It all depends on how accurate you think the Bible is. It clearly talks about His mother and brothers looking for Him and it names His brothers.
It clearly states that Joseph did not know Mary until AFTER she had given birth.
It takes a lot of twisting to make those verses say something else.
Brothers = cousins? Sisters = cousins?
Balderdash....
That's denying the plain, simple, obvious reading of Scripture.
metmom wrote:
“It all depends on how accurate you think the Bible is.”
I think it is accurate beyond our imagination, beyond our ability to grasp fully.
I will, respectfully, disagree with your interjected “Balderdash” and what follows it. What is necessary for our salvation is just what you say, “plain, simple, obvious.” It is accessible and understandable to a child, as the Bible makes clear in more than one place. But there are other things of which God’s Word speaks that we still struggle with, as did those who went before us. This, that you would like to make so simple, is one of them. But, rejoice, neither your nor my salvation depends on knowing the answer. That is the nature of adiaphora.
As a wise man once said to me, “God’s Word is shallow enough for a child to wade in safely, and yet deep enough to drown the wisest of men.”
Maybe the Vatican vulcanized ‘Bible’ is written in selective disappearing ink where those verses are concerned . . . and a lot of others.