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I’m glad you posted again. I’ve been thinking about words that were used ~2,000 years ago, and how their meanings are determined.

I’m sure you know that the New Testament is not the only Koine Greek writing available from the time of Christ. There are other works from the same time-frame.

Scholars study all the contemporary works of the earlier centuries in order to learn more about how various words were used. That is where the definitions found in Strong’s Concordance come from: actual writing in the relevant centuries. (Usage determines the meaning of words; dictionaries merely document such usage.)

Ravenwolf, I will put it to you straightforwardly. ‘Adelphos,’ was a very common, much-used word. If there were any incidences of it being used to mean, ‘cousin,’ we’d have heard about it. You know yourself who would have told us about it: Catholic scholars.

For example. We have Plutarch, Josephus and Chrysostom. If one of those had used, ‘adelphos,’ to mean, ‘cousin,’ there would be thousands of mentions of this fact. Anyone who believed Jesus had brothers would be (rhetorically) bludgeoned with it; we both know that’s true.

The reason there is no recorded usage of, ‘adelphos,’ to mean, ‘cousin,’ is because Greek writers would have used, ‘anepsios,’ instead. That is, after all, the word for, ‘cousin.’

One additional thing. The NT writers, guided by the Holy Spirit, knew how to record supposed—as opposed to real—relationships. Recall Luke 3:23, where it’s recorded that Jesus was the son, ***as was supposed,*** of Joseph. Luke is letting us know that people believed Jesus to be the son of Joseph. They were mistaken, but that was their belief.

Nowhere do the NT writers tell us that there were ‘supposed,’ brothers of Jesus. They are simply referred to as, ‘brothers.’ If they were anything else, we’d have been told, just as we were told that Joseph was not Jesus’ father.