That makes a lot of sense. In those days (heck, even in 2006) Mary living with a male relative would’ve been scandalous and as you said, impossible. Add to that, Mary’s reputation as Jesus’ mother and that would probably make it even more impossible.
I think you meant “unrelated male” rather than “male relative”
And yes, Jesus putting His mother in a scandalous situation would have been a further dishonoring of her, which again would have made Jesus a sinner.
I have seen some unconvincing answers to this by Protestants. One is that when Jesus rose the brothers would have known He was God, or would have been too afraid of Him to object. The fatal flaw with this argument is that Mary went to live with John “from that hour”, meaning directly from the foot of the cross. She didn’t wait until Jesus resurrected. And that would have given the brothers three days at least to prevent her, or fetch her back. But scripture says she lived with John “from that hour” (until the end of her life). So, no brothers.
The other argument I have seen for Mary going to live with John is that Jesus’ brothers were not believers
at that time, although these same Protestants concede that those “brothers” became believers later. So according to this Protestant argument, Jesus separated His mother
for the rest of her life from living with her own other sons,
even though those other sons later became believing Christians!!! That would have been the height of injustice!
On top of all that, even if the brothers
never became believers, since when is that a just reason for separating a mother from her children? Is this Christian teaching, that a widowed mother who has unbelieving children is not to live with them, but to live with a believing, unrelated male? No, it is certainly not Christian teaching. And yet, if it were true, and if it were good enough for Christ, why don’t we do it?
Because it never happened.
