Jesus' Brothers or Cousins?

By Reese Currie, Compass Distributors

In articles such as The Truth About Mary, we have quoted verses such as Matthew 13:55 to demonstrate that Mary was not a perpetual virgin because Jesus had brothers. In that same article, we dispelled the argument sometimes advanced by Catholics that these were merely Joseph's children from a prior marriage, by demonstrating that there was no evidence of other children present during the flight to Egypt.

At the end of that article, there was a question about another Catholic claim, that the Greek word for “brother” is not specific enough and could mean “cousin.” My only response to that was that the Greek word adelphos can only mean brother.

Recently, I had a query from another Internet friend that put a finer point on this question. Apparently the claim is that in Aramaic, there is no word for “cousin,” so the word for “brother” was used instead. I answered that question privately, but it occurred to me that it might be of benefit to all of our readers to summarize some of the stronger points made in that discussion.

The first thing I want to make plain is that the underlying text of the Bible is not Aramaic. God did not choose Aramaic for the language of the Old or New Testaments.

There is a part of Daniel (specifically Daniel 2:4b through 7:38) that is actually written in the eastern Aramaic dialect (as opposed to the western Aramaic dialect that was theoretically spoken in Israel in New Testament times). With that one exception, the Old Testament language is Hebrew.

Interestingly, the portions of Daniel that focus on Gentile nations are in Aramaic, while the portions that focus on Israel are in Hebrew.

All of the apocryphal books (which Catholics refer to as "deuterocanonical," and were written in the intertestamental period) are in Greek.

Finally, the entire New Testament is in Greek. That is the very precise language God chose for the New Testament.

Now, Greek does indeed have a word for "cousin," anepsios, which is used in Colossians 4:10 to describe the relationship between Barnabas and Mark. Paul, who wrote Colossians, and evidently knew the word for "cousin", did not apply it to James, the Lord's "brother", in Galatians 1:19. Matthew and Luke also wrote their gospels in Greek, and they certainly had a word for "cousin" at their disposal. They didn't use it because it was inaccurate: these were Jesus' real brothers.

But supposing the word “cousin” had not been available to them; would they have used the word “brother” instead? This would not fit the Biblical pattern. I do not know if there is a Hebrew word for “cousin”; if there is, it isn't used in Scripture. Nevertheless the Old Testament writers still did not fail to differentiate between brothers and relatives who were not brothers.

For instance, Ezekiel 11:15 starts off with, "Son of man, your brothers, your relatives, your fellow exiles and the whole house of Israel..." (NASB). In this verse a "relative" is distinguished from a "brother.”

If you're like me, and you believe the Bible when it says, “All Scripture is inspired by God” (2 Timothy 3:16a, NASB), you'd have to ask yourself this question: If when God inspired Ezekiel, He was careful to ensure that cousins and other relatives were not referred to as brothers, why in heaven would He let Matthew and Luke refer to cousins as brothers in Greek when Greek actually has a word for “cousin”? That just does not follow logically.

Whenever theologians play these word games to make it appear that the obvious sense of the Scripture is not correct, I am reminded of the verse, “Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers” (2 Timothy 2:14, NASB).

So I hate to participate in these word games at all, but when cultists use them to try to subvert people from the truth, I suppose it has to be answered. I believe the above arguments destroy any notion that the word “brother” is applied in any way erroneously to Jesus' actual brothers. But there is one other thing I'd like to touch on, which is the outdated assumption that people in New Testament-period Israel primarily spoke Aramaic, an idea that was strongly enforced by Catholic Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ.

In the early 20^th century, scholars had come to a consensus that the Hebrew language fell out of use as a spoken language in the 4^th century BC, having been supplanted by Aramaic. This theory is outdated. There is mounting archaeological evidence that Hebrew was still in use as a spoken language in New Testament times. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, in its 1958 edition, said Hebrew "ceased to be a spoken language around the fourth century BC,” but in its 1997 edition reversed that, admitting that Hebrew "continued to be used as a spoken and written language in the New Testament period."

One theory is that Israel was a trilingual state, with Hebrew as the main tongue, Aramaic used for communication with others in the middle east, and Greek used for communication with others in the eastern Roman Empire. Israeli scholars are now convinced that Hebrew was the mother tongue in use in Israel in Roman times.

This makes sense Biblically. For instance, on the cross, Jesus said, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani" which means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" But the people standing there didn't know what it meant. If Aramaic was the language in general usage, wouldn't they have known what it meant? (See Mark 15:33-34).

Also, when Jesus spoke Aramaic, it would be transliterated in the Greek and then translated; for instance, at Mark 5:41, “Taking the child by the hand, He said to her, "Talitha kum!" (which translated means, 'Little girl, I say to you, get up!')” (NASB). Why bother to take special note of that if Jesus was always speaking in Aramaic?

In Luke 4:14-30, Jesus reads from a scroll of Isaiah, which at that time, was only available in Hebrew and in a Greek translation; presumably Jesus read the Hebrew. Everyone seemed to understand His Hebrew on this occasion, but few if any understood His Aramaic words on the cross.

In John 19:20, Pilate wrote his sign for the cross in three languages, Hebrew, Latin and Greek. Certain Bible versions translate the "Hebrew" as "Aramaic", most notably the NIV; and while the NRSV translates it as “Hebrew,” it has “Aramaic” as a marginal note. The actual word being translated, Hebraisti, means “the Hebrew or Jewish language” which can technically mean either Hebrew or Aramaic. But there seem to have been no Aramaic speakers present at the foot of the cross, or if there were, they were in such minority as to be unwilling to correct the scoffers who thought Jesus called for Elijah. It is highly unlikely that Gentiles standing under the cross would even be able to make a connection to Elijah, not likely being versed in the Old Testament, so one must assume the people misinterpreting the Aramaic were Jews, who must therefore have been primarily speakers of Hebrew or Greek.

Speaking of those standing at the foot of the cross, this brings up another Catholic “cousins” argument; if those men who surrounded Mary were her sons, why did Jesus entrust her care to John while dying on the cross?

I think that this argument reads an assumption into the text, that the purpose of Jesus' comments were to entrust Mary to John's care, when that's not necessarily clear from what is really being said.

Let's look at what this says precisely. In the NASB, John 19:26, 27 says, “When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, 'Woman, behold, your son!' Then He said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!' From that hour the disciple took her into his own household.”

Note that the "household" is italicized; that means the word is not actually in the Greek. The Greek in this case is somewhat obscure; all it really states is that John “took her into his own.” His own what? House? Family? Heart? It's not abundantly clear. It is highly doubtful to me that this meant John's actual physical home, because whatever transition took place, it happened "from that hour." John's home was in Galilee and this took place in Jerusalem. There is no way that John could take her into his physical home "from that hour." So I think the proper interpretation is, "from that hour, John took her as his own mother" or “from that hour, John took her into his own family.”

Note that 40 days later, John is found in the upper room in Jerusalem, and he is not Mary's sole caretaker. Mary is indeed there with him, but so are Jesus' brothers. Acts 1:13,14 says, "When they had entered the city, they went up to the upper room where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers" (NASB).

So, if Jesus' idea was to take Mary out of the care of His brothers and place her into John's care, obviously His wishes were not respected. Also, there is not a word in Acts to indicate that Mary dwelt in John's home. One must assume, then, that this isn't what the incident at the cross meant at all.

What was really being done here? The Catholic argument indicates that Jesus is committing his mother into John's care, but what if Jesus is actually expressing His kinship and brotherhood to John by having Mary adopt him? Or is He giving Mary John as a son to replace Himself? (It could even be both.)

If Jesus' main directive is for John to do something, for instance, "John, look after my mother," why does He address Mary first? Isn't He really asking her to do something in relation to John first, and John to do something in relation to Mary second? In a sense, then, He is saying to Mary, "Be his mother," then saying to John, "accept her as your mother." From that moment, John “took her into his own,” that is, as his own mother or into his own family. But there's not a shred of evidence from Scripture that John took her into his actual home, nor that Jesus' brothers were relieved of her care.

There is no need for all this wrangling to support an erroneous theological position concocted in the dark ages by dualistic philosophers that had taken control of the Roman Catholic Church. The Bible says what it means and means what it says: Jesus did indeed have brothers. His mother lost her virginity sometime after He was born. That's why the Bible very clearly states that Joseph “kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son...” (Matthew 1:25, NASB). That means Joseph didn't keep her a virgin forever, but until some time after she had given birth to Jesus. The fact that Mary indulged in sex with her husband after Jesus was born does not in any way diminish from who she was; but to claim that her having sex diminished her, as Roman Catholicism does, is an insult to Jesus' mother!

Main Page Christian Topics