Jesus’ (Young?) Mother and (Half?) Brothers? The Proto-Gospel of James

Written by Dr. Bart D Erhman

A few days ago lot of readers made comments on the question (thanks to the Roy Moore newsflashes) of whether Mary was a young girl when she got married; and now I have mentioned Jesus’ mother and brothers in Mark’s Gospels.  So let me say a few more things about them.

The earliest non-canonical source that talks about Jesus’ mother (indicating she was a teenager — not something found in the NT) and his brothers (were they really is brothers?) is in the non-canonical Proto-Gospel of James, from some time in the second century.  I thought it might be useful for me to re-post a discussion of the matter from a number of years ago, here:

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The Proto-Gospel of James was very popular in Eastern, Greek-speaking Christianity throughout the Ages, down to modern times; and a version of it was produced – with serious additions and changes – in Latin, that was even more influential in Western Christianity (a book now known as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew).   In some times and places, these books were the main source of “information” that people had for knowing about Jesus’ birth and family – more so than the NT Gospels.

The idea that Joseph was an old man and Mary was a young girl?  Comes from the Proto-Gospel (not the NT!).   The view that Jesus was born in a cave?   Proto-Gospel.    The notion that at the nativity there was an ox and a donkey?  Pseudo-Matthew.   And there were lots of other stories familiar to Christians in the Middle Ages not so familiar to people today, all from these books – for example, a spectacular account (in Pseudo-Matthew) of Jesus as an infant, en route to Egypt, helping out his very-hungry mother Mary who was eyeing with longing some fruit at the top of a palm tree, by ordering the tree to bend down and yield its produce to her.  It does, and Jesus blesses the tree and guarantees that one of its branches will be taken to Paradise.

The Proto-Gospel was also responsible for the popularity of one particular view of Jesus’ brothers.

So, when I taught at Rutgers, probably ¾ or so of my students were Roman Catholic.  It ain’t that way here in the South.  Here in the South, with my Baptist, non-denominational, Bible-church, and so on evangelical students (the vast majority of them), the historical approach to the NT can be shocking and dismaying.   Students here often get upset when they hear about contradictions in the NT and historical errors, and so on.   At Rutgers, that wasn’t a problem.  (These students were not, as a rule, committed to the infallibility of the Bible.)  The ONE problem that arose, virtually every class I taught, was one I had never expected before getting into this business.  It was when I mentioned something about Jesus’ “brothers.”   Students got really upset when I told them that Jesus probably really did have brothers.   This was a big issue for them.

Why?  Because in the Roman Catholic tradition, Jesus’ mother not only *conceived* him and remained a virgin.   And she not only gave birth to him and yet still was a virgin (hymen intact).   She was *always* a virgin, to her dying day.   The “perpetual virginity of Mary” is a major teaching of the church, and my Rutgers students all knew it.

But what about the people in the NT who are called Jesus’ “brothers”?  If Jesus’ mother never had children, well, who are they?

In the Catholic tradition (usually) they are not simply people close to Jesus (brothers in a spiritual sense, as in “brothers and sisters, we are gathered here today….”).   There are in fact two leading options for who these “brothers” were (James, Joses, Simon, and Jude; sisters are mentioned as well; this is in Mark 6; they are mentioned but not named  as well in John 7).  And the first finds its first support in the Proto-Gospel.

Some of you noticed in the passages that I have quoted that Joseph refers to his “sons.”   In other passages of the book Joseph is explicitly said to be a (very) old widower who is given guardianship over the young virgin girl (12 year old!) Mary.   These sons, then, are obviously Joseph’s children from his previous marriage.  They are, in effect, half-step-brothers of Jesus.  (“Step” because Joseph is not actually Jesus’ father) (which means Jesus isn’t related to these brothers by blood, but that’s just a further oddity).

This view is still held by some Catholics today, but it was roundly and robustly condemned by no less an authority than Jerome in the early fifth century.   And for a very solid reason.   Jerome was a major advocate of an ascetic lifestyle.  A Christian should not, should DECIDEDLY NOT, indulge in the pleasures of the flesh.  No rich foods, no good wine, and no sex.  Preferably, no sex at all.

For this way of life, the Virgin Mary of course came to play an important role.   The mother of the Son of God never had sex, and she was especially blessed of God.  So if you too want to be especially blessed of God….     But for Jerome it was not enough that Mary never had sex.  It was important that Jesus’ adoptive father, Joseph, ALSO never had sex.  And that meant that the so-called brothers of Jesus could not be sons of Joseph from his previous marriage.

Who were they then?

Jerome was a highly learned man, one of the great scholars of Christian antiquity.  And among other things, he was one of the few people in the Latin (Western) church who could actually read Greek.   Jerome insisted that the Greek word for “brother” actually could and often did mean “cousin.”   Jesus’ brothers then were not Joseph’s sons.  They Jesus’ cousins.  Why?  Because Joseph like Mary was a virgin his entire life.  And you should be too!!!

It was precisely because Jerome condemned the Proto-Gospel of James for advancing the view that Joseph had children from a previous marriage that it was virtually dis-used in Western Christianity.  We don’t have any complete manuscripts of it in Latin.  The manuscripts are all in Eastern languages (esp. Greek).  It was only when someone – about 500 years after the Proto-Gospel was first written – in the early 7th century created his own version, in Latin (Pseudo-Matthew) that the great legends of this great book came again to be disseminated in the West.