Buzzfruit
New Member
Hello Angelina,
Jesus did not have any biological brothers. None of the James mentioned in the Bible were Jesus' biological brother. The problem with the Hebrew and Aramaic language is that they don't have a word for "cousin." So, the word "brother' was also used for cousin. The writers of the New Testament were brought up using the Aramaic equivalent of "brothers" to mean both cousins and sons of the same father—plus other relatives and even non-relatives. When they wrote in Greek, they did the same thing the translators of the Septuagint did.
Let's look closely at James, whom some say is Jesus' brother. We know that James the younger’s mother was named Mary. Look at the descriptions of the women standing beneath the cross: "among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee" (Matt. 27:56); "There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome" (Mark 15:40).
Then look at what John says: "But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene" (John 19:25). If we compare these parallel accounts of the scene of the crucifixion, we see that the mother of James and Joseph must be the wife of Clopas. So far, so good.
An argument against this, though, is that James is elsewhere (Matt. 10:3) described as the son of Alphaeus, which would mean this Mary, whoever she was, was the wife of both Clopas and Alphaeus. But Alphaeus and Clopas are the same person, since the Aramaic name for Alphaeus could be rendered in Greek either as Alphaeus or as Clopas. Another possibility is that Alphaeus took a Greek name similar to his Jewish name, the way that Saul took the name Paul.
So it’s probable that James the younger is the son of Mary and Clopas. The second-century historian Hegesippus explains that Clopas was the brother of Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus. James would thus be Joseph’s nephew and a cousin of Jesus, who was Joseph’s putative son.
Nothing, it was Buzz who changed the subject when I stated that when one should allow the non-Christian member in the family first to know God and be sanctified by Him before one goes outside the family. After all, Jesus went to the House of Israel first and then sent His Apostles into the world of the Gentiles.
Jesus said He was sent to the lost House of Israel.....that's why He never preached much if any to the gentile. But He told the Jews that the kingdom of God would be taken from them and given to another. He also said that people from around the world would come and sit down in the kingdom with Abraham but they would be outside.
