SPLIT: Did Jesus have brothers? The perpetual virginity debate.

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Something else to ponder: Mary was betrothed to Joseph, right? (Luke 1:27) Planning to get married. And, you know what that means. OK, so Gabriel is sent to her to tell her that she is going to have a Son (Luke 1:31). Her reaction? “How is this going to happen, since I have no knowledge of man?” (Luke 1:34). Huh?

Mary knew that children are produced through marital union. Says so right in the bible. Mary was planning to get married. Says so right in the bible. So, tell me why she was incredulous when told that she was going to have a son? So incredulous that she had the temerity to ask Gabriel, who stands in God’s Presence (Luke 1:19), just how this was to come about.

Ever virgin.
 
James, Joseph, Judas and Simon are the names of the “brothers” of Jesus (Mat. 13:55, Mark 6:3, Galatians 1:19). These three passages plus Acts 1:14 are the ones that have caused all the debate regarding the Virgin Mary having only one son or more.

The key to unravel all this is “James the Lord’s brother” mentioned by St. Paul in Galatians 1:19, when he tells us that he went to Jerusalem for 15 days to visit Cephas (St. Peter). In that passage, besides saying that James is the “brother” of Jesus, St. Paul also tells us that James is one of the Apostles.

“But I did not see ANY OTHER APOSTLE EXCEPT James, the Lord’s brother.” Galatians 1:19

St. Paul is saying that besides St. Peter, the only other Apostle he saw was James, “the Lord’s brother”. So James the “brother” of Jesus is one of the Apostles. There is no way from this verse to conclude that St. Paul is referring to a brand new “James”, a “James” that is an “unkown” up to that moment, a “James” that is making his first appearance in the New Testament, a “James” distinct from both Apostles named James.

There are two Apostles named James: James “the Great”, son of Zebedee and brother of St. John; and James “the Less”, son of Alphaeus. The Virgin Mary had been given to Joseph in marriage, not to Alphaeus. So the Apostle James “the Less” has a father, Alphaeus and his mother is a woman also named Mary (Mark 15:40). St. Matthew calls her “the other Mary” in Mat. 27:61. Five verses earlier (27:56) he calls her “Mary the mother of James and Joseph” who are two of the alleged “brothers” of Jesus. When one looks at the names of the supposed “brothers of the Lord”, one notices that they have the same names as those of the sons of “the other Mary”.

At the crucifixion of Jesus, “the other Mary” is called by St. John “HIS MOTHER’S SISTER, Mary the wife of Cleophas” (Jn. 19:25). As with James, this Mary, “sister of the mother of the Lord and wife of Cleophas” is not a new Mary making her first appearance in the New Testament. This is the same scene described by Matthew (27:56) and Mark (15:40) so this Mary is the mother of James the Less.

Besides, when reading that two “sisters” are named Mary logic tells us that no father would name two daughters with the same name. Rich494 says that “the word for sisters can only be translated to mean sister.” I’m not sure if that’s the case. If “brother” encompasses distinct male relatives, “sister” would likewise encompasses distinct female relatives. I would argue that if “brother” can mean any male relative besides a son of the same parents, “sister” would also mean any female relative besides a daughter of the same parents. The case of the “sister” of the Virgin Mary proves this fact. They are not daughters of the same parents, but are called “sisters”.

I’ve heard that “sister” can also mean “sister-in-law”. According to Hegesippus (II Century) St. Joseph and Alphaeus were blood brothers. If we combine this fact with John saying both Mary are “sisters”, it would mean that two brothers were married to two women that are blood related. This would be more consistent with the notion that the “brothers” are not the sons of St. Joseph from an earlier marriage, instead they would be his nephews, the sons of his brother Alphaeus.

So we have two “sisters” named Mary. One has a son, Jesus. The other has four sons whose names are the same as those of Jesus’ alleged “brothers”. I’m sure the “brothers of Jesus” and the sons of “the other Mary” are the same individuals, I don’t believe there is one set of brothers named “JAMES, JOSEPH, JUDAS AND SIMON”, sons of “the other Mary” who is the “sister” of the Virgin Mary, and another set of brothers, also named “JAMES, JOSEPH, JUDAS AND SIMON”, sons of the Virgin Mary. What are the odds that the Bible has two sisters named by their father with the same name (“Mary”), who have sons named identically (“JAMES, JOSEPH, JUDAS AND SIMON”)? Zero!!!

So, the relationship between the “brothers” and Jesus is, at best “second cousins”, if and only if “the other Mary” and the Virgin Mary are cousins (they are definitively not daughters of the same parents). All this points to the Truth known for 2000 years: Jesus is an only son of the Virgin Mary.
 
I was always taught that there were later children but why would that take from Mary’s virgin status? She was a virgin when she conceived the messiah by the will of God the father. Why would it then be wrong for her to submit to her husband and love him in the way God intended? I do not see that it removes any of her purity or sainthood.
 
Friday_child said:
I was always taught that there were later children but why would that take from Mary’s virgin status? She was a virgin when she conceived the messiah by the will of God the father. Why would it then be wrong for her to submit to her husband and love him in the way God intended? I do not see that it removes any of her purity or sainthood.
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Because that would disqualify Jesus from being the Messiah.
[BIBLEDRB]Ezekiel 44:2[/BIBLEDRB]

There is no physical gate in Jerusalem that only Jesus passed through. Thus, the gate being referred to by the prophet is Mary’s womb.

Don’t practice cafeteria Catholicism, or you’ll wind up with a rotten egg on your plate.
 
Friday_child said:
I was always taught that there were later children but why would that take from Mary’s virgin status? She was a virgin when she conceived the messiah by the will of God the father. Why would it then be wrong for her to submit to her husband and love him in the way God intended? I do not see that it removes any of her purity or sainthood.
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Mary gave no time limit or expiration date on her vow to God that she was His handmaiden/bond slave. She was with Jesus from virgin womb to virgin tomb.

Following is a private revelation that erased my last objections to Mary’s perpetual virginity. A little language and culture study helps, and this was revealed to me at a Catholic bible study. In those days, a woman relied on her husband for support. When he died, her son or sons would support her. If she was a childless widow, she was in dire straights, because she had no one to support her. Even worse, society considered her to be cursed by God, who gave her no children, or took them away. Such women were reduced to begging for subsistence. In the Aramaic, there was no word for “cousin”. So, “brother” and “sister” were used to describe various relatives - even those unrelated to you by blood, if you were both in a foreign land. Remember that in many cultures to this day, brother and sister can be used to address even those from the same town or village.

Jesus had great love for widows. This was evidenced by the “widow’s mite” story in both Luke 21:1-4 and Mark 13:41-44. Christ was so impressed at the widow in the temple that he made a point of teaching His disciples about her selflessness, for the sake of God. Again, Jesus showed His great love for the widow in Luke 7:11-17. When He and his disciples met the funeral party leaving the gates of the city of Nain, He took pity upon the now childless widow who was enroute to bury her only son. He restored her son to life and gave him to her - Jesus presented a son to a grieving mother.

Then, in John 19:26-27, Jesus’ last physical act on earth was to give Mary to John, telling him, “This is your mother” and saying to Mary, “This is your son”. Why did He do this at all, and why as He was dying on the cross? If Mary had any other children, they would have supported her for the remainder of her life. For Jesus to do this would have been a great insult and disrespect to Mary’s other children, if she had any. And, there’s the rub! She had no other children to support her, as John “took her into his home from that hour” Jesus again presented a son to a grieving mother.
 
Friday_child said:
I was always taught that there were later children but why would that take from Mary’s virgin status? She was a virgin when she conceived the messiah by the will of God the father. Why would it then be wrong for her to submit to her husband and love him in the way God intended? I do not see that it removes any of her purity or sainthood.
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Do you really know what “God intended” for the mother of His Son?

Marriage is not bad in the eyes of God. But His intentions for the mother of His Son was not that of a common marriage. St. Joseph was to care for her and God’s Son in all their worldly needs. We say God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. In the same manner, Mary’s virginity is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

I have the Gospel of Nicodemus, an apocryphal gospel. It details some of the accusations Annas, Caiaphas and others made against Jesus at his trial before Pilate. It is true the Church doesn’t consider it inspired, but it contains historical data that we can consider true. This is the first accusation leveled against Jesus:

“In the first place, we know this concerning you, that you were born through fornication” - Chapter 2:7

The Sanhedrin wanted to deny He was the Messiah. Since they knew the Messiah was to be born from a virgin they needed to deny His virginal birth by saying that He was born “through fornication”.

After the reformation someone started this denial again joining in that way the efforts of Annas, Caiaphas and the rest of the Sanhedrin against Jesus. Too bad they have so many followers these days.

Look at what Paul writes here:

“Likewise, the unmarried woman and the VIRGIN are concerned with the SERVICE OF THE LORD, TO BE HOLY IN BODY AND SPIRIT. The married woman, instead, worries about the things of the world and how to please her husband.” (1 Corinthians 7:34)

Do you see him describing Mary’s virginity here? I do. These reasons plus many other reasons provided in this thread as well as other threads on this topic, prove that the teachings of the Church regarding Mary’s Perpetual virginity are true.
 
After the sibling rivalries that we see in scripture, including the first murder, why would God “intend” for Mary to produce other children? Children to be raised beside Jesus. Children who would watch Him grow far beyond their own limitations. Children who would be treated differently from Jesus. Children who could never measure up to Him. Mary was destined, from all eternity, to give flesh to the only Son of God. And, we know from the first chapter of John’s Gospel that nothing was made that was not made through Jesus. Our Lord chose His own mother. Let’s ponder that for a moment.

This “other children” idea was not even believed by Martin Luther or Jean Calvin. Both firmly believed in Mary’s perpetual virginity. So, the idea is a recent one, and one that is intended to reduce Mary’s holiness. Who is opposed to holiness? Who was a murderer from the beginning - in fact whose influence inspired that first murder?

It is that person who is opposed to Mary. Opposed to her holiness. Opposed to her Divine Son. Opposed to all that is good and holy.
 
Rich494 said:
The church teaches that Mary, who is to be called blessed, was ever a virgin. But in the Gospels she has 4 sons mentioned and the word “sisters” used talking about Jesus. Now i know that the word Brother can be used to mean cousin, but the word for sisters can only be translatted to mean sister. Holy Spirit does not confuse people. So lets look at why Mary has to be a eternal virgin. I don’t find anything in Scripture that says if she was or was not that will add to my salvation.
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The church teaches that Mary, who is to be called blessed, was ever a virgin because that is the teaching the church received from the Apostles. Non Catholics, who have no access to the Oral Traditon of the Apostles are left to trying to understand the Written Tradition without the aid of Apostolic teaching and thus lapse into false doctrine and beliefs. Mary was ever virgin; the Apostles taught it and so the church teaches it.
 
Friday_child said:
I was always taught that there were later children but why would that take from Mary’s virgin status? She was a virgin when she conceived the messiah by the will of God the father. Why would it then be wrong for her to submit to her husband and love him in the way God intended? I do not see that it removes any of her purity or sainthood.
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Because it’s not about Mary, it’s about Jesus. All the Marian doctrines/dogmas concern Jesus even more than Mary, and tell us something about him, not her.

The reason Mary needed to remain a virgin is to safeguard Jesus’ Messiahship, not because marital relations would in any way affect her saintiness. There are many, many married saints.

If Jesus had merely been one child of several how could there be any guarantee that he alone was divinely conceived? Why would we trust Mary’s word alone that only Jesus had such a special conception when it would have been much more likely that Joseph was his father–or worse, that she was lying? The Sanhedrin could not make this accusation against Jesus for the simple reason that Mary had no other children. They could try to muddy the waters to say he wasn’t conceived as Mary said, but they couldn’t play the “multiple children of the same mother” card at his trial.

Jesus is the only begotten Son of the Father and the only son/child conceived by Mary.
 
thistle said:
I did not say it was wrong. I said I believe it is wrong because the Church does not consider the Protoevangelium of James inspired in any way and does not accept what is in it. If it did it would teach that Joesph was married before and did have other children. The Church does not teach that so I go with the Church.

By the way even if what you think is correct is correct and even if they were more like peers it was still the custom to look after the woman if their father died and any blood children of the woman died.
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Careful here. The church does not accept the Protoevangelium of James as inspired. That does not mean that it isn’t true. Most probably, the Protoevangelium of James was written less than sixty years after the conclusion of Mary’s earthly life (around 100-120A.D.) and apparently well circulated in a time when memories of her life were still vivid in the minds of many. Yet there is no evidence that the work was ever claimed to be untrue.
 
inkaneer said:
Careful here. The church does not accept the Protoevangelium of James as inspired. That does not mean that it isn’t true. Most probably, the Protoevangelium of James was written less than sixty years after the conclusion of Mary’s earthly life (around 100-120A.D.) and apparently well circulated in a time when memories of her life were still vivid in the minds of many. Yet there is no evidence that the work was ever claimed to be untrue.
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The various uncanonized gospels weren’t accept into the canon because they were not written by an Apostle nor someone who was a direct disciple of an Apostle like Mark and Luke, besides some of the iffy theology in some of them. The Didache is not a part of the canon, for example, but it is very much used and approved for telling us about the early Church’s beliefs and its history. :yup: So, much of what they tell us about Mary has been accept as a part of Church Tradition. And in case our Protestant brethren object to Sacred Tradition, they should understand that the canon of Scripture itself is a part of Sacred Tradition–that the Bible does not and never was intended by the Church to stand alone in deciding matters of faith and morals. Indeed, the canon was compiled mainly so every parish in every diocese would be reading the same inspired writings in their daily liturgies of both prayer and the Mass.
 
inkaneer said:
Careful here. The church does not accept the Protoevangelium of James as inspired. That does not mean that it isn’t true. Most probably, the Protoevangelium of James was written less than sixty years after the conclusion of Mary’s earthly life (around 100-120A.D.) and apparently well circulated in a time when memories of her life were still vivid in the minds of many. Yet there is no evidence that the work was ever claimed to be untrue.
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Wikipedia
Some indication of the popularity of the Infancy Gospel of James may be drawn from the fact that about one hundred and thirty Greek manuscripts containing it have survived. The Gospel of James was translated into Syriac, Ethiopic, Coptic, Georgian, Old Slavonic, Armenian, Arabic, Irish and Latin. Though no early Latin versions are known, it was relegated to the apocrypha in the Gelasian decretal, so it must have been known in the West by the fifth century. As with the canonical gospels, the vast majority of the manuscripts come from the 10th century or later. The earliest known manuscript of the text, a papyrus dating to the third or early 4th century, was found in 1958; it is kept in the Bodmer Library, Geneva (Papyrus Bodmer 5). Of the surviving Greek manuscripts, the fullest text is a 10th century codex in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Paris 1454).
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V. The remaining writings which have been compiled or been recognised by heretics or schismatics the Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church does not in any way receive; of these we have thought it right to cite below a few which have been handed down and which are to be avoided by catholics:
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tertullian.org/decretum_eng.htm
 
thistle said:
I did not say it was wrong. I said I believe it is wrong because the Church does not consider the Protoevangelium of James inspired in any way and does not accept what is in it. If it did it would teach that Joesph was married before and did have other children. The Church does not teach that so I go with the Church.

By the way even if what you think is correct is correct and even if they were more like peers it was still the custom to look after the woman if their father died and any blood children of the woman died.
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Think of it in another way, what if the Protoevangelium was an effort to write down what is already tradition in the early Christian communities? It may not be inspired as canonical scripture, but if it accurately and faithfully captures Christian tradition, why shouldn’t it be believed? The belief in the East about the contents of the Protoevangelium is believed not because they are in the Protoevangelium, but because they are part of tradition. Which means that the Protoevangelium is just a latter writing of what is already believed as part of tradition.
 
Question:
  1. If we accept that words like ‘adelphoi’ are capable of including what we would call cousins as well as brothers; and
  2. if we accept that people like Eusebius who wrote their ecclessiastical histories about “James the brother of the Lord”, did so before the perpetual virginity of our Lady was defined for universal acceptance; and
  3. if we accept that it is a work of the Holy Spirit to exclude from the canon the more explicit apocryphal “gospels” which identify our Lord as having siblings whilst including in the canon the gospels that are more ambiguous on the point; then consequentially…
Is the result that the object of our inquiry ought focus less on historical happenstance (which is probably beyond our ability to now accurately reconstruct) and more on the kerygmatic aspect of what it means to affirm that God’s grace and power is such that the incarnation was a unique event (and so, Mary was inter alia perpetually virgin and it is an article of faith that our Lord was without siblings)?
 
Since Jesus has existed from all eternity, and all that exists came into being through Him (John 1:1-3), it stands to reason that He was the creative force that brought Adam and Eve into existence as sinless beings. This, He did as the divinely desired method of creation. Since creation was perfect, that which was created perfectly reflects the nature and intent of the Creator. The creation of sinless humans followed upon the creation of a perfect world in which they would eternally live. The Godhead is unchanging, thus, the logic is easily extended to hold that Jesus conceived of and caused the creation of His own mother. Since neither my mother, nor anyone else’s was chosen for this singular task, one would not think that a fallen human nature for that mother would be desirable. After all, it was not through his sanctification of Mary once conceived in the womb that mankind was redeemed, but rather through the shedding of his blood.

It stands to reason. It may not stand to emotion.
 
It seems that no one posted that in those times the language spoken was Aramaic and Hebrew. In those languages there was no word for Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Nephew etc.Therefore, relations were referred to as brother and sister.
 
Eire said:
It seems that no one posted that in those times the language spoken was Aramaic and Hebrew. In those languages there was no word for Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Nephew etc.Therefore, relations were referred to as brother and sister.
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In addition to this, it points to the fact that scripture cannot be interpreted privately, or in a vacuum - that is - separated from the history of the Church. The development of the doctrine was not a Catholic “response” to the protestant reformation, since both Luther and Calvin firmly believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. This modernist revision of Mary came about some time later, after the man-made doctrine of sola scriptura lead to the private interpretation of scripture. Doctrines were then placed forever after on radically divergent paths.
 
If jesus had brothers (who would have been HALF SIBLINGS) then why did THEY not care for Mary after Jesus’ death on the Cross? Why did Jesus give the care of HIS MOTHER over to John, the Beloved Disciple?
 
Question: How is Matthew 1:24-25 to be understood?
Code: 
v. 24 - Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden 
          him, and took unto him his wife:
v. 25 - And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called His
          name JESUS.

'knew her' (refers to marital relations)
'till' (until after)
'firstborn son' (usually means that others followed)
 
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