Jesus' brothers and sisters

[A_G]

"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel." Isaiah 7:14 Douay-Rheims Bible

**“And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” Luke 1:26-28 **Douay-Rheims Bible

**“And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man ?” Luke 1:34 **Douay-Rheims Bible

Furthermore…

"When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he saith to his mother: Woman, behold thy son. After that, he saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own." John 19:26-27 Douay-Rheims Bible This is proof that Jesus is Mary’s ONLY child. When Jesus was on the cross, He gave care of His mother to John, His faithful disciple. She clearly had no other children other than Jesus. If She did then the other children would have been mentioned, and they would care for Mary, instead of the disciple John. There was no one else to look after Mary.

Not only does scripture prove that Mary was a virgin before Jesus was born, but also it proves that she remained a virgin all Her life.

 

[Prieldedi]

This leads to my question: is there anything in tradition (either “Big T” or “Small t”) to explain why the Bible is written and/or translated like this? Was there truly no other way that the author could have described Jesus’ half-siblings (or cousins) in a way that didn’t leave people questioning (on-and-off for nearly 2000 years) whether Jesus had blood siblings? Alternately, why didn’t the people translating the Bible to vernacular languages use “relatives” or something along those lines if they knew that He did not have “brothers” or “sisters”?

God bless,
Dean

The reason I’ve heard is that the first translators of the NT decided to translate those words literally to be truthful to the original writings. I would imagine that the Apostles and their successors explained verbally to the converts the true meaning of those words and passages. That’s part of the Oral Tradition that has been kept by the Catholic Church.

After the reformation, and with the introduction of personal interpretation of the Bible, it was a matter of time until a westerner (European or American) would conclude that “brother” had only one meaning in Palestine during the first century.

If they had translated “brother” as “cousin” we would be having the same discussion. The non Catholic camp would be arguing “adelphoi doesn’t mean cousin!” They would be accusing us of “changing” or “adding” to the Word of God.