D.A. Carson on Matt
12:46
The most natural way to
understand “brothers” (v. 46) is that the term refers to sons of Mary and
Joseph and thus to brothers of Jesus on his mother’s side. To support the dogma
of Mary’s perpetual virginity, a notion foreign to the NT and to the earliest
church fathers, Roman Catholic scholars have suggested that “brothers” refers
either to Joseph’s sons by an earlier marriage or to sons of Mary’s sister, who
had the same name (cf. Lagrange; McHugh, pp. 200ff.). Certainly “brothers” can
have a wider meaning than male relatives (Acts 22:1). Yet it is very doubtful
whether such a meaning is valid here for it raises insuperable problems. For
instance, if “brothers” refers to Joseph’s sons by an earlier marriage, not
Jesus but Joseph’s firstborn would have been legal heir to David’s throne. The
second theory—that “brothers” refers to sons of a sister of Mary also named
“Mary”—faces the unlikelihood of two sisters having the same name. All things
considered, the attempts to extend the meaning of “brothers” in this pericope,
despite McHugh’s best efforts, are nothing less than farfetched exegesis in
support of a dogma that originated much later than the NT (see on 1:25; Luke
2:7; cf. Broadus on 13:55–56). (D.A. Carson, "Matthew," in
Frank E. Gaebelein, ed. The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Volume 8: Matthew,
Mark, Luke [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1984], 8299)
Walter W. Wessel on
Mark 6:3
The brothers and
sisters of Jesus mentioned here were not cousins (Jerome’s view) or Joseph’s
children by a previous marriage (Epiphanius’s view). Both Jerome and Epiphanius
were greatly influenced by the Roman Catholic dogma of the perpetual virginity
of Mary (Jerome’s theory also made possible the virginity of Joseph!). But
neither Epiphanius’s nor Jerome’s view finds support in Scripture. The children
mentioned here were more probably children born to Mary and Joseph according to
natural biological processes subsequent to the virgin birth of Jesus
(Helvidius’s view). James was probably the oldest and was certainly the best
known of Jesus’ brothers. He was closely identified with the church of
Jerusalem (Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18; 1 Cor 15:7; Gal 1:19; 2:9, 12) and was
probably the author of the Epistle of James (James 1:1). Both Josephus (Antiq.
XX, 200 [ix.1]) and Eusebius (Ecclesiastical
History 2.33) preserve accounts of his violent death. Jude was probably the
author of the Book of Jude. We know nothing of Joseph and Simon. (Walter
W. Wessel, "Mark," in Frank E. Gaebelein, ed. The Expositor's
Bible Commentary, Volume 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke [Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Zondervan, 1984], 8665)
Gal 1:19 and James
being an αδελφος/brother of the Lord
The word translated
“brother” (ἀδελφός, adelphos, GK 81) may
variously mean a brother of the same parents, a stepbrother born of one mutual
parent, or a cousin. There is nothing preventing us from taking the word in its
most natural sense here, as a blood (step) brother of Jesus, particularly
because Mark 6:3 indicates that Mary had given birth to as many as six other
children. Lightfoot, 252–91, has an extended discussion of the birth brothers
and sisters of Jesus born to Mary and Joseph (cf. Robert K. Rapa, “Jesus Christ
the Cornerstone: Conceived of God and Born of a Woman,” in Foundational Faith: Unchanging Truth for an Ever-Changing World,
ed. J. Koessler [Chicago: Moody, 2003], 81–102). (Robert K. Rapa,
"Galatians," in Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland eds., The
Expositor's Bible Commentary [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2008], 11574)
εἰ μὴ Ἰάκωβον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ κυρίου. Paul was anxious both then and throughout his
apostolic career to establish and maintain bonds of fellowship with the
Jerusalem church and its leaders. There was another of the leaders in Jerusalem
at this time whom he made a point of meeting—James, the Lord’s brother. He
should in all probability be identified with the James who is named as the
first of four brothers of Jesus in Mk. 6:3 (cf. Mt. 13:55) in a context which
suggests that they, with an unspecified number of unnamed sisters, were, like
Jesus himself, children of Mary. The Lord’s ‘brothers’ are mentioned by Paul in
1 Cor. 9:5 as well-known Christian figures in the mid-fifties.
There is a disagreement among early Christian
writers about the exact relation which those ‘brothers’ bore to Jesus.
Tertullian (Adv. Marc. 4:19; De Car. 7) appears to have regarded them as
uterine brothers, the sons of Joseph and Mary; others, like the author of the Protevangelium of James (9:2), took them
to be sons of Joseph by a previous marriage. This latter view was defended by
Epiphanius in a letter subsequently incorporated in Haer. 78. The view that
they were uterine brothers was explicitly affirmed about AD 380 by Helvidius of
Rome, who disapproved of the prevalent tendency to exalt virginity above
marriage and child-bearing. Helvidius was answered in 383 by Jerome (Adversus Helvidium de perpetua virginitate
beatae Mariae), who propounded a third view—that the Lord’s ἀδελφοί were actually his first
cousins, the sons of Alphaeus by ‘Mary of Cleopas’, whom he inferred from Jn.
19:25 to be the Virgin’s sister (cf. Mk. 15:40). This view, as Jerome claimed,
safeguarded the perpetual virginity not only of Mary but also of Joseph. It
is plain that the controversy was occasioned rather by considerations of
theological propriety than by a concern for historical fact. J. B.
Lightfoot conveniently distinguishes the three principal views just listed as
the Epiphanian, the Hevidian and the Hieronymian (‘The Brethren of the Lord’,
Galatians, 252–291). See also R E. Brown, K. P. Donfried, J. A. Fitzmyer, J.
Reumann (ed.), Mary in the NT (London, 1978), 65–72, 270–278. (F.F. Bruce, The
Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text [New International
Greek Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1982], 99, emphasis
added)
