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Catholic Questions & Answers The Catholic Church teaches that Jesus had no direct brothers, where as Mt. 13:55-56 speaks of James, Joseph, Simon and Judas as his brothers. What explanation the Church has for this ?
The Catholic Church teaches that Jesus had no direct brothers, where as Mt. 13:55-56 speaks of James, Joseph, Simon and Judas as his brothers. What explanation the Church has for this ?
Bible scholars say that Jesus had no direct brothers. Whoever is mentioned as brother is only a cousin brother. In Aramaic language, there is no different word to denote cousin. Hence brother is an umbrella-word, which includes brothers and cousins. According to St. John, before his death on the cross, Jesus entrusted his mother to John (19:26-27), the disciple whom he loved. If Jesus had direct brothers, he would have entrusted that task with them. When speaking of the women looking at the cross from afar, Mark mentions Mary the Mother of James the less, and of Joseph (15:40). It is clear that this Mary is not Jesus' mother who stood very close to the cross. Perhaps she might be her sister-in-law, her brother's wife. Simon and Jude could be the sons of Cleophas, Joseph's brother. Since Joseph is not mentioned during Jesus' public ministry, one might infer that he had died in Jesus' childhood. Hence Jesus might have stayed in his uncles' houses and called their sons his brothers, so that later people also began to call them his brothers.