In the first instance, Mary
comes with Jesus’ siblings to restrain Jesus because he is gaining a bad
reputation. According to Mark, some people think that Jesus is out of his mind
(Mark 3:21) and the religious leaders think that he is possessed by Beelzebul
(Mark 3:22). In Mark’s gospel, this is the context for Jesus’ saying that
whoever does the will of God is Jesus’ relation (Mark 3:35), with the clear
implication that such a person is not anyone in Jesus’ family of origin. This
is incongruous with a birth story like the one Luke tells, and Luke reorders
the elements of this event: the family still visit Jesus and Jesus still
revises the definition of family, but the motivation for the family visit is
not stated (Luke 8:19–21), and the accusation that Jesus is possessed by
Beelzebul appears in a very different context (Luke 11:15). The implication is
that Jesus’ family of origin could be included among those who hear and do the
word of God. (Jo-Ann Bradley, “What is Mary Doing in Acts?
Confessional Narratives and the Synoptic Tradition,” in Rediscovering the
Marys: Maria, Mariamne, Miriam, ed. Mary Ann Beavis and Ally Kateusz [Library
of New Testament Studies; London: T&T Clark, 2020], 49-50)
