Did Jesus have brothers and sisters (siblings)?
Question: "Did Jesus have brothers and sisters (siblings)?" |
Posted on 09/03/2013 5:38:10 PM PDT by Gamecock
Question:
It is obvious that Mary had children after Jesus was born. As long as Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, why was it necessary that Mary have no previous children? I am not asking why it was necessary that Jesus be conceived by the Holy Spirit—I understand that. I guess my question is, Why would it matter that Mary had other children first, as long as Jesus was conceived by the Spirit?
Answer:
I agree with you that from what is said in Scripture, it appears to be "obvious that Mary had children after Jesus was born. " Take, for example, this passage:
2When the Sabbath came, he [Jesus] began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. "Where did this man get these things?" they asked. "What's this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! 3Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?".... (Mark 6:2-3, New International Version)
It has been argued (particularly by those who believe in the "perpetual virginity" of Mary) that the word translated "brother" (Greek "adelphos," as in "Philadelphia," "the city of brotherly love") might be taken as "cousin," but the context surely indicates that we are not talking about several households here, but one.
Incidentally, perhaps it should be noted in passing that although Jesus, James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon were all of the same household and all had Mary as their mother, Mary's husband Joseph was the physical father of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon, but not of Jesus, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit (see Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:35). Thus, technically speaking, Jesus and his "brothers" were "half-brothers," since they only shared the same mother, but it would certainly be understandable for those in Nazareth who personally knew of the family to regard the five sons as "brothers."
Consider, also, how this passage speaks of the birth of Jesus:
22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him 'Immanuel' which means, 'God with us'." 24When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus. (Matt. 1:22-25, NIV)
The words "But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son" certainly seem to suggest that after Mary gave birth to Jesus, Joseph did have union with her and that, having given birth to one Child, she gave birth to other children as well.
But let's get to the heart of your question: "Why was it necessary that Mary have no previous children?.... Why would it matter that Mary had other children first, as long as Jesus was conceived by the Spirit?
Here's the simple answer: It was necessary for Jesus to be born of a virgin to fulfill Isaiah's prophecy:
"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Is. 7:14, NIV)
Speaking of the birth of Christ of a virgin, Matthew (as we have already seen) says this:
22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel." (Matt. 1:22-23, NIV)
Although the exact meaning of the Hebrew word "'almah" in Isaiah 7:14 has been disputed (some—ignoring the context—take it as simply "young woman of marriageable age"), there is absolutely no dispute over the meaning of the Greek word "parthenos" in Matthew 1:23, which can have no other meaning than "virgin" (and Matthew 1:23 supplies us with an inspired interpretation of Isaiah 7:14).
Thus Scriptural prophecy found its fulfillment when our Savior was, in the familiar words of the Apostles' Creed, "conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary."
when in doubt....refer to Seinfeld. It is the like the Godfather. Can ALWAYS be quoted/referenced. :P
So, did Jesus have exactly the same DNA as Mary?
James the younger is the son of Mary and Clopas. The second-century historian Hegesippus explains that Clopas was the brother of Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus. James would thus be Joseph’s nephew and a cousin of Jesus, who was Joseph’s putative son.
As for "brothers" plural, Jesus spoke Aramaic. Because neither Hebrew nor Aramaic had a special word meaning "cousin," speakers of those languages could use either the word for "brother" or a circumlocution, such as "the son of my uncle." But circumlocutions are clumsy, so the Jews often used "brother." The writers of the New Testament were brought up using the Aramaic equivalent of "brothers" to mean both cousins and sons of the same father—plus other relatives and even non-relatives. When they wrote in Greek, they did the same thing the translators of the Septuagint did.
In the Septuagint the Hebrew word that includes both brothers and cousins was translated as adelphos, which in Greek usually has the narrow meaning that the English "brother" has. Unlike Hebrew or Aramaic, Greek has a separate word for cousin, anepsios, but the translators of the Septuagint used adelphos, even for true cousins.
What? You’re going to take the word of the Scriptures over the mythical Gnostic “gospels”?
I'm not sure what bearing that would have on salvation. Just be happy He was born and died for our sins.
Did Jesus have brothers and sisters (siblings)?
Question: "Did Jesus have brothers and sisters (siblings)?" |
I concede your clarification. Tradition has Jude,the self identified brother of James, as the brother of Jesus. I will not quibble, but to say that there is some question as to the which James he might be referring to. James was a common name, but he most certainly could have been the brother of Jesus. James the brother of Jesus would have been famous enough to be identified in the epistle as he was an important elder in Jerusalem at the time.
My barber once told me that Jesus was conceived after Mary was raped by the priest Uriah when Mary was in a boarding school for girls. What was she, 14 when she gave birth to Jesus? Anyway, people can make up all kinds of stories, but if Mary was that young (and I once heard Mary may have even been younger than 14) then Jesus was certainly her first child.
Between all the theories and historians and other nonsense, I’ll stick with the Holy Bible, thank you.
Mortal Mary, Mother of Jesus. There fixed it for you.
Oh, so Jesus isn’t God?
So, why do some automatically assume “cousin” and not “brother”?
Sounds like some are blinded by their overwhelming adoration of Mary. G_ds word says what G_ds word says.
Doubt it. The most He would have is 50%.
That is a very good point! Never any mention of aunts and uncles.
??
Of course not. ..But you are joking, right?
That's not the question. We were talking about the mortal Mary being the mother of Jesus. The terms Holy Mary and Mother of God aren't in the Bible for a good reason. They're blasphemous.
Then who is Jesus? Some really good guy who performed miracles?
Or is he part of the trinity? Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
That would mean he is God.
Oh, so Jesus isn’t God?
Where did the poster say 'Jesus isn't God?' The poster basically said that MARY is not God. She was Jesus' mother, not His Savior, and she had s3x to have at least four more children. When the Scripture says that Joseph knew Mary, it wasn't talking about shaking hands.
You jump through a lot of hoops to explain away the clear teaching of Scripture.
You’re really saying, aren’t you, that Joseph was never really united with Mary. You’ve got a problem there, now. Joseph was a live-in boyfriend, who never “became one” with his wife? Don’t you “venerate” Joseph as the husband of Mary? Sheesh, the false doctrines in Roman Catholicism are confounding ...
Why can’t you simply accept that Mary and Joseph were truly united as husband and wife, and had children as normal husbands and wives have? Do you consider sexual intercourse to be sinful, that somehow Jesus’ having brothers and sisters took away from His holiness?
This whole perpetual virginity of Mary thing is just sick sick sick. It really denigrates the gift of sex between husband and wife.
So, with all those brothers and sisters, I kind of wonder why none were present at Jesus’ crucifixion or mentioned as traveling with Jesus. Plus, I sure wonder why Jesus turned to the Apostle John while on the cross and said, “Son behold your mother. Mother behold your son.” From that point forward, we know that John cared for the Blessed Mother.
That does not even address the matter that in Jesus’ time, cousins were referred to as brothers and sisters.
Then we have the possibility that Joseph was a widower with children from a prior marriage. Numerous Biblical scholars suspect that Joseph was a good bit older than Mary and a widower.
The reality is that there is no existing documentation to “prove” any of this.
The problem is that if Mary and Joseph had other children, then Roman Catholic doctrine is in error. And NYer and other Roman Catholic FReepers cannot even consider that possibility. They won’t even consider what you’ve said. They’ve got their pope to think for them, and you’re not their pope.
Of course the gospel of John was not written in either Hebrew nor Aramaic but was written in Koine, Greek. Hence the appeal needs to be not to the spoken words, but to the recorded writings, which does not state cousin, but brothers. To make further assumptions about the authors intent is to beg the question and amounts to poor exegetical methods.
AS to Hegesippus, what we have of his writings are fragments and what we know of him is almost exclusively from Eusebius. Because the works of both were extant to the early church, it is generally considered a better practice to follow the rest of the church writers who speak uni-vocally that James was the brother of Jesus.
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