While arguing that the "brothers" of Jesus are cousins, and trying to distance Mary from the family members who believe Jesus was "mad," Robert Sungenis does believe that the family of Jesus is in view in Mark 3:21:
“when his friends had heard of
it”: ακουσαντες οι παρ' αυτου εξηθον κρατησαι αυτόν. The phrase, οι παρ'
αυτου (DR: “his friends”) is an idiom for one’s family or relatives. Since this
was Jesus’ home, it was where Mary and his brothers and sisters lived . . . (Robert A.
Sungenis, Commentary on the Catholic Douay-Rheims New Testament from the
Original Greek and Latin, 4 vols. [State Line, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics
International Publishing, Inc., 2022], 1:33 n.
68)
“they went out to lay hold on
him”: εξηλτον κρατησαι αυτον, a verb structure with two aorists, one in the
infinitive, showing the brothers had a fixed intent to seize Jesus. Their
reasons were not due to concerns for Jesus’ safety, per se, but because
they—being unbelievers—were embarrassed because of him, for he had made their
home a meeting place of religious fanatics who were most likely in a spiritual
frenzy due to the miraculous healings. (Ibid., 1:33 n. 69)
“for they said: He is become
mad”: ελεγον γαρ οιτ εξεστη, with ελεγον in the imperfect, thus better
translated as, “for they were saying, ‘that he is mad.’” That Jesus was
mentally deranged was the brothers’ excuse for attempting to grab him and take
him away from the crowd. Mary was not involved in this action against Jesus but
the οι παρ' αυτου (the unbelieving cousins of Jesus, as noted in Jn 7:5), were
the instigators. (Ibid., 1:33 n. 70)
“behold your mother and your
brethren without seek for you”: ιδου η μητηρ σου και αδελφοι σου και αι
αδελφαι σου εξχ εητουσιν σε, which from vr. 21 we already know their
intentions, that is, to say Jesus was out of his mind so as to have an excuse
for extracting him from the crowd he was teaching, although from the general
context it is the male cousins of Jesus are leading this effort, while Mary, if
present, is only swept along for more innocent reasons. Perhaps the cousins
were influenced to think of Jesus in a more negative vein once the Pharisee’s
charge of him having an unclean spirit was heard. Jesus, of course, is
unflappable in the midst of all these extracurricular efforts to stop his
teaching. He has already silenced the Pharisees and their blasphemous
accusation; and now he silences his cousins who have charged him with being
insane. Jesus does so by pointing to the crowd, mostly men, and designating
them as the true believers he seeks to give his teaching—thus they are his
spiritual “mother and brothers and sisters”—while his real relatives are given
no spiritual significance at all. They are, after all, unbelievers (Jn 7:5) and
Jesus treats them accordingly. They get no special time or influence with Jesus
just because they are related, his mother being the only exception. (Ibid.,
1:34 n. 78)
