Galatians 1:19

[sparky231]

Galatians 1:19 states that James was the Lord’s brother and so does Josephus. But the Church for some reason tries to claim otherwise. I’ve read the ridiculous “article” called “brethren of the Lord” which essentially tries to argue that 1+1=3 instead of 1+1=2. It’s actually quite convincing at times until you actually stop to think. This site also tries to appeal to the protoevangelium of james for some reason which is not sacred scripture. Now maybe I’m misinterpreting the Church’s position but it seems to be implying that Paul is either mistaken or lying. Paul actually walked and talked with James so I think he would probably be the more reliable source. Not to mention Galatians pre-dates the protoevangelium by at least 50 years.

Let me apologize in advance because I’m not trying to cause trouble here or offend anyone. I guess I’m going through a “crisis of faith.” The Church is clearly wrong on the position as to whether or not Jesus had siblings. This has me wondering what else are they wrong about. I guess I feel guilty in a way. My grandfather was a devout Catholic and a great man. I can only aspire to be half the man he was. I’d hate to think he was led astray by false teaching. But then again, he was always reading the wall street journal and not the Bible.

 

[stevekehl]

Believing or not believing in Mary’s perpetual virginity has no bearing on one’s salvation. Faith in Christ, making Him the Lord of your life, trying your best to live for God, these are the important things.

 

[Dave_B]

Hi, personally cant see wrong with calling a step brother, brother.

 

[po18guy]

Don’t fall for anti-Catholic, man-made arguments, despite any well-meaing intent they may have. What did “brother” mean? Was it “nephew”, as Abraham said of Lot, while calling Lot his “brother”? Consider:

Genesis 13:8-11
Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)
8Abram therefore said to Lot: Let there be no quarrel, I beseech thee, between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen: for we are brethren.
9Behold the whole land is before thee: depart from me I pray thee: if thou wilt go to the left hand, I will take the right: if thou choose the right hand, I will pass to the left.

10And Lot, lifting up his eyes, saw all the country about the Jordan, which was watered throughout, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha, as the paradise of the Lord, and like Egypt as one comes to Segor.

11And Lot chose to himself the country about the Jordan, and he departed from the east: and they were separated **one brother from the other**.

How do you reconcile that with this:

Genesis 12:4-5
Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)
4So Abram went out as the Lord had commanded him, and Lot went with him: Abram was seventy-five years old when he went forth from Haran.
5And he took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all the substance which they had gathered, and the souls which they had gotten in Haran: and they went out to go into the land of Chanaan. And when they were come into it,

Could it just be that “brother” 2,000-4,500 years ago, in an ancient Hebrew language, did not mean the same as 21st century English? As well, you can solve this for all time by combing through the bible for the names of the “children of Mary” Hint: there is only one.

Mary (Luke 1:38) declared herself to be the “handmaid” or “bond slave” of the Lord. How much freedom does a slave have? But, Elizabeth said, via the Holy Spirit, that Mary was the “mother of my Lord” (Luke 1:43). Mary was the handmaid/bond slave of her own Son, Jesus. Who else could she then serve? The bible explicitly states that she was with Jesus from annunciation to tomb. Jesus Himself gave her to John just before He died (John 19:26-27). How many “other children” are in the bible? None. James as a uterine brother of Christ is a man-made fantasy.

 

[mgoforth]

I guess I’m going through a “crisis of faith.” The Church is clearly wrong on the position as to whether or not Jesus had siblings.

Yep, that would be a crisis of faith alright…

So let me just get this straight. You, as a person living 20 centuries after Christ, and reading your Bible - I assume it’s an English Bible which would have been translated from Latin, which itself was translated from Greek - are saying that “clearly” the Church is wrong about this? That people who actually spoke Greek and Latin and devoted their lives to studying everything about Jesus for nearly 2000 years didn’t pick up on something that you casually discovered one day in your personal Bible study?

Sparky, that’s called Sola Scriptura. Instead of reading articles about whether Christ had siblings or not, I would recommend you first read up on this heresy of the Protestant churches and understand why it doesn’t work. I’m sorry to tell you this, but you can’t just go off and read Galatians 1:19 and “discover” that the Church has it all wrong. The Church has more experience than you or I ever will and it has the Holy Spirit to guide it. As a Catholic, please realize how silly and arrogant Sola Scriptura is before you get too deep into this Protestant thinking. The road you’re starting down will lead you away from the Catholic Church if you don’t turn back.

 

[po18guy]

Sparky, that’s called Sola Scriptura. Instead of reading articles about whether Christ had siblings or not, I would recommend you first read up on this heresy of the Protestant churches and understand why it doesn’t work. I’m sorry to tell you this, but you can’t just go off and read Galatians 1:19 and “discover” that the Church has it all wrong. The Church has more experience than you or I ever will and it has the Holy Spirit to guide it. As a Catholic, please realize how silly and arrogant Sola Scriptura is before you get too deep into this Protestant thinking. The road you’re starting down will lead you away from the Catholic Church if you don’t turn back.

And then, one is faced with much more than simply denying the self, taking up their cross and following Jesus. Then they are faced with 30,000 choices of what to believe and practice. And no authority can decide, and there is no assurance of knowing, if you are ever correct after that.

I prefer to view any “crisis of faith” as what is actually is: a spiritual attack.

 

[COPLAND_3]

Here is the footnote from the Aquinas Study Bible, which is a direct quote from St. Thomas Aquinas

1:19 James: Regarding James, it should be known that he was the Bishop of Jerusalem and named James the Less, because he had been called after another James. Many things are recorded of him in Acts 15. He also wrote a canonical epistle. **brother of the Lord: **Some say that before the Blessed Virgin, Joseph had another wife of whom he had James and other children, and that after she died, he took unto wife the Blessed Virgin, from whom Christ was born… But this is false, because if the Lord did not want as mother anyone but a virgin entrusted to the care of a virgin, how would He have allowed her husband not to be a virgin and still endure it?… Therefore others say (and this is mentioned in a Gloss) that James was the son of Mary of Cleophas, who was a sister of the Virgin… But this opinion is denied on two counts by Jerome… According to Jerome, this James is singled out from his other brothers and called the brother of the Lord for two reasons: first, because of a likeness in appearance, for he had a facial resemblance to Christ; and because of a likeness in their lives, for he imitated the manners of Christ. Or he is called the brother of Christ, because Alpheus, his father, was related to Joseph. brother: Brother is taken here in the sense of kinsman. For in the Scriptures some are called brothers, who are so by nature: (Mt 1:2). Others, who are kinsmen, such as blood relations, are brothers: (Gen 13:8). Others who are so by race; hence all who speak the same tongue are called brothers: (Deut 17:15). Others who are so by affection; hence all who are friends and who have the same love are called brothers: (2 Cor 2:13). Others who are so by religion; hence all Christians who have one rule of life are called brothers: (Mt 23:8); (Ps 132:1). And in general, all men are called brothers, because they are ruled and protected by one God: (Mal 2:10).(St. Thomas Aquinas)

 

[COPLAND_3]

Here is a quote from Theophylact in his commentary on Galatians

1. But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s
   brother. Paul went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, because he held him
   in great honor. While there, he saw James aswell,whomhe also honored,
   calling him “the brother of the Lord”—so far was Paul from
   being jealous. He could also have called him “the son of Cleopas.”
   James was not a brother of the Lord according to the flesh, but was
   reckoned as such. This is how he was a son of Cleopas: Cleopas and
   Josephwere brothers;when Cleopas died childless, Joseph raised up seed for him. Joseph begat James and his other brothers, and Mary,
   the daughter of Cleopas, whom the Gospel calls the sister of the
   Lord’sMother, since Joseph had a paternal care for the Virgin rather
   than a husband’s feelings toward her.

 

[Mintaka]

Even if you’re a Bible alone guy, you can go through all the references to who was who’s kid, and easily find out that Jesus’ brothers and sisters were neither children of Joseph nor of Mary. “Brother” and “sister” just meant “close kinfolk of X sex” in Hebrew and in Aramaic. If you wanted to be specific, you had to go to genealogy.

(And pretty much everyone was cross-cousins and in-laws, several different ways, because you usually married inside your own tribe and the places close around. Hence every so often the push to get married to a remote cousin who lived far away, to get the gene pool a bit wider.)

So in Greek in the Gospels and epistles and such, you’ve got the writers using “adelphos” for “close male relative”, and “suggenes” for “distant relation, male or female”. Also there are words for “mother” and “father.” And that’s about it for kinship terms.

You see the same kind of thing in the OT. For example, the Bible describes Abraham and Lot as brothers " 'ach"] in Gen. 13:8 and Gen. 14:14. Well, you know perfectly well that Lot was Abraham’s nephew, because that’s what the genealogy says. But as “close male relatives”, they described each other as brothers.

Similarly, Jacob tells Rachel in Gen. 11:12 that he is her father’s brother " 'ach"], when he’s her father’s nephew. If Jacob had really been Rachel and Leah’s uncle, they wouldn’t have been getting married!!

 

[Mintaka]

Anyway, if we’re going Bible alone here, let’s take a look.

Matt. 13:55 lists these “brothers”: James, Joseph, Simon, Judas.
Mark 6:2-3 lists: James, Joses, Judas, Simon.
Gal. 1:19 says: “James, the Lord’s brother”.

So who are these guys?

Mark 15:40 – “There were also women looking on afar off: among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, and Salome.”

Matt. 27:56 – “Among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.”

[This probably means Salome was Zebedee’s wife, and thus the mom of the other James and of John (which means John’s mom was standing right there when Jesus asked John to take Mary as his new mom). But that’s not necessarily how to interpret it; you could say that they were listing Salome as one of the kids. So Salome often gets listed as one of the Lord’s sisters in the close female relative sense.]

Mark 16:1 – “When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body.”

John 19:25 – “Now by the cross of Jesus, there stood His mother; and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas; and Mary Magdalene.”

Matt. 10:2-3 lists the Twelve: “These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus whose surname was Thaddeus.”

Everybody (ie, Protestant sources too) says that Alphaeus, Cleopas, and Clopas are different names for the same guy. He’s the same guy who went to Emmaus.

So they’re kids of Mary’s sister/cousin who’s also named Mary, and of this guy Cleopas. They’re not kids of Jesus’ mother or of his foster-dad Joseph (unless you go for one of the complicated genealogical theories).

Okay, so who’s Jude/Judas/Judah?

Acts 1:13 – “…James, the son of Alphaeus; and Simon Zelotes; and Jude the brother of James…”

Jude 1:1 – “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James…”

And who’s Simon?

Mark 3:18 – “Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean…”

[Probably this means that Simon was from the branch of Jesus’ relations who lived in Cana, and whom Jesus and Mary visited for the wedding. But there’s a lot of argument over this word’s meaning.]

And of course he’s listed other places as Simon Zelotes or Simon the Zealot.

Of course, they could be talking another Simon (like Peter, or a random Simon), but most scholars think this is the guy meant up above in the lists of brothers.

Again, you could argue that there are actual genetic brothers and sisters of Jesus who just don’t get listed; but these are the ones we know about from the lists, and they seem to get slotted into their genealogical places very nicely by the Bible.