"If" Jesus had blood brothers & sisters, then...

[Prodigal_Son1]

I interpret this as: Mary as wife of Joseph was “under the law” and so she performed the ritual purification at the Presentation as all new mothers would do. But this does not mean that she was a non-virgin when this happened— only that she also carried that title of wife, and therefore is a model for not just all virgins but for all wives too.

It appears to be a ‘smokescreen’ to avoid the direct question, requesting he provide the earliest Christian writings stating specifically that Mary had other children. It makes me think that the idea is so new, that they don’t feel confidence in producing that type documentation because it is so far removed from the actual time period being discussed.

 

[guanophore]

No, you do not read scores of ECF saying that Mary had other children. That is true. I understand your view Nicea.

As a matter of fact, we read NO ECF’s saying such a thing. When they reference this idea, it is in the context of calling such a belief a “heresy”. Wonder why that would be?

 

[guanophore]

Well…they said Jude was his brother humanly speaking. He also distinguised between kinsmen and brothers. But I have provided those already.

Yes, Jude was the brother of James, who was a near kinsman of our lord.

What puzzles me, Rightly, is how you can disregard the evidence within scripture itself. Do you have any explanation for these facts?

Of the four “brethren” who are named in the Gospels, we can follow the logic with James, and similar reasoning can be used for the other three. We know that James the younger’s mother was named Mary. Look at the descriptions of the women standing beneath the cross: “among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee” (Matt. 27:56); “There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome” (Mark 15:40).

Then look at what John says: “But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene” (John 19:25). If we compare these parallel accounts of the scene of the crucifixion, we see that the mother of James and Joseph must be the wife of Clopas. .

An argument against this, though, is that James is elsewhere (Matt. 10:3) described as the son of Alphaeus, which would mean this Mary, whoever she was, was the wife of both Clopas and Alphaeus. But Alphaeus and Clopas are the same person, since the Aramaic name for Alphaeus could be rendered in Greek either as Alphaeus or as Clopas. Another possibility is that Alphaeus took a Greek name similar to his Jewish name, the way that Saul took the name Paul.

So it’s probable that James the younger is the son of Mary and Clopas. The second-century historian Hegesippus explains that Clopas was the brother of Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus. James would thus be Joseph’s nephew and a cousin of Jesus, who was Joseph’s putative son.

Jude testifies in his epistle that he is the brother of James. This is James the Just, who was the bishop of Jerusalem. Jude also went by the name “Thaddeus”, especially to distinguish himself from Judas the betrayer.

This identification of the “brethren of the Lord” as Jesus’ first cousins is open to legitimate question—they might even be relatives more distantly removed—but our inability to determine for certain their exact status strictly on the basis of the biblical evidence (or lack of it, in this case) says nothing at all about the main point, which is that the Bible demonstrates that they were not the Blessed Virgin Mary’s children.

Can you explain how you set aside all these other scriptures to cling to your view?

I can understand rejecting the Fathers, but the Scripture? What self respecting Fundamentalist can disregard the Bible?

 

[guanophore]

They have not.  That view conflates unlike people,

Could you please spell this out for us? I can’t see the “conflation” you refer to here. Just humor me, Rightly. Instead of repetitively stating your view, SHOW us how you dispatch these references in scripture.

has grown men with different mothers travelling with Mary,

Of course they are! No woman travelled alone at that time, just like they don’t today in traditional Palestinian cultures. Women were considered valuable property and were always in the custody of a man, for their protection, and to protect their value as assets.

We are in agreement that it was not “children” that came to see Jesus while He was preaching. I guess you claim that younger brothers would presume to approach a Rabbi to bring him home. This view makes no sense. The elder brother held the authority.

have the crowds putting them together as a family unit and leaving out their parents and many other flaws.

The passage is about Jesus elevating the status of disciples to the same intimacy as his kindred through their obedience. It is not there to testify to family ties. Why would they be reciting the geneology?

Of course they were a family unit! They all grew up together as a small clan in Nazareth. Just like all other clan cultures (there are many of them here in Native communities) anyone who is a near relative is considered a brother and sister. This reference is used for all those too close to marry one another - cousins, halfsiblings etc.

That is why the early church would not have supported that view, instead adopting a half brother theory as the legends grew.

The Church supported the view that Mary was “ever virgin”, because this is what was passed down from the Apsotles.

 

[Radical]

You’re misreading, or misinterpreting, these.

this you claim without a hair of substance to back it up

Now, let me repeat the request specifically and see can you understand it this time. Please provide the earliest Christian writings that specifically state Mary had other children.

besides Tertullian…the earliest I know of would be Helvidius’s work and he appealed to Victorinus…it would seem that the venerators have ensured that those works were destroyed.

Now answer my question, what ECF was the first to expressly teach the three-fold perpetual virginity of Mary?

Do you believe that Mary did not adhere to Jesus?

That passage speaks for itself:

a)it describes Christ’s family as thinking him mad

b) it states that the family leaves to take charge of him;

c) next mention of the matter is “then his mother and brothers arrived”

She is included among the family and the family thinks him mad…it is definitely a possibility that she had doubts at that time. John the Baptist is declared (by Christ) as the greatest born among women (Mary being someone born among women) and yet, John had moments where he questioned.
.

 

[Radical]

I interpret this as: Mary as wife of Joseph was “under the law” and so she performed the ritual purification at the Presentation as all new mothers would do. But this does not mean that she was a non-virgin when this happened— only that she also carried that title of wife, and therefore is a model for not just all virgins but for all wives too.

look at the earlier quote “Now, as a wife, she was under the very law of opening the womb, wherein it was quite immaterial whether the birth of the male was by virtue of a husband’s co-operation or not; it was the same sex that opened her womb.”

as a wife she was under the law of opening the womb…normally the womb would have been opened by the male organ, in Mary’s case, according to Tertullian, her womb was opened by a male, namely Jesus by means of his birth. Open womb = no longer a virgin

 

[PRmerger]

this you claim without a hair of substance to back it up

Oh, the irony.

You keep stating that the ECFs spoke of children who shared the same womb as our Lord, yet have not a hair of substance to back it up.

 

[ClamDigger]

There are lots of records, not destroyed, where segments of the Catholic Church put together Bibles without all of the books. They attempted to add books like the Shepherd of Hermes for example and remove Revelation, 2nd Peter, John 2 & 3, and other canonical books. However, it was unsuccessful. So actually there is documented history of attempts to add to scripture and delete certain books. In that case, the segments that did were not successful. I am not suggesting that all Catholic Churches attempted that but clearly many did.

:Sigh:
They didn’t attempt to add or remove books. These formulations were attempted before the Bible we (both Protestants and Catholics) have today was compiled and canonized in the fourth century.
The “adding and removing” of these books were merely attempts by people in the third century and before to put together Christian scriptures they deemed especially important because there was no formal canon as of yet.

 

[ClamDigger]

Yes you do. In those documents we are assigned many different names by those who disagree with us as well as incomplete presentations of our history. But it worked out well in God’s time in our view.
Thanks.

What documents, though? Surely, out of all of these supposed “documents”, some of them survived? Even Gnostic gospels have survived to the present day! So surely your “gospels” that talk about the sons of Mary and Joseph weren’t all destroyed, since you contend it was such a widespread belief in Early Christianity.

 

[ClamDigger]

I see no reason to believe the early church did not know the canon. I see nothing in the early church writings to suggest otherwise. A few hundred years later some segments are opposed to certain books and so forth.
They did attempt to change scriptures and take out whole sections. That is what the earliest codices used by the Catholic Church, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, disagree with each other and us.

The Bible wasn’t officially canonized in its present state until the fourth century. No one “knew the canon” before the fourth century because there was NO offical canon.

 

[guanophore]

It does not state she gave birth to them. Isnt that the same question worded differently I just answered?
I do not automatically read that at all. Why would I? Yes, we are dealing with Jewish culture. That is why I know that Mary did not travel with grown men and not their other parents.

Maybe I misunderstood you. Which “grown men” to you refer to here? When she accompanied Jesus during His ministry?

“and not their other parents” Can you explain what you mean by this?

You have the earliest Christian historian saying that Jude was his brother humanly speaking. You also have him using the word kinsmen, ie cousin in regard to another family member. I have stated my view about time passing, the legends developing (via Joseph to the cousin theory) and other things.

Matt 10:2-4
2 The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zeb’edee, and John his brother; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

I found this in Adam Clark’s commentary:

Matt 10:4

[Simon] He was third son of Alpheus, and brother of James and Jude, or Judas, Matt 13:55

Matt 13:55-56
55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? 56 And are not all his sisters with us?

If Simon is the third son of Alpheus,and brother to James and Jude, do you purport that Mary is having relations with Alpheus?

Or, is this one of the “conflations”?

 

[guanophore]

It seems that you and Keohane are missing an obvious problem with this analysis. As you have noted the 12 are named early in the 3 Synoptic gospels.

What do you think of Adam Clark’s opinion that James, Jude, and Simon (all named among the Apostles) are the sons of Alphaeus?

 After that naming (in Matt 10, Mark 3 and Luke 6) we find the incident where Jesus's mother and brothers arrive outside the house where Jesus is teaching (at Matt 12, Mark 3 and Luke 8).  In Mark 3 we are told that Jesus's family thought that he was out of his mind (v. 21). They went to take charge of him (v. 21). They arrive and are identified as his mother and brothers (v. 31).

Do you and Rightly honestly believe that younger siblings would presume to “take charge” of the firstborn son, who was a respected Rabbi?

Jesus gives priority to his spiritual family over his earthly family (his brothers, sisters and mother. v. 33-34).

No, He does not. He tells His disciples that those who obey Him can be raised to the same level of kinship with him enjoyed by his near earthly kin.

In John 7:5 we are told that even Jesus’s brothers did not believe in him.

If Adam Clark is right about the identity of the disciples, I have to wonder then, who are these that DON"T believe?

 

[ClamDigger]

I do not claim they had other documents that supported Mary having other children. I believe the Bible is clear enough on the family of Jesus. I considere its origin to be scripture. Matthew, Mark, Paul make enough mentions that I have no reason to not believe that Christ’s family included brothers and sisters. I see no proof of a perpetual virginity; in fact the contrary. Scripture is enough to sustain my view whether or not anyone 800 years ago believed it. Truth is not determined by the number of people who adhere to it.

You haven’t displayed a single verse in Scripture that talks about the sons of Mary or Mary, the mother of Jesus “and Bobby and Tommy and Joey and Susie and Tina.”

 

[ClamDigger]

Okay, so lets be accurate. The Catholic view is the early church was not on top of things enough to know that John wrote Revelation, Peter wrote 2nd Peter, John wrote 2 and 3rd John, thought other books like Shepherd of Hermes were inspired but mained all accurate knowledge about the virginity of Mary…just trying to be clear here.

Okay, so, let’s be accurate. The Church was on top of things enough to canonize the 27 books of the New Testament that you use today, but it was not on top of things enough to maintain accurate information on the perpetual virginity of Mary. Just trying to be clear here.

 

[ClamDigger]

Four brothers, several sisters. She travelled with them. She was outside with them…as you recall. They also would have been adult age more than likely.

I spend a lot of time with my aunt and she helped raise me. That doesn’t make me her biological son.

 

[fbl9]

In St.Luke’s account of the holy family’s journey to Jerusalm where are these other children?

 

[guanophore]

In St.Luke’s account of the holy family’s journey to Jerusalm where are these other children?

Didn’t you know? They were born in Egypt. The siblings of Jesus had dual citizenship - Egyptian and Palestinian.

 

[Tomb54]

The Catholic Church did not keep any documents that did not support them. Why would they?

Then where are the Fundamentalist documents? Or are you saying the Catholic Church was the only Christian church then.

 

[Tomb54]

There are lots of records, not destroyed, where segments of the Catholic Church put together Bibles without all of the books. They attempted to add books like the Shepherd of Hermes for example and remove Revelation, 2nd Peter, John 2 & 3, and other canonical books. However, it was unsuccessful. So actually there is documented history of attempts to add to scripture and delete certain books. In that case, the segments that did were not successful. I am not suggesting that all Catholic Churches attempted that but clearly many did.

This was all done still when the canon was not firmly established and this is also documented in histroy because only Protestants tried to remove books from the bible after it was firmly established at the council of the church. The time you are talking about the NT was still in a state of flux. Only Luther removed books from the Bible after it was established and declared inspired.

 

[TracyR]

From what I understand. Had Jesus had brothers Mary would have been passed on down to them. When Jesus died at the cross he left the care of Mary to John ( the disciple that Jesus loved). Not to a brother. That’s just the way it was in those days.

So there is no proof that Jesus had any other siblings whatsoever.