. Whereas the passages original to Matthew suggest an intimate familiarity with Palestine, the edits of Mark seem like someone was trying to "correct" Mark and introduced errors which are hard to reconcile with Mark or history.

My only response to these is to cling to the promise of Jesus to Peter, that the gates of Hell would not withstand the Church, and so I satisfy myself with the knowledge that the gift of infallibility was given not only to the disciple, but to whoever edited Matthew.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.