Did Jesus have Brothers and Sisters

Did Jesus have Brothers and Sisters?

The word used in the Greek New Testament for "brothers" is adelphoi, which means "from the womb" and means brothers who are born from the same mother. Unfortunately, this word and Jesus's title as Mary's firstborn have been misunderstood to mean that Joseph and Mary had an intimate marriage relationship after Jesus's birth that resulted in brothers and sisters (Mt 1:25; 13:46; Lk 2:7; Jn 7:3; Acts 1:14). This intimate marriage relationship has never been a teaching of the Church. All the Church Fathers maintained that Mary remained a virgin all of her life. The problem in interpretation stems from a misunderstanding of Jewish/Israelite cultural traditions and the failure to take into account that the sacred writers of the New Testament were writing in Greek but thinking in Hebrew/Aramaic.

In Luke 2:7 Jesus is said to be Mary's "firstborn son." "Firstborn" was a title of the first son to "open the womb" of a woman: Consecrate all the first-born to me, the first birth from every womb, among the Israelites. Whether man or beast, it is mine ... When Yahweh has brought you into the Canaanites' country, as he swore to you and your ancestors that he would, and given it to you, to Yahweh you must make over whatever first issues from the womb, and every first-born cast by animals belonging to you: these males belong to Yahweh (Ex 13:1, 11-12, NJB). The title was not determined by whether there were other sons or daughters. Human "firstborn" sons were redeemed by a tax, and the firstborn of animals were offered in sacrifice (Ex 34:19-20; Num 3:46-47; Lk 2:23). It is also significant that in Mark 6:3, the people of Nazareth referred to Jesus as "This is the carpenter, surely, the son of Mary..." It was common to refer to a man by the name of his father unless there were children by more than one wife. Tradition has always taught that Joseph had children by an earlier marriage and was a widower when he married Mary (cf. The Protoevangelium of James).

There is also confusion concerning the use of the Greek word heos in Matthew 1:25: He had no relations with her until [heos] she bore a son, and he named him Jesus. The Greek word heos in the New Testament and the Greek translation of the Old Testament and the Hebrew word ad in the Hebrew translation of the Old Testament do not have the same sense of meaning as our use of the word "until." We usually understand the word "until" to mean that a certain act did not take place for a period of time and then, after that time, the act did take place. This is not the way the word heos is used in the Bible. Instead, the word can mean an act did not take place for a period of time and then continued not to take place; heos is used as an adverb of continuance (Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon, # 2193, page 268). Here are some examples from the Old Testament Septuagint (Greek) translation and from the New Testament where heos is used in this way:

Deuteronomy 29:3/4 ~ But until [heos] today Yahweh has not given you a heart to understand, eye to see, or ears to hear (NJB). In Scripture, Yahweh will continue to describe the Israelites as a people who do not have a heart to understand or eyes to see (Is 6:10; Jer 5:21; Ezek 12:2) as does Jesus (Mt 13:10-17).
2 Samuel 6:23 ~ And until [heos] the day of her death, Michal, daughter of Saul, had no children (NJB). This passage does not mean that Saul's daughter had children after her death.
John 9:18 ~ Now the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and gained his sight until [heos] they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight. After they spoke with the man's parents, they still did not believe.
1 Timothy 4:13 ~ Until [heos] I arrive, attend to the reading, exhortation, and teaching. Paul did not expect St. Timothy to cease these activities after he arrived.

Jesus did not have brothers and sisters, but He did have step-brothers, sisters, and cousins. There is no separate word for cousin, half-brothers/sisters, or step-brothers or step-sisters in Hebrew or Aramaic. The only way to designate a "cousin" was to indicate that a certain person was the son of your mother's brother, etc. In Hebrew and Aramaic, any kinsman (relative) or a countryman was a "brother." This peculiarity of the Hebrew language is evident in other passages in the New Testament that are clearly not speaking of blood relationships. In Acts 1:14 and 16, Peter addresses the 120 disciples (men and women) praying and waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room of Jerusalem and calls them adelphoi. In Peter's great homily at the Feast of Pentecost, he preaches the risen Christ to the Jewish crowds and calls them adelphoi (Acts 2:29, 37). Later, when Peter preaches to the Jews at the Temple, he also calls them adelphoi. Adelphoi (meaning, "from the womb") is the only word used for "brothers" in the entire Greek New Testament.

Throughout the book of Acts and all of Saints Paul, James, and John's letters to the Church, the New Covenant believers are all referred to as adelphoi (the plural form can be used to indicate both sisters and brothers/male and female relatives). The point is, in the New Testament, the Greek word adelphoi is being used in the Hebrew sense of men and women relatives or covenant brothers or sisters. We know from the Bible and other sources that Jesus had several relatives who became prominent in the Jerusalem New Covenant Church. Both James and Simon became Bishops of Jerusalem (according to tradition, they were Jesus's stepbrother and cousin). Both Jesus's relatives James and Jude wrote books in the New Testament that bear their names. If Mary had other sons, it would have been inconceivable that Jesus would have left her in the care of John at the foot of the cross instead of telling John to make sure that another son cared for her (Jn 19:26-27).

It has always been a teaching of the Church that the "brothers and sisters" of Jesus mentioned in the Gospels are either the children of Joseph from a previous marriage (see the ancient document The Protoevangelium of James) or cousins. It is a dogma (truth) of the Catholic Church that Jesus's birth "did not diminish his mother's virginal integrity but sanctified it." The Roman Catholic Church affirms the perpetual virginity of Mary of Nazareth in God's plan of salvation in three parts: in her virginal conception of Christ; in giving birth to Christ, and her continuing virginity after His birth:

virginitas ante partum: virginity before birth [CCC#396; 510]
virginitas in partu: virginity during birth [CCC#510]
virtinitas post partum: virginity after birth [CCC# 510]

The usage of this triple formula to express the fullness of this mystery of faith became standard with St. Augustine (354-430 AD), St. Peter Chrysologus (c. 400-450 AD), and Pope St. Leo the Great (440-461 AD). See CCC # 496-507; 964.

The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary's real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man. In fact, Christ's birth "did not diminish his mother's virginal integrity but sanctified it." And so the liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary as Aeiparthenos, the "Ever-virgin." Catechism of the Catholic Church 499

For more information on this subject see Karl Keating's book Catholicism and Fundamentalism, pages 282-289. Also see This Rock Magazine, September 2003, "Bad Aramaic Made Easy: There is No Word for Cousin," pages 18-22.