Jesus had siblings?

[paul_c]

Sorry that it took so long to respond to your earlier post. Here it is now, along with comments on the above.

I did not mean to confuse you on my comments about the divinity of Jesus. I did not say what I believed. Rather, I pointed out that in the Gospels John is the only evangelist who clearly states that Jesus was ALWAYS divine. In other words, that Jesus existed before his human birth. ONLY John has that. I was connecting that question, of when Jesus became divine (or the Son of God) with Mary’s eternal virginity. My point was that in the early Church, since many Christians, including the earliest evangelists, did not consider Jesus as existing as God (or the Son of God) prior to His birth, there was no need to concern themselves with Mary’s virginity, or whether Jesus had brothers.

So Mark does not have the birth story, and starts his Gospel with John the Baptist. Because the “divine” nature of Jesus did not appear until the baptism, according to Mark, Jesus could have been conceived and born in the usual way. How Jesus was born made no difference in Mark’s theology.

In Mark, Jesus is called “God’s beloved Son” twice: When He is baptized, and during the Transfiguration. But to Mark, Jesus may not have been fully divine until His death or even His resurrection. Read Mark’s account of the Passion carefully and you will see that. Regarding the opening of Mark’s Gospel, he does say “The Gospel of Jesus Christ” but you must realize he is writing it after the fact, so of course he would know then who Jesus was. The “Son of God” is in parentheses as it was added later, and doesn’t appear in several “important” manuscripts of Mark, as the notes to Mark indicate.

In Luke, Jesus is the Son of God at His conception, which is why Luke has that story. Matthew is similar to Luke, but his birth story is about the fullfillment of prophecy. It appears that to Matthew, Jesus was made the Son of God at his birth. In Matthew’s baptism story, God tells the people there that Jesus is His Son. In Mark, He proclaims it directly to Jesus. So to Matthew, Jesus already “knows” He is the Son of God, and doesn’t need to be told. But the people around Him do. To Mark, the Baptism by John is the opening moment of Jesus’ ministry. This is when Jesus first learns of how special He is, and not before then.

John is quite a bit different and equates Jesus with being the Son of God from creation. The other three writers do not do that.

So we have several different times when Jesus “becomes” the Son of God, which range from the beginning of time up to His resurrection.

Since only John considered Jesus the Son of God prior to His birth, the Gospel writers say nothing about Mary being eternally virgin. In fact, as has been pointed out, there are numerous implications that Mary and Joseph had additional children, both in the Gospels and from Paul. Why would that be? Simply because NONE of these evangelists and disciples even considered Mary’s eternal virginity a possibility. The birth of Jesus through the intervention of the Holy Spirit was plenty special all by itself. Nothing else was needed, and would have had no bearing on who Jesus was, what He said, or what He did.

Which “version” of when Jesus became the Son of God do I believe is correct? I am not sure, and I am not certain if it matters to our faith. Just as I don’t think it affects our faith if Mary and Joseph had other children.

I think you are making assumptions about what the other three Gospel writers thought from silence. They were writing biographies of Jesus. to describe what they saw. John, writing later, augmented that with a more theological view point. If you beleive that all of scripture harmonizes, then you must believe that Jesus was always in existence.

Do you believe in the Nicene Creed. This is clearly stated there.

There is also no basis for your statement that none of the Evangelists thought Mary’s eterenal virginity was a possibility. They do not say this. You are making that assumptive leap solely because you misinterpret the word Adelphos in scripture. Without that interpretation, you would have no issue with the eternal virginity of Mary, is that Correct?

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

You say I am wrong; I say you may be right, and I (and others who agree) may be right. Neither of us knows the answer to that question with total certainty, but will I go with how the Catholic Church’s own bible translates it. And the interpretation of that one word is not the only thing on which I based my position. The other reasons are provided in earlier posts. And I will ask again the question that no one has yet to answer:

**If the Church truly believed that the word “brother” written in the manuscripts meant “cousin” or “close relative”, why isn’t it translated that way? **

Your position is purely contrarian.

You will not go to the source. You will not believe the source. You will not believe Biblical quotes or people posting in this thread.

Your modern worldly mind (AND mine) cannot interpret Scripture correctly. Yet you refuse to defer to legitimate Church authority.

Why?

 

[panevino]

I recently noticed that in the Greek ,Matthew ,mark & Luke
differentiate the mother of Jesus as Mariam/Marias
from the mother of James and joses As Maria

this appears to clearly show that James and joses are not sons of Jesus mother

 

[Eddie_Mac]

Neither of us knows the answer to that question with total certainty

You are wrong. We know the answer. Our Church has the answer and we believe.

Read my sig line.

Eddie Mac

 

[po18guy]

Let’s look to the Old Testament for a little clarification here. From the protestant NIV::

Genesis 11:27 This is the account of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot.

Genesis 13:8 So Abram said to Lot, "Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers.

So, if Lot was Abram’s nephew, why did he call him “brother”?

This was, and is the common term for what we know as ‘extended family’, as well as those of your region.

To get hung up on a language into which the scriptures were translated is to miss the point. Of the Gospel writers, only Luke was Greek. Thus, Greek was a second language of the others, if they spoke it at all. Matthew, we know, spoke Aramaic (or Syro-Chaldean). Knowledge of middle eastern civilization helps as well. In the middle east even today, those of your city, town or area are brothers and sisters. This is true also in much of Africa. We err when we try to apply 19th-21st century American thinking to ancient texts. To keep beating this dead anti-Catholic protestant horse does a disservice to the truth.

The point:

I cannot understand this recent protestant mania for tearing Mary down. Luther didn’t. So, those who do are not even good protestants. Just don’t be Catholic, OK! We get that. But, to insult the Lord’s mother? To make her average? To promote her as common? God have mercy on you, because He did not think so! I do not know about you, but I will not sit in the judgment seat of Christ only to explain why I denigrated his mother’s memory.