Did Jesus have Younger Brothers?

Did Joseph and Mary birth four more sons and two or three daughters?

In the Protestant world, Jesus' mother had more kids.

This idea drives the Catholic world nuts. They hold to the long-standing tradition that Mary the mother of Jesus remained a virgin after Jesus' birth. But academics and most protestants follow a more literalist reading of the Bible. How did we get into such a place as this?

Tanker-loads of ink have been spilled over this discussion, which began in earnest in the fourth century AD. I will try to stick to the basics, then present the view I follow, supported in part by a respected Bible scholar in England.

The Helvidian View:

Helvidius was a writer who penned an opinion prior to AD 383 that Joseph and Mary had additional children after the miraculous conception and birth of Jesus. He supported his opinion by the "solid evidence" of the Biblical mentions of "sisters" and "brothers" of Jesus. He cited support for his view from the writings of Tertullian (AD 155-240), a prolific author sometimes called the Father of Latin Christianity; and also from writings of Saint Victorinus of Pettau (AD 270).

This view was resurrected by the reformers after Martin Luther, who maintained that the language of the Bible concerning brothers and sisters of Jesus trumped the traditional western Catholic view. Their view has also been supported in the academic realm, at least from the mid-1850's through the present.

The Heironymian View

Saint Jerome (Latin Hieronymus, AD 347-420) was upset by Helvidius' view, for he and other Fathers of the Church held that Mary mother of Jesus remained a virgin throughout her life. Jerome proposed that the "brothers" and "sisters" were actually cousins of Jesus, and through his influence this became the traditional western Catholic view.

Scholars complained vociferously about this. If Jesus' relatives were step-brothers or half-brothers or adopted brothers, the Greek language lacked a specific word for the relationship, and "brothers" would have to do. But if they were cousins, there is a perfectly good Greek word for that, anepsios, which Paul deploys for the relationship between Barnabas and John Mark (Col. 4:10).

Part of the defense of this view depends on the relationships between the followers of Jesus present at the crucifixion, identifying a "Mary" there as mother of James and Joses, common names which recur in the list of Jesus' brothers. This Mary is then identified as the wife of one Cleopas deemed to be the same as Alpheus, two Greek names which purportedly arise from the same Aramaic original name. Recent scholarship has found a different Aramaic name which is the more likely root word from which Cleopas is derived, casting doubt on the identification of these two names referring to the same person.

The Epiphanian View

Around the same time as all this, one Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus (AD 315-403) promoted a third theory. The Epiphanian view is that these brothers and sisters were children of Joseph by a marriage prior to his marriage to Mary. This is also the traditional view in Eastern Orthodox churches. The idea that Joseph was already advanced in age by the time he married Mary had some currency in the early Church.

New Support for Epiphanius

As a scholar specializing on the book of Jude I take special interest in the brothers of Jesus. The title "Jude" does not occur in the original Greek of the New Testament. Instead, Jude verse one has the real name Judas, which has been softened in English because of the scandal of Judas of Kerioth, the betrayer of Jesus. The writer of the book identifies himself as a brother of James, no doubt meaning James the brother of Jesus.

The names of Jesus' brothers, then,  are James, Joseph/Joses, Simon, and Jude/Judas, all quite common names in New Testament Palestine. Two out of the four brothers have written books of the Bible. Names of Jesus' sisters come from later tradition as Mary, Salome, and possibly Anna. Matthew and Mark attest to all four brothers by name. All four gospels refer to the brothers of Jesus, while Matthew and Mark mention the sisters. Paul in his letters refers to Jesus' brothers twice:

James Bauckham, professor of New Testament and prolific author, has written a journal article (Themelios 21.2, January 1996: 18-21.) and a book (Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church, 1990) on this subject. He finds that for the first two centuries of the Church, the idea that Jesus' siblings were offspring of Joseph by a previous marriage was taken for granted.

These are "apocryphal" documents, meaning they are not accepted for inclusion in the Bible. Some apocryphal documents were written to support theological inventions that had been rejected, such as the Coptic Gospel of Thomas. This was written to promote the "gnostic" theology that had arisen primarily in Egypt. It may have been influential in the choice of the word "catholic" (received by all) to defend the early mainline church that fostered western Catholicism and eastern Orthodoxy.

Other early Christian apocrypha was written primarily for its entertainment value. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas is surely such a document. It is a fanciful piece of fiction that tries to show what the infancy and childhood of Jesus may have been like. One of my favorite pieces of fiction from the third century AD is the first chapter of The Acts of Thomas, in which Jesus appears and commands Thomas to evangelize in India. Thomas resists, saying "Send me somewhere else!"  Jesus then talks to a boat captain, who then comes over to talk to Thomas, saying "Is that your master over there?" Thomas says yes, and the captain says, "Well, he just sold you to me, and you're going with me to India."

Like some of these early Christian writers, I am writing historical fiction, but I start with the facts as found in the Bible, and go on to fill in the unknown blanks, such as, "Why is John Zebedee down by the Jordan calling himself a disciple of the Baptist instead of back at home fishing with his father?"

And Jesus' brothers and sisters? I found Bauckham's arguments persuasive. He concludes that both the Helvidian and Epiphanian views are acceptable solutions to the sibling questions, and both of them are in concordance with the rest of the Bible evidence. For myself, I follow the latter view, that Jesus' siblings were the progeny of a previous marriage. I build on that with the possibility that his first wife died after her sixth or seventh child, possibly in childbirth, and Joseph needed a new wife to take care of the babies.

If these kinds of things interest you, dear reader, you may want to read one of my books. The series on the teenage John Zebedee has already started and can be found by punching my name into Amazon.