In a brief article defending the perpetual virginity of Mary, Catholic apologist John Martignoni wrote the following in an attempt to "prove" that αδελφος and αδελφη has a wider range of meaning in NT times than simply "[biological] brother/sister":
[O]ne other passage to consider is Acts 1:14-15, "[The Apostles] with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with His brothers...the company of persons was in all about a hundred and twenty." A company of 120 persons composed of the Apostles, Mary, the women, and the "brothers" of Jesus. Let's see there were 11 Apostles at the time. Jesus' mother makes 12. The women, probably the same three women mentioned in Matthew 27, but let's say it was maybe a dozen or two, just for argument's sake. So that puts us up to 30 or 40 or so. So that leaves the number of Jesus' brothers at about 80 or 90! Do you think Mary had 80 or 90 children? (source)
It should be noted that critics of the perpetual virginity do not state that αδελφος never means anything but a biological brother; instead, our argument has always been that the term, when used in a context of one’s family, it always means a biological sibling in the New Testament and contemporary literature. For a full discussion, see chapter 3 of Eric D. Svendsen’s book, Who is My Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism (Amityville, N.Y.: Calvary Press, 2001). This is even admitted by Catholic scholars, such as J.P. Meir in vol. 1 of The Marginal Jew, his seminal 5-volume work on the historical Jesus. Martignoni (and other Catholic apologists such as Staples, Hahn, and Keating) are way out in left field on this issue.
There is no dispute that αδελφος can be used in a sociological sense, such as “brother in Christ” and other like-concepts, though to treat sociological uses of this term as having the same meaning of the term in familial contexts such as Matt 13;55-56 is an exegetical (and linguistic) fallacy.That this is the case for Acts 1:14-15 is admitted by Joseph A. Fitzmyer, a Jesuit priest and leading Roman Catholic biblical scholar:
Adelphoi is often used for fellow Christians throughout Acts (1:16; 9:30; 10:23b; 11:1, 12, 29; 12:17; 14:2; 15:3, 22, 32, 33, 40; 17:6, 10, 14; 18:18, 27; 21:7, 17, 20; 28:14, 15; perhaps also in 15:7, 13, 23, where it may refer, however, solely to those assembled at the “Council”). In these instances, it has nothing to do with blood relationship or kinship; it connotes rather the closeness experienced by those bonded together as followers of the risen Christ. In Acts 2:29; 3:17 Peter addresses Jews assembled in Jerusalem with the same title (also Stephen in 7:2, 26; Paul in Pisidian Antioch in 13:26, 38; in Jerusalem in 23:1, 5, 6; in Rome in 28:17), thus showing that early Jewish Christians took over such a designation from their former coreligionists, among whom it was also commonly used. Josephus describes Essenes enjoying a single patrimony “like brothers” (J.W. 2.8.3 § 122). Hebrew ‘ah, “brother,” is also used in 1Qs 6:22; 1QSa 1:18; 2:13(?). Cf. Acts 7:23. (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles [AB 31; Garden City: Doubleday, 1998], 222)
That this is the case is further strenghtened by the use of the phrase in v. 14: τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς αὐτοῦ "his brothers." One Lutheran exegete wrote the following on this issue:
A separate preposition adds “his brothers” and does this after mentioning the women. This makes it certain that none of these brothers of Jesus were apostles. In John 7:3–5 they are not even believers. It is generally thought that the resurrection of Jesus brought them to faith so that we now find them here. Who were they? As far as the writer is able to see, the problem is not solved. The answers given are: sons of Joseph by a former marriage; cousins of Jesus, sons of a half-sister of Mary; and the modern answer, sons born to Joseph and Mary after Jesus. Strong objections may be lodged against each one of these views. When the latter is stressed on the strength of the word ἀδελφοί, “brothers,” the passage before us raises gravest doubts. Right after “Mary, the mother of Jesus,” we read not “her other sons” but “his brothers.” Why is their relation to Jesus instead of their relation to their own mother mentioned if she was their natural mother? Nobody has as yet been able to answer. Mary is under John’s care; yet here are her own natural sons, even more than one, and why is she not in their care? We are still waiting for a satisfactory answer. We, therefore, leave the problem where it is and note only that the objections to making them sons of Joseph and Mary are very strong. (R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Acts of the Apostles [Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg Publishing House, 1961], 42)
As we have seen, Martignoni’s attempt defence of the perpetual virginity in light of Acts 1:14-15 is a failure.
Martignoni in his article also attempted to defend the perpetual virginity by using the time-worn “Aramaic does not have a word for ‘cousin’”-argument. One would have wished he have dealt with the criticisms of this view. Here is one such cogent criticism of this “argument”:
Some who hold to the Hieronymian view argue that the phrase “brothers of the Lord” has its roots in the earliest Aramaic-speaking Christian community, and that the woodenly literal phrase in Aramaic (which had no precise word for “cousins,” and so used the Hebraism) was handed down to the subsequent Greek-speaking community in the form of hoi adelphoi tou kyriou, which then made its way into the NT. However, Meier has shown that Josephus, when referring to James, designates him ho adelphos tou kyriou (The Jewish Antiquities [20.9.1 § 200], cited in John P. Meier, “Jesus in Josephus: A Modest Proposal,” CBQ [1990]: 76-103). This is significant, for not only did Josephus write independently of the NT writers or other Christian influences, but it is clear that Josephus knew of the distinction between αδελφος and ανεψιος (he uses the latter for “cousin” twelve times in his works; see Meier, Brothers,” 19. N. 33), even clarifying the Hebrew of Gen 29:12 (where the Hebrew has אָח and the LXX has αδελφος) with a more precise paraphrase: “For Rebekah my mother is the sister of Laban, your father. They had the same father and mother, and so we, you, and I, are cousins [ανεψιοι]” (cited in Meier, “Brothers,” 19). Hence, “when Josephus calls James ‘the brother of Jesus,’ there is no reason to think he means anything but brother,” ibid. (Eric D. Svendsen, Who is My Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism [Amityville, N.Y.: Calvary Press, 2001], 294 n. 31).
As with other attempted defences of the perpetual virginity, Martignoni’s is, in light of exegesis, a complete failure.
