In this episode of Catholic Answers Live, apologist Karlo Broussard joins host Edgar Lujano to explain why Jesus could not have had biological siblings. They unpack the biblical language around “brothers,” explore early Church teaching, and explain why Mary’s perpetual virginity is essential to understanding who Jesus is.
Transcript:
Caller: I have a question about the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary.
Karlo: Okay.
Caller: I have a hard time with it because first she was a Jewish wife whose obligation would have been to give her husband as many sons as possible. But more importantly, the Gospel of John talks about the disciples and Jesus’s brothers as two separate distinct groups. He does that several times in his Gospel. I just don’t understand where the idea is founded in.
Karlo: All right, so two great questions or statements there. So with regard to the claim that it would have belonged to Mary to embark upon the role to provide Joseph as many sons as possible, that’s simply not true, Kevin. We do have Old Testament precedent, say in Numbers chapter 30, where many have looked to see evidence that there is some precedent within Jewish marriages where the female in the marriage, that spouse would have a vow of perpetual virginity within the marriage, such that if the husband consents and agrees to it, then the vow is binding. It’s spoken of in Numbers chapter 30, when it’s articulating a variety of different vows and it talks about how certain women within the marriage bind themselves, which is a Hebrew idiom, to suggest this vow of virginity, that if the husband consents, then it’s binding. So we do have some precedent that this is not entirely out of bounds.
Now, my second response to that, Kevin, would be, even if that were not the case and we had no precedent for this within the Jewish culture, then it still wouldn’t follow that this is a defeater of Mary’s perpetual virginity precisely because this is an extraordinary marriage or situation where you have God made flesh coming to dwell within her. So it’s very fitting and reasonable to even suggest, in light of reason, that this would be a scenario that would not follow the normal precepts or principles of marriage, that something extraordinary would be present here, like her perpetual virginity. That’s just to show the plausibility of it and that this statement would not be a defeater of the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity.
Now, Kevin, you brought up the scriptural evidence of Jesus having brothers, as you mentioned in John’s Gospel, referring to Jesus’s brothers. Matthew specifically names them. Mark names them as well: James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude. But as has been often pointed out, Kevin, within scholarly literature and within Catholic responses to this, and even Protestants acknowledge this, that the term in Greek there for brothers, plural *adelphoi*, or even singular *adelphos*, doesn’t necessarily. Its use is not necessarily for biological brothers. The word does mean biological brother, Kevin. But it’s used within the Bible by biblical authors in ways that go beyond biological brotherhood.
And one classic example of that is in Genesis 14, where Lot is called Abraham’s brother. And even in the Greek version of that Hebrew scripture, known as the Septuagint, that Greek word *adelphos* is used for Lot, although we know Lot is the nephew of Abraham. So we see that “brothers,” or the term “brother,” has a wide semantic meaning and can be used to describe a variety of different relationships, from biological brotherhood, yes, to kinsmen of some sort, or even beyond kinship and just spiritual brotherhood. That’s prevalent throughout even the New Testament.
And so the point here, Kevin, is that one cannot appeal to a biblical text that says Jesus’s brothers and therefore conclude that it defeats or disproves the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity. Because “brothers” is just too ambiguous.
So that raises the question, well, how are the gospel writers using the term “brother” in reference to these guys in relation to Jesus? Well, Kevin, we argue that we actually do have evidence in the New Testament that Mary was indeed a perpetual virgin and that she did not have other sons. And that one line of reasoning is this: at the foot of the cross, while Jesus is on the cross, he entrusts Mary into John’s care. If Jesus had biological brothers, or to state it differently, if Mary had other sons, then Jesus would not have entrusted Mary into John’s care because the fourth commandment of honoring your father and mother involved sons in the lineup to care for their aging parents, especially their mother.
And Jesus was all in favor of upholding family ties and the traditions surrounding the fourth commandment about caring for aging parents. So if Jesus had biological brothers or Mary had other sons, Jesus would not have entrusted Mary into John’s care. But Jesus does entrust Mary into John’s care. And so therefore we can conclude, Kevin, that Mary did not have other sons.
Furthermore, Kevin, we know at least two of those four brothers of the Lord that Matthew mentions in Matthew 13:55, or the sons of another Mary that Matthew talks about at the foot of the cross in Matthew 27:56 when he identifies Salome, Mary the Magdalene, and then Mary, the mother of James and Joseph. Those are the two same dudes that he lists in Matthew 13:55 as being two of the four brothers of Jesus. And their mama is named Mary, but it is not Mary, the mother of Jesus. Why would Matthew have to identify this Mary with James and Joseph and not Jesus? That doesn’t make sense.
So at least we have some positive lines of evidence from the New Testament that Mary did not have other sons, and thus these brothers of Jesus would have been some sort of kinsmen of Jesus, not biological brothers of Jesus.
Caller: Great. Thank you for that answer. That’s very good. I’ll pray over it.
Karlo: Okay.
Cy: Okay, Kevin, I think that’s a great thing. You’re welcome.
Karlo: Thank you, Kevin.
Cy: You know, Karlo, it’s so interesting. Whenever we tend to read scripture in our own native tongue, it seems like it can almost be perceived in one way. But when you actually look at the original writings, like *adelphos*, like you were saying, it actually gives it a whole other context and a whole other meaning. It’s one of the reasons, I think, why we here in the Catholic Church recognize that we cannot completely self-interpret without actually appealing to an authority, which is the authority of the Church, to learn how to properly read Scripture.
Karlo: Yeah. At least when it comes to those places in sacred Scripture, which there are many where it is ambiguous. Now, even in this case, appealing to the Greek word can lead you to what the Greek word means, but it’s not necessarily what the word means. We have to ask the question, how is the author using the word within the given context, the immediate context in which he uses it, and then also in light of the broader historical context.
And so with this case, it’s not necessarily the question is not what the word means, because it does mean biological brother. The question is how is the author using it, given the knowledge that the word can be used in ways that go beyond biological brotherhood. But then that raises the question of how the author is using it in this case, because it’s possible he’s using it for biological brotherhood, but it’s also possible he’s using it for some other kind of relationship. And so the question is, which way is he using it?
And this is why we have to look at other evidence to determine the way and the more reasonable conclusion as to which way the author is using the term. You know, another example comes up here in Luke 14:26. Luke records Jesus saying, “Unless you hate mother or father, you are not worthy of me.” Now, that word “hate” is even in… I mean, I can’t remember the exact Greek word there for hate, but it would have the connotation of what we would conclude to be like hate, like having ill will towards somebody and wanting to harm them for their own sake.
So even though the word means that, that’s not how Jesus is using it. Jesus is not telling us to sin. Rather, he’s using an idiom, speaking in a way that’s consistent with the mode or the manner in which his people spoke in the first century. And what that refers to as an idiom, it signifies, “Unless you love mother and father less than me, you’re not worthy of me.” To state that positively, Jesus is saying we gotta love Jesus even more than our mothers and our fathers.
Cy: Yeah. Jesus is not telling you to hate your parents and break one of the commandments, that’s for sure.
Karlo: Amen to that.
Cy: Amen to that. Well, Dr. Karlo Broussard, what a great show today.