Jesus' siblings. When?

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I’m a Catholic, facilitating an interdenominational Bible Study in Tennessee. Many, though not all Protestants in this part of the country believe Jesus had siblings. When and where did that belief become popular?
 
Helvidius, a contemporary of Jerome, is believed to have been the first writer to propose that James, Simeon, and the other “brothers and sisters” named in the Gospels may have been the offspring of Joseph and Mary. Until then, the prevailing view had been that they were Joseph’s children by an earlier marriage. Jerome thought they were cousins.

You may find it helpful to look through some of the earlier threads we’ve had here on the same subject.
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Translation of the words "brother" and "cousin" Sacred Scripture
I’ve heard the argument that the “brothers” of Jesus mentioned in scripture were not literal blood brothers, but were most likely akin to cousins and the like, because the language of the time didn’t have words for those other, familial terms. How is it then that elsewhere in the Gospel, it describes Elizabeth as being Mary’s “cousin”? Thanks in advance
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Did Jesus have brothers? Article dealing with the question of whether Mary was always "the Virgin Mary." Sacred Scripture
This article is at http://www.ewtn.com/library/answers/brosis.htm This question is often raised by Protestants because of the passage in the Gospel of Mark, saying “Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, a brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Aren’t His sisters our neighbors here?” (Mk 6:3) However, in the original text of the Bible, this article point out, the Greek word usually translated as “brother,” , described other relationships, like cousins, nephews, etc. The same is tr…
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Did Jesus have sisters and brothers or step brothers/sisters? Apologetics
Richard Bauckham, a British NT scholar, has examined the question from every angle in his book Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church. On the “brethren” question (Mark 6:3), he concludes that the oldest explanation remains to this day the most likely: they were Joseph’s children by his first marriage.
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Thanks for the info. I’m pretty sure Anglican and Episcopal traditions teach in the perpetual virginity of Mary. I guess that as other denominations distanced themselves from the Catholic Church and Her teaching authority, the idea of Jesus’ siblings became more popular.
 
I don’t believe Jesus had siblings through Mary. Luther believed in PV (I’m a Lutheran)
In my personal opinion it is obvious Mary had no other children when Jesus gave her to John on the cross, as she had no one else to care for her.
That said, I have been inquiring into the EO, and maybe even the RCC, so maybe I’m not the typical Protestant.
 
typewriterman1 said:
Thanks for the info. I’m pretty sure Anglican and Episcopal traditions teach in the perpetual virginity of Mary. I guess that as other denominations distanced themselves from the Catholic Church and Her teaching authority, the idea of Jesus’ siblings became more popular.
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Depends on the Anglicans. I, an Anglo-Catholic, believe in the perpetual virginity, while most of my more Reformed cohorts in my ACNA church disagree. We are, as sir @GKMotley likes to say, a motley bunch.
 
This brother and sister reference in the Bible is a poor translation from the Greek. We have one word for brother in English and so in the translation, we assume some lineage and blood-line is connotated with it.

The Greek word used is adelphoi which in a literal transliteration means: from the same womb. But a better translation of it would be brethren. It connotates closeness in bond, like how your closest friends are like brothers and sisters, it connotates commonality and communalism. But it does not mean heritage or blood relation
 
This is really an argument about the perpetual virginity of Mary. The Church teaches this, therefore the Bible cannot possibly mean what it says. It is exactly the same as Protestants who reject the real presence. They teach otherwise, therefore the Bible cannot mean what it says. My own go-to person for what the Bible really means, Bart Ehrman, is quite sure it says Jesus had siblings. For us unbelievers it is obvious. Only faith creates the issue.
 
FiveLinden said:
Really? Any evidence for this?
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It’s what Richard Bauckham says, mainly in this book but in others as well:


As I said in an earlier post, there is no evidence, as far as I’m aware, for anyone having put forward either of the two alternative views earlier than the 370s or thereabouts – the pontificate of Damasus I, in fact. As far as I know, Jerome was the first to propose the “cousins” theory and Helvidius was also the first to propose that the “brethren” were the children of Joseph and Mary. Do you know of any earlier date for either of those ideas?
 
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It could be that the reason Jesus gave Mary to John to care for her was because his brothers and sisters were still unbelievers, and Jesus did not want his mother in care of unbelievers. He himself had said he had come to get fathers and mothers to be against their sons and daughters, Mt. 10:35. So maybe they were literally Mary’s children.
 
FiveLinden said:
My own go-to person for what the Bible really means, Bart Ehrman, is quite sure it says Jesus had siblings.
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I have never read anything by Bart Ehrman. What, exactly, is his argument here? Is it an argument from the meaning of Greek words? Is he saying that adelphoi can only mean full brothers and sisters, excluding stepbrothers and half-brothers?
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Clement of Alexandria is the first one known who said who the brothers were, he said they were sons of Joseph. He wrote it around the year 195. Later Origen expressed some uncertainty about it, he said that some say they were the sons of Joseph, basing it on the Gospel of Peter and the Book of James, by which he did not mean the Epistle of James, but the Protoevangelion of James. It is not known when those two works were written.
 
Thank you, @CzechMan, but what about early writers who oppose that view and who claim, instead, that they were not Joseph’s children by an earlier marriage?
 
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Thank you. I guess what I’m really after is some date to point to when those in my Bible study insist Jesus had biological siblings. I think early Protestants continued to believe the perpetual virginity of Mary. Martin Luther held a deep devotion to Mary and her perpetual virginity. I’m thinking the other Protestant reformers did as well. Maybe it is mainly in the American Protestant tradition, especially the Baptists. Just not sure.
 
He has a very active blog and is all over the Internet as well as a huge number of published scholarly books. Yes, he says the Greek can mean nothing else.
 
There’s more than one way to interpret Scripture and words can mean various things. Since most people read a translated version it can contain errors.
 
VanitasVanitatum said:
There’s more than one way to interpret Scripture and words can mean various things. Since most people read a translated version it can contain errors.
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Yes - in fact everything in the Bible NT, at least quotes from people, is in translation from the start because it was said in Aramaic and written in Greek. But you don’t get to say something is a mistranslation just so it can be aligned with a belief obtained from another source.
 
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