Besides, it is not even clear that the brothers of Jesus were even believers yet. That would have disqualified them from the requirement here.
Jesus' brothers were not believers at this point. They became believers after He appeared to them ressurected.
To this point (the crucifixion) ... the brothers had only demonstrated their unbelief and animosity to His ministry.John 7:1 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.If Jesus truly honored His mother, ... why would He place (or allow) her in the care of such as these ... when He had a loving disciple standing right at hand.
2 Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand.
3 His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest.
4 For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world.
5 For neither did his brethren believe in him.
Supposing that she had children other than Christ, do you think they loved her any less that they didn't deserve her, or that for some reason they couldn't or wouldn't take care of her?
Besides, it was a matter of law. Christ was a condemned criminal. There were no witnesses that He "gave" her away. +John, a follower of a condemned criminal, was not in a position to make any claims. The Jewish and Roman law would have prevailed. The children would have claimed her.
There were no "other" children. No one claimed Mary. Our Lord knew that when He dies she will be alone, so He gave her to the only disciple who was brave enough to be with Him at the Cross.
Not only are you implying that she had a bunch of children that took her attention away from her real Son, but you are also implying that because they were not believers they were not "worthy" of their mother! And, in the same vain, you are assuming that they didn't love their mother enough to want her.
"sides, all his real brothers and siters were prolly dead. They aint mentioned when Jesus is Teaching in the Temple and He has to be searched for. It appears He is an only child. Oh well, Mary prolly had anywhere from 15-30 kids and they all prolly died from the flu or something..It makes no diff...
Excellent. I thought this must have been the case, but I didn't have the goods to back it up. :) Thanks.
If Jesus truly honored His mother, ... why would He place (or allow) her in the care of such as these ... when He had a loving disciple standing right at hand.
Clearly He would not have, nor should He have. In this argument, it sounds like we have one side arguing for one interpretation of the letter of the Law, and the other side arguing for a common sense approach to the Spirit of the letter of the Law. On this one, perhaps I do have the goods :) -
Luke 14:1-6 : 1 One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. 2 There in front of him was a man suffering from dropsy. 3 Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?" 4 But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him away. 5 Then he asked them, "If one of you has a son or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull him out?" 6 And they had nothing to say.
The Spirit of the Law was not to FORCE widows upon their children, if the widow was already well provided for. Jesus made such arrangements.