[InterestedQuestioner]

Hello Full Court,


I admire your zeal and passion for religion, that is a tremendous gift. I also admire your respect for Scripture.

I can certainly see that your belief that Jesus had brothers is entirely reasonable. After all, that's what the Word of God literally says, at least in my translation! One thing, however, is that none of us in this discussion believe that verse to be precisely true. We are all reading into that Scripture something else beside brother.

Some are reading it to mean half-brothers. That is, they had Mary as a mother, but not God as a father. To interpret it to mean full brother, the plain meaning of the text in translation, would mean there are multiple messiahs. None of us believe that. Now to believe that the term brother actually means "half-brother," children not born of God and Mary, but rather of Joesph and Mary is entirely reasonable, but it's good to recognize that we are reading something into Scripture that it does not actually say. To support this argument, we would have to argue pretty much in the same way that many have done on this thread, and say that the Greeks or Jews simply didn't have a word for half-brothers, although with a distant history of polygamy and concubinage among the Israelites and the Roman practice of serial monogamy, they may have had an intuitive understanding of the concept. The problem with this interpretation is that, according to Scripture, some of the people listed as his brothers appear to not have had the same Mother as Jesus.

There are of course other possible speculations besides interpreting this to mean that there were literally multiple Christs born of God and Mary. For example, we might believe that Joseph was a widower who had children from a previous marriage, and that these were the brothers spoken of in the text. A fine theory, but it's entirely speculative, as Scripture never says this is the case. Another problem with this theory is that the Mother of two of these brothers is still alive at the time of the Crucifixion, which would mean that Joseph either divorced Mary later on, was actually a divorcee at the time of his espousal to Mary, or that Joesph was married to more than one woman. Those are all problematic contingencies if we attempt to force them upon Scripture.

Another interpretation is that these "brothers" were cousins of some sort or other. (First cousin, second cousin, third cousin two times removed....) It's not an unreasonable argument, in that Scripture often mentions brothers and sisters when it is in fact seems to be talking about some other relationship. There are manyf examples of this, but one is the following:


"So the soldiers did this. But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. (John 19:25)


Now, we can see that there were a lot of Marys at the foot of the Cross with Jesus when he was dying. The Scripture I would like to call your attention to, however, is "standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary...." Now, if we take this translation in an entirely literal sense, Mary has a sister named Mary. That would be sort of like George Foreman's family, everybody gets named "George," So you have a George 1 and George 2, and George 3, and however many other sons named George that big George actually has. (I'm not making this up.) Perhaps a more plausible reading of this verse is to say that the language used in this Scripture did not distinguish between sister and cousin or other relative, even though our language forces us to translate in such a way as use a word that either conveys one class of relationship or the other. It's sort of like my Thai friends who's language specifies maternal vs paternal relations. As I understand it, if all I say to them is "my aunt," they are left in a pickle when they translate it, because they have to translate it into a word that means either "maternal aunt" or "paternal aunt," and they don't have enough information to do that.

Another problem that we Catholics have with the Scriptural reference to the brothers and sisters of Jesus is that Scripture else were tells us that at least two of them were not his actual brothers, so we have to assume that at least two of his presumptive (half) brothers are in fact cousins or other relatives. Scripture says His brothers' names were "James and Joseph and Simon and Judas." (Mark 6:3) Elsewhere, however, we learn that Joses and James actually had a different mother. (Mr 15:40, Mr 15:47.)

Paul describes James as the brother of our Lord. (Gal 1: 19) Jude describes himself as the brother of James. (Jude 1: 1) Luke describes Jude as the son of James (Luke 6:16, Acts 1:13) Clearly, Scripture is not using the same degree of precision in describing relations that we typically use in English. And Scripture was not written in English.

When it gets right down to it, Full Court, we simply don't have any Scripture which says that Mary had any children besides Jesus. The broader context of Scripture insists that we believe that at least some of the people who are listed as brothers of our Lord in fact had a different Mother. Any claim that Mary had other children is in fact an inference, and not something that is actually stated in Scripture. Although you may reasonably believe the assertion that Mary did not have other biological children is unwarranted in Scripture, the Scripture never tells us that Mary had other children, and to believe that Mary had no other biological children is not a contradiction of Scripture.

[SoothingDave]

Gen 14:12And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.
13And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram.
14And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan.

Lot is Abram's nephew. Abram's brother is Haran. Haran is Lot's father. This is made explicit in verse 12.

Two verses later, Lot is called Abram's "brother."

Clearly the idea that "brother" among the Semitic peoples can only mean male siblings from the same uterus is wrong.

SD

[annalex]

Very informative post, thank you.

This is a good resource for further study: The Brethren of the Lord

[Full Court]

I admire your zeal and passion for religion, that is a tremendous gift.

It's not for "relegion." It's for the Lord Jesus Christ against a bunch of catholics who would rather call Jesus a sinner than admit that the Word of God clearly shows that Jesus Christ had brothers and sisters.

When God wants to use the word "cousin" He does.

There is no reason given in any of Scripture that Mary was not a good wife and that she did not have sex with Joseph.

[Cronos]

Thank you for explaining that so well I.Q.

[Cronos]

As you see FC -- THIS is why were Belong to The Church, the Apostolic Church founded by Christ through His Apostles. This entire community of believers -- dating back 20 centuries helps us learn more about our faith. Do you think no one asked these questions in the 20 centuries before the Pentecostals and Evamngelicals came along? No, these questions were asked and answered by the Holy Spirit and by people who actually KNEW The Christ. We cannot be presumptive to refute THOSE proofs.

[restornu]

FAMILY OF JESUS CHRIST (recap)

Matt. 12: 46
46 ¶ While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him.

Mark 3: 31
31 ¶ There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him.

Luke 8: 19
19 ¶ Then came to him his mother and his brethren, and could not come at him for the press.

Matt. 13: 55
55 Is not this the carpenter’s son?

is not his mother called Mary?

and his brethren, James, and Joses,
and Simon, and Judas?

Mark 6: 3
3 Is not this the carpenter, 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.

John 2: 12
12 ¶ After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days.

John 19: 27
27 Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.

Acts 1: 14
14 These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.

Gal. 1: 19
19 But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother.