I had a conversation the other day with someone about Jesus’ family. It really isn’t something that we focus too much on or point out too often unless it comes up in a reading, or if we study a particular book in the Bible and we come across those passages. So, I thought it was intriguing that the question was asked, and it was so interesting that I thought I would make it my Tuesday conversation with all of you.
We get a lot about Jesus’ birth which is what we are awaiting this Advent season, but we don’t get a lot about his younger years. The story we do get is when Jesus is a 12-year-old boy and he stays behind talking and debating in the synagogue and his parents don’t realize he’s not with them until they camp for the night. They find him and his response is that they should know he would be in his Father’s house. So, we have his birth and the story I just shared and that’s it for his youth.
But the main point of the question asked was about the rest of his family and whether Mary and Joseph had other children. Even though we don’t hear much about it, we do have a passage from Mark’s gospel telling us that Jesus did have brothers and sisters. Mark 3:31-32: 31 His mother and brothers arrived. They stood outside and sent word to him, calling for him. 32 A crowd was seated around him, and those sent to him said, “Look, your mother, brothers, and sisters are outside looking for you.”
Then a few chapters later in Mark we get names of Jesus’ brothers: 3 Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t he Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” (6:3). These same passages also appear in some of the other gospels as well but sometimes listing the names in different order. We see both passages from Mark mention sisters, but we never see names for them, nor hear about them anywhere else.
We also see other references to his family in Acts 1:14, 1 Corinthians 9:5, 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, Acts 15:13, Galatians 1:19. I am sure there are more, but I think these will suffice.
Also, tradition has assigned the book of James to be authored by the brother of Jesus as well as the book of Jude. However, there is debate due to the timeline of when they were written and content of the letters as to their true authorship. They were likely authored in the name of (honor of) these people, but not actually written by them.
Other than that, that is all we really know Biblically about Jesus’ family. For some of you this might be more than you expected and for others you might be wondering about the extended family tree. I could not find anything that talked about Jesus’ brothers’ descendants. While it may have been important or just helpful to share that Jesus’ family was involved in the early church, it appears that it was not important for people to record the descendants (family line) of Jesus’ brothers.
There you have it. Jesus’ earthly relatives. It is interesting to see how they are in the gospels and in the life of the early church, but we likely don’t learn much beyond that because the focus was on the Jesus as the son of God and the Messiah for the world. Jesus wasn’t creating an earthly dynasty but a global movement to share to love of God through word and deed and to forgive us all our sins through his life, death, and resurrection.
I hope that you found this style of article interesting and thank you for taking the time to read it.
Blessings,
Pastor Brian
