How many women in John 19:25?

[Zenas]

John 19:25 reads as follows in the NAB: “Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala.” How many women are protrayed here? If it’s four, they are:

1. Mary the mother of Jesus;
2. Mary Magdalene;
3. Mary the wife of Clopas:
4. Jesus’s mother’s sister (who we would have to conclude is Salome through reading the parallel passages in Matthew and Mark).

This would make James and John first cousins of Jesus.

If it’s three, they are:

1. Mary the mother of Jesus;
2. Mary Magdalene;
3. Mary’s sister, also named Mary who was the wife of Clopas.

If that is the case, we have no proof that Salome was Mary’s sister, and thus no evidence that James and John were related to Jesus.

What say you?

 

[Todd_Easton]

Most probably there were four women.

In A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, edited by Bernard Orchard, published by Thomas Nelson & Sons in 1953, on page 1014, it says:
**25-27 Jesus and His Mother—**John draws a marked contrast, difficult to render in translation, between the soldiers who did these things and the little group that stood beside the cross. 25. The balance of the opening phrase (even as estimated by the maker of the Syriac Peshitta) leads us to distinguish not three but four women beside the cross of Jesus. The disputed point is whether ‘his mother’s sister’ is ‘Mary of Cleophas’ or another cousin of our Lady. The general love of anonymity and reticence shown by John would suggest that if she is the latter we must identify her with Salome, his own mother, who was certainly on Calvary that day, Mark 15:40. As Mary Cleophas is identifiable with ‘Mary the Mother of James the less, and of Joseph’, Mark 15:40, John most probably mentions the same three women as Mark, but John alone names the Saviour’s mother…