![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bartehrman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Joshua-Schachterle-Bart-Ehrman-Author-1-1.png\" "\\"Joshua")
<\/span><\/p>\nWritten by <\/a>Joshua Schachterle, Ph.D<\/a><\/p>\n Author | Professor | Scholar<\/p>\n Author | Professor | BE Contributor<\/p>\n Verified! See our editorial guidelines<\/a><\/p>\n Verified! See our guidelines<\/a><\/p>\n Edited by Laura Robinson, Ph.D.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\nDate written: February 3rd, 2024\n \nDate written: February 3rd, 2024<\/p>\n Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. – Dr. Bart D. Ehrman<\/p>\n When we think about the vast influence of Jesus, it\u2019s hard to imagine him growing up with siblings like many of us did. So did Jesus have siblings?<\/strong> If so, how many did he have? Were any of them Jesus-followers? Did they believe he was the Messiah? Let\u2019s dive in and look at what scholars say about these questions. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The Gospel of Mark<\/a> is our earliest written Gospel so let\u2019s start there. In Mark 6, Jesus goes back to his hometown of Nazareth after preaching in other areas of Galilee. In Mark 6:3, the people of Nazareth are surprised and annoyed to hear Jesus preaching and said,<\/p>\n \u201cIs not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?\u201d And they took offense at him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There\u2019s a lot of information here about early Jesus traditions so let\u2019s unpack this passage.<\/p>\n First of all, while Mary is mentioned, Joseph is not. In fact, Joseph isn\u2019t mentioned anywhere in Mark. This is odd if Joseph<\/a> were really Mary\u2019s husband and Jesus\u2019 father, since ancient Jewish lineages were traced through the father. Of course, Mark also contains no birth narratives, so we can\u2019t be entirely sure what Jesus\u2019 parental situation was from Mark alone.<\/p>\n Next, Jesus\u2019 four brothers are named. One of these brothers, James<\/a> became prominent later in the Jesus movement. The other brothers, however, are never mentioned again by name outside the Gospels. All of their names, by the way, are very common Jewish names from 1st-century Palestine (Joses is a version of the name Joseph). By the way, the Judas who was Jesus\u2019 brother is not Judas Iscariot who would betray Jesus later.<\/strong><\/p>\n Finally, Jesus also had sisters, but we are not told how many or what their names were. According to Mark, then, Jesus had four brothers and at least two sisters.<\/p>\n We know that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source<\/a> in writing their Gospels. It would be surprising, therefore, if they didn\u2019t also mention Jesus\u2019 siblings.<\/p>\n Indeed, in describing the same return of Jesus to Nazareth, Matthew 13:55-56 repeats Mark\u2019s line spoken by the people of Nazareth almost verbatim:<\/p>\n \u201cIs not this the carpenter\u2019s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Notice how Matthew slightly modifies Mark\u2019s text. First, Jesus is no longer a carpenter but rather \u201cthe carpenter\u2019s son.\u201d In addition, he changes the order of the brothers and renames Joses \u201cJoseph.\u201d However, the basic information is the same, with four named brothers and an unnamed number of sisters.<\/p>\n Interestingly, Luke doesn\u2019t mention Jesus having any siblings at all while John mentions that Jesus had brothers but doesn\u2019t name them.<\/p>\n FREE COURSE!<\/p>\n WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN<\/p>\n Raw, honest, and enlightening. Bart’s story of why he deconverted from the Christian faith.<\/p>\n __CONFIG_colors_palette__{“active_palette”:0,”config”:{“colors”:{“10c55”:{“name”:”Main Accent”,”parent”:-1}},”gradients”:[]},”palettes”:[{“name”:”Default”,”value”:{“colors”:{“10c55”:{“val”:”rgb(255, 133, 34)”}},”gradients”:[]},”original”:{“colors”:{“10c55”:{“val”:”rgb(19, 114, 211)”,”hsl”:{“h”:210,”s”:0.83,”l”:0.45,”a”:1}}},”gradients”:[]}}]}__CONFIG_colors_palette__ <\/span> GET FREE ACCESS!<\/strong><\/span><\/span> <\/a> <\/p>\n Over 6,000 enrolled!<\/em><\/p>\n There are parallel passages in the Synoptic Gospels<\/a> (Mark 3:31-35, Matthew 12:46-50, and Luke 8:19-21) in which this question might be answered. Here\u2019s the version in Mark:<\/p>\n Then his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, \u201cYour mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.\u201d And he replied, \u201cWho are my mother and my brothers?\u201d And looking at those who sat around him, he said, \u201cHere are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n To understand the significance of this passage, you have to understand the significance of family in ancient Palestine. As K.C. Hanson and Douglas Oakman<\/a> write, \u201cin ancient Mediterranean societies during the first century, kinship was still the primary social domain\u2026 Virtually no social relationship, institution, or value set was untouched by the family and its concerns.\u201d In other words, family was the largest component of a person\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n And yet here we see Jesus effectively rejecting his family in favor of \u201cthose who do the will of God.\u201d This clearly indicates Jesus\u2019 stance on his own family but may also indicate that his family were not following him in his ministry.<\/strong><\/p>\n Further indication comes from Mark 3:20-21:<\/p>\n Then he [Jesus] went home, and the crowd came together again, so that they [Jesus\u2019 family] could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, \u201cHe has gone out of his mind.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It would appear that Jesus\u2019 family believed that he was crazy, since they tried to restrain him. I think it\u2019s safe to say that Jesus\u2019 brothers did not follow him during his lifetime<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The Gospel of John<\/a> seems to agree with this assessment. In John 7:3-5, Jesus is reluctant to go to Judea since the authorities there want to kill him. His brothers, however, want him to go anyway:<\/p>\n So his brothers said to him, \u201cLeave here and go to Judea so that your disciples also may see the works you are doing, for no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.\u201d (For not even his brothers believed in him).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Note that no mention is made specifically of Jesus\u2019 sisters here, but the general family attitude toward Jesus is clear. Also, the Greek word used in the Bible for brothers, adelphoi, can mean either \u201cbrothers\u201d or \u201cbrothers and sisters,\u201d so it\u2019s hard to know whether the sisters were part of this exchange.<\/p>\n The first mention of Jesus\u2019 family outside the Gospels is in Acts<\/a> 1:14. We are told that after Jesus\u2019 death, the disciples were \u201cwere constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.\u201d Remember again that \u201cbrothers\u201d here might mean \u201cbrothers and sisters,\u201d although we can\u2019t know for sure.<\/p>\n It appears, then, that Jesus\u2019 family had a change of heart, either at the end of his ministry or after his death. We know, for example, that Jesus\u2019 brother James<\/a> became a major leader in the Jerusalem church, along with Peter.<\/p>\n Paul mentions visiting James on a visit to Jerusalem in Galatians 1:18-19 :<\/p>\n Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas [Peter] and stayed with him fifteen days, but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord\u2019s brother.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Paul seems to indicate here that James was considered an apostle, a high-status position in the early church. While none of Jesus\u2019 other brothers or sisters is mentioned by name, it would seem from Acts that several, if not all of them, became part of the Jesus-following community along with Jesus\u2019 mother Mary.<\/p>\n Paul gives us more indications of this in 1 Corinthians 9:5, where he speaks about the loneliness of his preaching journeys:<\/p>\n Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas [Peter]?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Apparently, Jesus\u2019 brothers went on missionary journeys for the church, sometimes accompanied by their wives. Again, we see that Jesus\u2019 brothers formed an important part of the Jesus community after his death.<\/strong><\/p>\n Geoffrey Bromiley<\/a> notes that starting in the 2nd century, Christians began to emphasize chastity and virginity more than they had before. This eventually led to monastic traditions in the 3rd century in which even sex within marriage was considered impure and sinful. Therefore, it became unthinkable that after giving birth to Jesus, Mary had merely gone on to have a normal married life by bearing more children.<\/p>\n This ultimately led to the idea that Mary had remained a virgin even during and after the birth of Christ, a doctrine known as the perpetual virginity of Mary which the Catholic Church and several other denominations still believe. How then, could the mention of Jesus\u2019 siblings in the Gospels and elsewhere be explained?<\/p>\n Several important theologians from the 2nd to the 4th centuries posited that the other children were from a previous marriage of Joseph\u2019s. Mary helped to raise these other children but did not give birth to them. This is still the official view of some churches.<\/p>\n The Catholic Church, following 4th-century Christian author Jerome, now takes the position that the siblings of Jesus mentioned in the Gospels were actually his cousins, although they were raised in the same house with Jesus. <\/strong><\/p>\n According to Mark, our first written Gospel, Jesus had four brothers: James, Joses, Judas, and Simon. He also had at least two sisters, although they are unnamed. Matthew agrees with this list, although he modifies the name \u201cJoses,\u201d changing it to the more common version \u201cJoseph.\u201d<\/p>\n Jesus’ brothers (and possibly sisters) probably did not follow him during his lifetime. There are passages in Mark and Matthew in which Jesus rejects his family and calls those who do the will of God his family. Those Gospels also say that when Jesus returned to his hometown of Nazareth, his family thought he was crazy and may have attempted to restrain him from his preaching and healing activities. The book of John explicitly says that his brothers did not believe in him.<\/p>\n However, after his death, the book of Acts says that his brothers and his mother were part of the earliest group of post-crucifixion Jesus-followers. In addition, one of Jesus’ brothers, James, became a leader in that early community while Jesus\u2019 other brothers went on preaching journeys on behalf of the community.<\/p>\n In the centuries after Jesus\u2019 death, Christian authors developed the notion that Mary had maintained lifelong virginity. They accordingly came up with theories of who the named brothers of Mark and Matthew could have been. Some said that they were the children of Joseph\u2019s previous marriage, while others decided they were Jesus\u2019 cousins. These views are still maintained by several denominations.<\/p>\n FREE COURSE!<\/p>\n WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN<\/p>\n Raw, honest, and enlightening. Bart’s story of why he deconverted from the Christian faith.<\/p>\n __CONFIG_colors_palette__{“active_palette”:0,”config”:{“colors”:{“10c55”:{“name”:”Main Accent”,”parent”:-1}},”gradients”:[]},”palettes”:[{“name”:”Default”,”value”:{“colors”:{“10c55”:{“val”:”rgb(255, 133, 34)”}},”gradients”:[]},”original”:{“colors”:{“10c55”:{“val”:”rgb(19, 114, 211)”,”hsl”:{“h”:210,”s”:0.83,”l”:0.45,”a”:1}}},”gradients”:[]}}]}__CONFIG_colors_palette__ <\/span> GET FREE ACCESS!<\/strong><\/span><\/span> <\/a> <\/p>\n Over 6,000 enrolled!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Did Jesus Have Siblings? Names of Jesus\u2019 Brothers and Sisters Written by Joshua Schachterle, Ph.D Author | Professor | Scholar Author | Professor | BE Contributor Verified! See our editorial guidelines Verified! See our guidelines Edited by Laura Robinson, Ph.D. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11175,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","tve_updated_post":" Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman<\/p><\/div> When we think about the vast influence of Jesus, it\u2019s hard to imagine him growing up with siblings like many of us did. So did Jesus have siblings?<\/strong> If so, how many did he have? Were any of them Jesus-followers? Did they believe he was the Messiah? Let\u2019s dive in and look at what scholars say about these questions. <\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/div> The Gospel of Mark<\/a> is our earliest written Gospel so let\u2019s start there. In Mark 6, Jesus goes back to his hometown of Nazareth after preaching in other areas of Galilee. In Mark 6:3, the people of Nazareth are surprised and annoyed to hear Jesus preaching and said,<\/p><\/div> There\u2019s a lot of information here about early Jesus traditions so let\u2019s unpack this passage.<\/p> First of all, while Mary is mentioned, Joseph is not. In fact, Joseph isn\u2019t mentioned anywhere in Mark. This is odd if Joseph<\/a> were really Mary\u2019s husband and Jesus\u2019 father, since ancient Jewish lineages were traced through the father. Of course, Mark also contains no birth narratives, so we can\u2019t be entirely sure what Jesus\u2019 parental situation was from Mark alone.<\/p> Next, Jesus\u2019 four brothers are named. One of these brothers, James<\/a> became prominent later in the Jesus movement. The other brothers, however, are never mentioned again by name outside the Gospels. All of their names, by the way, are very common Jewish names from 1st-century Palestine (Joses is a version of the name Joseph). By the way, the Judas who was Jesus\u2019 brother is not Judas Iscariot who would betray Jesus later.<\/strong><\/p> Finally, Jesus also had sisters, but we are not told how many or what their names were. According to Mark, then, Jesus had four brothers and at least two sisters.<\/p><\/div> We know that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source<\/a> in writing their Gospels. It would be surprising, therefore, if they didn\u2019t also mention Jesus\u2019 siblings.<\/p> Indeed, in describing the same return of Jesus to Nazareth, Matthew 13:55-56 repeats Mark\u2019s line spoken by the people of Nazareth almost verbatim:<\/p><\/div> Notice how Matthew slightly modifies Mark\u2019s text. First, Jesus is no longer a carpenter but rather \u201cthe carpenter\u2019s son.\u201d In addition, he changes the order of the brothers and renames Joses \u201cJoseph.\u201d However, the basic information is the same, with four named brothers and an unnamed number of sisters.<\/p> Interestingly, Luke doesn\u2019t mention Jesus having any siblings at all while John mentions that Jesus had brothers but doesn\u2019t name them.<\/p><\/div> There are parallel passages in the Synoptic Gospels<\/a> (Mark 3:31-35, Matthew 12:46-50, and Luke 8:19-21) in which this question might be answered. Here\u2019s the version in Mark:<\/p><\/div> To understand the significance of this passage, you have to understand the significance of family in ancient Palestine. As K.C. Hanson and Douglas Oakman<\/a> write, \u201cin ancient Mediterranean societies during the first century, kinship was still the primary social domain\u2026 Virtually no social relationship, institution, or value set was untouched by the family and its concerns.\u201d In other words, family was the largest component of a person\u2019s identity.<\/p> And yet here we see Jesus effectively rejecting his family in favor of \u201cthose who do the will of God.\u201d This clearly indicates Jesus\u2019 stance on his own family but may also indicate that his family were not following him in his ministry.<\/strong><\/p> Further indication comes from Mark 3:20-21:<\/p><\/div> It would appear that Jesus\u2019 family believed that he was crazy, since they tried to restrain him. I think it\u2019s safe to say that Jesus\u2019 brothers did not follow him during his lifetime<\/strong>.<\/p> The Gospel of John<\/a> seems to agree with this assessment. In John 7:3-5, Jesus is reluctant to go to Judea since the authorities there want to kill him. His brothers, however, want him to go anyway:<\/p><\/div> Note that no mention is made specifically of Jesus\u2019 sisters here, but the general family attitude toward Jesus is clear. Also, the Greek word used in the Bible for brothers, adelphoi, can mean either \u201cbrothers\u201d or \u201cbrothers and sisters,\u201d so it\u2019s hard to know whether the sisters were part of this exchange.<\/p><\/div> The first mention of Jesus\u2019 family outside the Gospels is in Acts<\/a> 1:14. We are told that after Jesus\u2019 death, the disciples were \u201cwere constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.\u201d Remember again that \u201cbrothers\u201d here might mean \u201cbrothers and sisters,\u201d although we can\u2019t know for sure.<\/p> It appears, then, that Jesus\u2019 family had a change of heart, either at the end of his ministry or after his death. We know, for example, that Jesus\u2019 brother James<\/a> became a major leader in the Jerusalem church, along with Peter.<\/p> Paul mentions visiting James on a visit to Jerusalem in Galatians 1:18-19 :<\/p><\/div> Paul seems to indicate here that James was considered an apostle, a high-status position in the early church. While none of Jesus\u2019 other brothers or sisters is mentioned by name, it would seem from Acts that several, if not all of them, became part of the Jesus-following community along with Jesus\u2019 mother Mary.<\/p> Paul gives us more indications of this in 1 Corinthians 9:5, where he speaks about the loneliness of his preaching journeys:<\/p><\/div> Apparently, Jesus\u2019 brothers went on missionary journeys for the church, sometimes accompanied by their wives. Again, we see that Jesus\u2019 brothers formed an important part of the Jesus community after his death.<\/strong><\/p><\/div>![\"Did](\"https:\/\/www.bartehrman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Did-Jesus-Have-Siblings-Names-of-Jesus-Brothers-and-Sisters.png\" "\\"Did")
<\/span><\/p>\nReferences to the Names of Jesus\u2019 Siblings in Mark<\/h2>\n
Do the Names of Jesus\u2019 Siblings in Other Gospels Match Mark\u2019s List?<\/h2>\n
Did Jesus\u2019 Siblings Follow Him During His Lifetime?<\/h2>\n
What Happened to Jesus\u2019 Siblings After His Death?<\/h2>\n
![\"jesus](\"https:\/\/www.bartehrman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/jesus-family.png\" "\\"jesus")
<\/span><\/p>\nWere There Later Traditions About Jesus\u2019 Siblings?<\/h2>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n
Did Jesus Have Siblings? Names of Jesus\u2019 Brothers and Sisters<\/h2><\/div>
<\/span><\/div>References to the Names of Jesus\u2019 Siblings in Mark<\/h2><\/div>
\u201cIs not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?\u201d And they took offense at him.<\/blockquote><\/div>
Do the Names of Jesus\u2019 Siblings in Other Gospels Match Mark\u2019s List?<\/h2><\/div>
\u201cIs not this the carpenter\u2019s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?\u201d<\/blockquote><\/div>
Did Jesus\u2019 Siblings Follow Him During His Lifetime?<\/h2><\/div>
Then his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, \u201cYour mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.\u201d And he replied, \u201cWho are my mother and my brothers?\u201d And looking at those who sat around him, he said, \u201cHere are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.\u201d<\/blockquote><\/div>
Then he [Jesus] went home, and the crowd came together again, so that they [Jesus\u2019 family] could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, \u201cHe has gone out of his mind.\u201d<\/blockquote><\/div>
So his brothers said to him, \u201cLeave here and go to Judea so that your disciples also may see the works you are doing, for no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.\u201d (For not even his brothers believed in him).<\/blockquote><\/div>
What Happened to Jesus\u2019 Siblings After His Death?<\/h2><\/div>
Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas [Peter] and stayed with him fifteen days, but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord\u2019s brother.<\/blockquote><\/div>
Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas [Peter]?<\/blockquote><\/div>