Did Jesus have brothers and sisters?

Yes, on the most direct reading of the text, Jesus had brothers and sisters: the Gospels name four brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, and mention sisters they do not name (Matthew 13:55-56). Christians differ on who they were: children of Mary and Joseph born after Jesus, children of Joseph from an earlier marriage, or cousins. All three readings are ancient, and all three confess that Jesus was conceived of a virgin.

What the texts say about Jesus’ family

In Nazareth, the crowd is amazed at Jesus’ teaching and asks whether he is not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and whether his brothers and sisters do not live right there among them (Mark 6:3; Matthew 13:55-56). The four brothers are named, though the order differs from one Gospel to the other. The sisters are not named, but the plural means at least two.

Other passages show this family in action:

• John 2:12: Jesus goes down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples, and the text treats them as separate groups.
• Mark 3:31-35: his mother and brothers arrive and stand outside. Jesus answers that his family is whoever does the will of God, without denying the family he had.
• John 7:3-5: his brothers urge him to show himself publicly, and John comments that not even they believed in him.
• Acts 1:14: after the ascension, the mother and brothers of Jesus are praying together with the apostles.
• 1 Corinthians 9:5 and Galatians 1:19: Paul speaks of “the brothers of the Lord” among the traveling missionaries and calls James “the Lord’s brother.”

What does the Greek word for “brother” allow us to conclude?

The texts use ἀδελφός (adelphós). Its primary sense is a brother by birth, but the usage is wider: in the New Testament the word can mean fellow Jews (Romans 9:3) and fellow believers (1 Corinthians 1:10), and in the Greek translation of the Old Testament Laban calls his nephew Jacob “brother” (Genesis 29:15). So those who read “cousins” have a real point: the word alone does not settle the matter.

Those who read “brothers” in the ordinary sense also have real points. Greek had its own terms, such as ἀνεψιός (anepsiós), “cousin,” which Paul uses for Mark, Barnabas’s cousin (Colossians 4:10), and συγγενεύς (syngeneús), “relative,” which Mark uses just afterward, in the same scene at Nazareth, when he says a prophet is dishonored among his relatives (Mark 6:4). Besides, when someone’s “mother and brothers” appear together, the ordinary reader pictures a household of parents and children. None of this rules out the wider sense, and neither position can be proved by vocabulary alone.

Three historic readings, side by side

Faithful Christians differ here, and each reading deserves a fair hearing. The perpetual virginity of Mary is official teaching for Catholics and the Orthodox; most evangelicals do not teach it, but they recognize the sincere faith of those who hold it.

Children of Mary and Joseph, born after Jesus

This is the reading of most evangelicals. It takes “brothers” in the ordinary sense and notes in Matthew 1:25 that Joseph did not have relations with Mary until Jesus was born, and in Luke 2:7 that Jesus is called her firstborn. Neither verse proves by itself that more children followed (Matthew speaks of the time before the birth, and “firstborn” names the first child), but both fit this reading well. In the fourth century Helvidius defended it, and Jerome wrote against him.

Children of Joseph from an earlier marriage

This is the reading of the Orthodox tradition. Joseph would have been a widower when he married Mary, and the brothers would be older brothers through Joseph, with no blood tie to Jesus. The idea appears in the Protoevangelium of James, a second-century apocryphal writing, and was defended by Epiphanius of Salamis in the fourth century. It keeps the ordinary sense of “brothers” and also the perpetual virginity of Mary. Its limit is that no biblical text mentions an earlier marriage of Joseph.

Cousins or close relatives

This is the predominant reading in the Catholic tradition, set out by Jerome around the year 383. His arguments are the wide use of “brother” in Scripture (in Hebrew, Abraham tells Lot, his nephew, that they are brothers, Genesis 13:8), the fact that the Gospels never call these men sons of Mary, and the existence of another Mary, mother of James and Joseph (Mark 15:40), whom Jerome identified with Mary of Clopas (John 19:25). He also identified the James who was “the Lord’s brother” with James, son of Alphaeus, one of the Twelve. Defenders of this reading also see a sign in John 19:26-27, where Jesus entrusts his mother to the beloved disciple: it would have been natural to hand her to her own sons, had she had any.

Those who read “brothers” as brothers reply that, according to John 7:5, they did not yet believe in him, which would explain Jesus’ choice. They also point out that John 7:5 and Acts 1:14 treat the brothers of Jesus as a group apart from the disciples and the apostles, which makes it hard to identify one of them with one of the Twelve (Matthew 10:3).

Where the three readings agree

All three affirm what is essential: Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary (Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:34-35), fully God and fully man. Having other children afterward does not undo the virginal conception, and reading “brothers” as cousins or as children of an earlier marriage of Joseph does not make it any more true. The honor due to Mary comes from the text itself: she said that all generations would call her blessed (Luke 1:48), and she presented herself as the Lord’s servant (Luke 1:38).

That is why the subject calls for humility. Those who believe in the perpetual virginity are not denying the gospel, and those who read “brothers” as brothers are not dishonoring Mary. Scripture does not make this question a test of faith, and neither do we.

What the story of these brothers teaches

During the ministry of Jesus, his own family struggled to believe (John 7:5), and Jesus said that a prophet has no honor among his relatives and in his own household (Mark 6:4). But the story does not end there. Paul lists a James among the witnesses to whom the risen Christ appeared (1 Corinthians 15:7), the brothers are in the prayer gathering of Acts 1:14, and a James leads the church in Jerusalem (Acts 15:13; Galatians 2:9). Tradition identifies this James with the Lord’s brother. That is a solid inference, though only Galatians 1:19 uses that expression for James. The same tradition attributes the letter of James to the Lord’s brother and the letter of Jude to Judas, brother of James; both introduce themselves as servants, not using the family tie with Jesus as a credential (James 1:1; Jude 1:1).

Two lessons follow. The first is that unbelief among those closest to us, even in the household of Jesus, was not God’s last word; that does not promise that every relative will believe, but it gives reason to keep praying and bearing witness with patience. The second is that being related to Jesus saved no one: what made James and Judas who they became was faith in the risen Lord, as it is for any of us, and Jesus himself said that his family is whoever does the will of God (Mark 3:35).