Jesus' Brothers

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Augustine

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This is probably a beaten subject, but yesterday afternoon, hopping from one radio station to another, I stopped a while at a Protestant Q&A show by a guy named Hank. One of the callers asked this question and the host’s answer was that the Greek word used for “brothers” was specific to brothers by blood, proving yet again that Catholic Tradition was against the Scriptures.

Now, I have to wonder how Greek could have a word for brothers by blood and, by inference, another for brothers but not by blood and yet didn’t have a word for cousins. Then again, aren’t cousins related by blood too?

Any help from those who know Greek would be appreciated.
 
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Augustine:
This is probably a beaten subject, but yesterday afternoon, hopping from one radio station to another, I stopped a while at a Protestant Q&A show by a guy named Hank. One of the callers asked this question and the host’s answer was that the Greek word used for “brothers” was specific to brothers by blood, proving yet again that Catholic Tradition was against the Scriptures.

Now, I have to wonder how Greek could have a word for brothers by blood and, by inference, another for brothers but not by blood and yet didn’t have a word for cousins. Then again, aren’t cousins related by blood too?

Any help from those who know Greek would be appreciated.
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i think it is aramaic that does not have a word for cousin, not greek. and 2 of the gospels were originally written in aramaic.
 
I am certainly no expert, but my understanding is that the Greek does have the specific word for brothers, it’s the Aramaic that the Greek was translated from that did not have a word for cousin so rather than chance a “misinterpretation”, since the scripture said “brother” the Greeks just translated it as such - literally - but I don’t know how true that is. Like I said, I’m not versed in this. smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/23/23_28_113.gif

In other words, those being called the brothers of Jesus could’ve been his cousins but the Aramaic didn’t have a word for cousin so they used the word brother. Besides, in the Jewish community, the terms brother and sister, were not necessarily used to indicate the actual blood relation of brother and/or sister. This term was used for many types of relationships - brothers, sisters, cousins, close family friend, etc. and it was a term used frequently. It was sort of used like the Protestants call each other brother or sister in Christ.

Hope someone with a more scholarly education on the subject can jump in and give you some more definites on the translation business. smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/3/3_3_8v.gif

Also, check the home page of CA, there’s an explanation of the “Brethern of Jesus” that is quite informative. I think it has the stuff about the Greek and the Aramaic. That should clear it up.
 
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DianJo:
I am certainly no expert, but my understanding is that the Greek does have the specific word for brothers, it’s the Aramaic that the Greek was translated from that did not have a word for cousin so rather than chance a “misinterpretation”, since the scripture said “brother” the Greeks just translated it as such - literally - but I don’t know how true that is. Like I said, I’m not versed in this. smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/23/23_28_113.gif

In other words, those being called the brothers of Jesus could’ve been his cousins but the Aramaic didn’t have a word for cousin so they used the word brother. Besides, in the Jewish community, the terms brother and sister, were not necessarily used to indicate the actual blood relation of brother and/or sister. This term was used for many types of relationships - brothers, sisters, cousins, close family friend, etc. and it was a term used frequently. It was sort of used like the Protestants call each other brother or sister in Christ.

Hope someone with a more scholarly education on the subject can jump in and give you some more definites on the translation business. smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/3/3_3_8v.gif

Also, check the home page of CA, there’s an explanation of the “Brethern of Jesus” that is quite informative. I think it has the stuff about the Greek and the Aramaic. That should clear it up.
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My understanding is the same as yours. From what I’ve read (admittedly not a whole lot) in order to refer to a cousin (or similar relation) you would have to say “the son of my father’s brother”. To avoid this cumbersome usage, “brother” was used to refers to actual brothers-german, as well as general kinsmen. When Greek scholars translated from aramaic, they simply used the Greek word for brother (adelphos, I think) rather than trying to discern the actual relation in every case.

As far as the “brethren of the Lord” are concerned, there are several points that would seem to indicate that they were not Jesus’ actual brothers-german. For instance, if you look at the descpition of the Crucifixion (Matt 27:56, Mark 15:40, and John 19:25) it’s pretty evident that James is the son of Mary, wife of Clopas.

Also, we find instances of the “brethren” giving Jesus advice. Now in Jewish society of the time, younger brothers or sisters would under no circumstance give directions or advice to older siblings, yet we know Jesus was Mary’s firtsborn (fistborn not only refers to chronological order of birth, it was an official designation for consecration at the temple-an only child would also be called first-born). Hence, if they were Jesus’s full brothers they would have to be younger, and would not give him advice.

Finally, if Mary had other children, why did Jesus commend her to the care of John (woman behold thy son…)? Wouldn’t his brothers have cared for her?

As far as I know, there are two main hypotheses about who the “brethren” really are. First, and most common, is that they were Jesus’ cousins (are perhaps more distantly related). The other is that they could have been Joseph’s children from his previous marriage (he was a widower). In this case they would have been Jesus’ step-brothers, but not blood relations.
 
Don’t take this wrong, because I am sincerely trying to be helpful, but people would save themselves a lot of trouble if they checked the main article page of this site before asking questions:

catholic.com/library/Brethren_of_the_Lord.asp

Not every answer to every question is there, but it is the logical place to start. 🙂
 
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mtr01:
When Greek scholars translated from aramaic, they simply used the Greek word for brother (adelphos, I think) rather than trying to discern the actual relation in every case.
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This is the word that the Protestant apologist referred to, adelphos, as proof of Catholicism being wrong.

Is there any known rendition of the orginal hebrew or aramaic texts of the Gospels?
 
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Augustine:
This is the word that the Protestant apologist referred to, adelphos, as proof of Catholicism being wrong.

Is there any known rendition of the orginal hebrew or aramaic texts of the Gospels?
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There is always the theory that these “brothers” were the sons of St. Joseph by an earlier marriage. But in support of the “cousin” theory , let advance the notion that in Semitic cultures, there is much inbreeding. For instance, among the Arabs, a man might marry his daughter off to his nephew so that he could continue to give her the protection she would otherwise not receive from her husband’s family. This is, of course pure speculation, but we must not make the mistake of thinking our Lord’s family being a European family, although even in Europe there is much intermarriage among villagers. Familial relations would thus be quite close.
 
The argument falls flat when you refer the Protestant to his KJV of the Bible, Gn 14, 14, in which it refers to Lot as Abraham’s “brother”. Lot is of course his nephew not his brother. Look up the word for “brother” in an Aramaic dictionary, there are about 30 different spellings for it, I remember it as “Aha” (like you caught someone…. Lol) but it means generally kinsman or brethren, not (necessarily) blood brother.
 
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Augustine:
This is the word that the Protestant apologist referred to, adelphos, as proof of Catholicism being wrong.

Is there any known rendition of the orginal hebrew or aramaic texts of the Gospels?
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Unfortunately there are no surviving texts in Hebrew or Aramaic, which is why some of this is an issue I suppose. As I mentioned before, Greek did have a separate word for cousin (anepsios). However, as pointed out by Tom above, even the septuagint translators used adelphos to describe people who were not brothers-german (e.g. Lot and Abraham).

The point is, the translators did not stop to try to figure out every single exact relationship when they encountered the aramaic word for brother, they simply used adelphos by default, even when anepsios was more appropriate. Just because the greek word in the text is *adelphos, *it does not necessarily mean the text is referring to full brothers.
 
When I saw The Passion - a question popped in my head about all this.

Isn’t James supposedly one of Jesus’s “brothers?”

The movie portrayed James as an older man.(in the garden scene)
I have seen him portrayed this way in artwork also.

Is it tradition that James was older?

And if he was - how could he be Jesus’s full blood brother if Jesus was Mary’s firstborn?

Or am I getting my Jameses mixed up?
 
To add to the debate, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, so he was unique, even if Our Lady had children later. Right?

I also am no expert but I recall from studying at college (Divinity was one of my subjects) that all the gospels started with an oral aramaic tradition.

On CNN I saw a debate in which a fundamentalist said all the gospels were written in Greek. He argued with an Arab chap about it. But he was forgetting the decades when the gospels were just handed down in Aramaic. In other words, he was just trying to catch people out, when he was only half right himself.

This man upset all the other members of the panel and suggested the Catholic priest go to his Church for lessons.
 
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DianJo:
I am certainly no expert, but my understanding is that the Greek does have the specific word for brothers, it’s the Aramaic that the Greek was translated from that did not have a word for cousin so rather than chance a “misinterpretation”, since the scripture said “brother” the Greeks just translated it as such - literally - but I don’t know how true that is. Like I said, I’m not versed in this. smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/23/23_28_113.gif

In other words, those being called the brothers of Jesus could’ve been his cousins but the Aramaic didn’t have a word for cousin so they used the word brother. Besides, in the Jewish community, the terms brother and sister, were not necessarily used to indicate the actual blood relation of brother and/or sister. This term was used for many types of relationships - brothers, sisters, cousins, close family friend, etc. and it was a term used frequently. It was sort of used like the Protestants call each other brother or sister in Christ.

Hope someone with a more scholarly education on the subject can jump in and give you some more definites on the translation business. smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/3/3_3_8v.gif

Also, check the home page of CA, there’s an explanation of the “Brethern of Jesus” that is quite informative. I think it has the stuff about the Greek and the Aramaic. That should clear it up.
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DianJo, this is a perfect answer. THe only way to elaborate is to actually break out the Aramaic and Koine Greek words actually used and the etymology of each. If you have to go that far to prove a point, the other person is debating you just for the sake of arguing, not to come to the Truth. Good job! 👍
 
I don’t know about that, but personally I believe that Mary was Ever-Virgin. In one of the Gospels it says clearly, “Mary gave birth to her firstborn son.” I don’t know Greek, so I can’t help you there. But it seems to me that the Protestant tradition is the one going against Scripture, not the Catholic.
 
**To mtr01 - **

That’s great! 👍 You gave some other “arguments” that I’m also familiar with - especially about the advice to older brothers and the cumbersome usage of the statement “the son of mt father’s brother”. That’s exactly what I learned about the Aramaic!

To Apologia100 -
You’re exactly right - if you have to go THAT far to prove your point then someone is looking to argue for the sake of arguing! I’ve found that if you have to go that far, you’re usually not going to convince the person by ANY means because they are bound and determined to ignore LOGICAL FACT AT ANY COST!
 
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mtr01:
Unfortunately there are no surviving texts in Hebrew or Aramaic, which is why some of this is an issue I suppose…
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But were there ever any before they were translated into Greek? And are those oroginally written in Hebrew the ones in which the reference to Jesus’ brothers appear?
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mtr01:
Just because the greek word in the text is *adelphos, *it does not necessarily mean the text is referring to full brothers.
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Not to mention that you and I are brothers too, right? 😉

TIA
 
All of the usual reasons have been presented concerning Jesus’ ‘brothers’. The one point not addressed is that in using other scripture mentioning the the names of the ‘brothers’, we find they had different mothers. A great deal of in depth study has been done by posters on other boards in the past years. I’m not doing a lot of searching for old posts, but the info is there for those interested.

Kotton 🙂
 
“The Protoevangelium of James”, a late first or early second century work purporting to be written by James recounting the life of Mary and Joseph up to the birth of Christ, is probably the primary source of the tradition that Joseph was a widower with other children who took Mary in, and that therefore James was older than Jesus and his step brother.

newadvent.org/fathers/0847.htm

The cousin theory was articulated by Jerome in his essay on the perpetual virginity of Mary:

newadvent.org/fathers/3007.htm

Either approach explains Mary’s perpetual virginity and Jesus’ “brothers”. I’ve yet to see a Protestant argument that wasn’t addressed eons ago by these two works. Nothing new under the sun.
 
Jesus did indeed have many brothers and sisters, read His own Words!!! Everyone who follows His Fathers Word is His brother, sister and mother. I am His brother, and if I had lived in His time my name also could have been included in Scripture, but it wouldn’t mean I was born from the womb of Mary, even though I am her son.
 
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