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I know that the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that in the Bible when people are referred to as Jesus’ “brothers” that this could mean either that the ancient word for “brother” could really mean “kin” in our sense of brotherhood, or that Joseph had children through a wife who had died. According to Luke 2, after Jesus was circumcised as a young baby we are told that, “When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord’), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord” (2:22-24 NRSV). According to my understanding (albeit incomplete) of ancient Jewish practice, only the firstborn son of a man was taken to the temple for this offering. If Joseph already had sons with another wife, then he would have already taken his firstborn to the temple. In other words, if Jesus was not his firstborn then Joseph would not have taken him to the temple. Because he did, this means that Jesus was his firstborn. Please help me to make sense of this! The “brothers” of Jesus could not have been from Joseph’s previous wife because Jesus is Joseph’s firstborn.