Does it matter whether Jesus had brothers and sisters? I’m asking this question at the start of this article, because for a long time it seemed to me that it didn’t matter. Quibbling about whether Jesus had siblings seemed as irrelevant as arguing about whether other historical figures had brothers and sisters. Unless they played in an important role in the story of someone’s life, such as Cleopatra scandalising Rome by murdering her sister on a temple steps, what did it matter?
In several places, the New Testament refers to Jesus’ brothers or brothers and sisters. The theological argument seems to hinge around whether the Bible literally means Jesus’ siblings when it refers to his brothers and sisters, or whether it meant wider family connections. The other argument concerns the translation of Matthew 1:24 and 25. Protestant translations say that Joseph did not have relations with his wife until she gave birth to her son whilst the New Jerusalem Bible uses the word when. A lot hangs on one word.
I don’t know any ancient languages and so I couldn’t study the originals and make up my own mind. I had to trust the theologians, but which ones should I believe? Catholic doctrine rests on centuries of tradition, which is discounted by modern Protestants. Interestingly, however, the Protestant reformers, Luther, Calvin and Zwingli, believed in the perpetual virginity of Jesus’ mother.
These things were going around in my head, and I decided to put myself in Joseph’s shoes. Imagine the following scenario.
You are a man living in a traditional society. You are engaged to be married to a young girl. She seems like the sort of person who will make you a good wife until you find out that she is expecting a baby. You feel deceived and disappointed, but rather than publicly shaming her, you decide to quietly end the engagement. Before you can do so, however, an angel visits you in a dream, and tells you not to end the relationship, because your fiancee hasn’t cheated on you. She is, in fact, carrying a child which she has conceived by the Holy Spirit, the Son of God himself.
You are profoundly affected by this experience. Instead of breaking up with your fiancee, you marry her, and provide her with a home, respectability and protection. Even though you both have to travel to a distant village for a census when she is heavily pregnant, you help her to find a safe place to give birth to the baby. You do all this, because you are a pious man and believe that you are following God’s will for your life.
After the child is born, what do you do? Do you demand marital relations with the woman who has borne the Son of God?
My gut reaction was, NO WAY!!!!! If I was in Joseph’s position, I would not dare. It would take a crass, unpious man to demand marital relations with a woman who has conceived a child by the Holy Spirit, and Joseph was neither of these things.
By thinking of it in this way, Mary remaining a virgin after giving birth to Jesus, seems like the only possibility.
To get back to the question, I asked at the beginning, does it matter whether Mary remained a virgin and whether Jesus had siblings? I think it does. By saying that Mary and Joseph had other children, the Protestant church puts an emphasis on Jesus’ humanity. Yes, Jesus was fully human, and it is very important to remember this. However, he was also fully divine. By losing him somewhere in a muddle of other children, we forget his divinity and the absolute uniqueness of his birth.
The Catholic teaching that Mary remained a virgin and had no other natural children, helps me to keep sight of the miraculous and extraordinary nature of Jesus birth. He was the only human child ever conceived by the Holy Spirit. He was God’s only Son, and his divinity shimmers out through his humanity in the story of his conception and birth.
I’ll give the last word to blog article on the perpetual virginity of Mary. It was written by Fr Longenecker, who was an evangelical before he became an Anglican priest. He is now a Catholic priest.
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