The Bible uses the words “brother” and “sister” to describe a wide variety of relationships, writes Graham Osborne. (The Virgin Mary by El Greco. Wikimedia Commons)
In a previous article, we saw that for more than 1,900 years, virtually all Christians held that Mary was perpetually virgin, including all major Protestant reformers.
But still some object today, citing apparent “brothers/sisters of the Lord” references in Galatians 1:19, Matthew 13:55, and elsewhere. Doesn’t this suggest that Mary had other children? How do we square this with centuries of early Christian testimony?
The explanation focuses on the words brothers and sisters used in these passages. Both words have a wide range of meaning in Scripture and get used to describe a wide variety of relationships – from blood relations, to in-laws, to close friends.
For example, in Matthew 23:8, Jesus said, “you are all brothers” while addressing a large crowd who couldn’t possibly all be biological brothers. Similarly, in Acts 1:14-15, Peter speaks to 120 “brothers.” Certainly these 120 men were not all Jesus’ biological brothers!
A key, often overlooked, point rests in the fact that the Hebrew and Aramaic languages used in Jesus’ day had no word for cousin or other close relations. If you had a cousin or near relative in Biblical times, you usually called them “brother” or “sister,” as we will see below.
Additionally, while the New Testament was written in Greek, which did have a specific word for cousin, the Spirit-inspired authors still wrote using the Jewish cultural understanding of brother in their day. They typically used the Greek word for brother/sister even in situations where the relationship was clearly not brother/sister, but something more distant -simply because this was the Jewish way of referring to close relations.
We see a perfect example of this in Genesis 14:14 where Lot is called Abraham’s “brother,” though we know Lot is his nephew. Similarly, in Genesis 29:15, Jacob is called the “brother” of his uncle, Laban (also 1 Chron 23:22).
Let’s look at Galatians 1:18-19 to illustrate this: “I … saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother.” But he can’t be Jesus’ actual blood brother, because St. Paul clearly states he’s an Apostle, and of the two Apostles named James, one was James “the Greater,” the son of Zebedee, and the other was James the son of Alphaeus. Neither was a brother of Jesus.
But how about Matthew 13:55 or Mark 6:3, perhaps the most commonly used verses to question Mary’s perpetual virginity: “Is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?”
To shed some light on these passages, let us look at the Gospel accounts of the women at the foot of the cross. From Matthew 27:56, Mark 15:40 and John 19:25, we can see that there are three Marys there: the Blessed Mother, Mary Magdalene, and Mary wife of Clopas, who was both the Blessed Mother’s “sister” and “mother of James the younger and Joseph.”
So again, we see that two of the “brothers” listed in Matthew 13:55/Mark 6:3, James and Joseph, are not brothers of Jesus, but sons of the Mary married to Clopas. Additionally, the second-century historians Hegesippus and Papias record that this Clopas was the brother of St. Joseph. This would make James and Joseph Jesus’ cousins – or, in the Jewish way of speaking, “brothers” – of Jesus.
Concerning Jude/Judas and Simon, also named in Matthew 13:55, St. Jude confirms in his own epistle that he is a brother of James, not Jesus: “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James …” [Jude 1:1]. And Hegesippus records that this Simon was a son of Clopas as well. This would also make him a brother of James, Joseph, and Judas, and so, a cousin of Jesus too.
Let’s look at other places in Scripture that some claim indicate Mary had other children. For instance, Luke 2:7 says that Mary “gave birth to her first-born son…” Some reason that if there is a “first-born,” there must be a second. But “first-born” was a title given under the Mosaic Law to the male child who opened the womb (see Ex 13:2), whether there was a second child or not.
Another contentious spot is Matthew 1:25: “Joseph… took his wife but knew her not until she had borne a son.” Many assume that the word “until” implies that after Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary did have relations.
But in Biblical times “until” could mean that an action occurred up to a certain point. Without necessarily implying any other future action after that. For example, in 1 Corinthians 15:25, St. Paul writes that Christ “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” Does this mean Christ will cease to reign after that? Clearly it doesn’t.
And finally, in John 19:26, Jesus said to St. John, “‘Behold, your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.”
Care of a widowed mother fell to the eldest brother under Mosaic Law. If Jesus truly had biological brothers, it is highly unlikely that in the last actions of his earthly life Jesus would break the Mosaic Law, offend his family and brothers, and entrust his mother to someone outside his family.
And ultimately, we are all brothers and sisters in Christ!