Did Jesus have any siblings who have a surviving line of descendents?

Question

I'm sorry if I offend anybody, i'm just curious about this question.

Answer 1

Yes, he had brothers and sisters. The Bible tells us that Jesus had four brothers: James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas (Matthew 13:55). The Bible also tells us that Jesus had sisters, but they are not named or numbered (Matthew 13:56).

Answer 2

I am not offended, but honestly, how can so many people off-handedly ignore the 2000 year old tradition and teachings about Jesus, and then blindly follow a book of admitted fiction written 2000 years later by a man who just wanted to make a buck?

No,, Jesus did not have any bothers or sisters, the bible uses these terms to mean cousins, or just other people. When I say that I pray for all of our Brothers and Sisters, I am talking about ALL of our Brothers and Sisters in the world, not just MY brothers and sisters.

You might want to do a read of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it will let you what we believe and why.

Or ask at www.catholic.com

Peace be with you.

Answer 3

How was James, “the brother of the Lord,” (Matt. 13:55, Acts 15:13-21, 1 Cor. 15:7, Gal. 1:19) related to Jesus. All believers agree he was related, but no one knows exactly how.

The possibilities are that James was:

1. A full brother of Jesus, another Son of God born of the Blessed Virgin Mary. No one to my knowledge accepts that God had another child by the Blessed Virgin Mary.

2. A half-brother of Jesus, a younger son of Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Some Christians believe this possibility but most Christians including those who are Catholic and Eastern Orthodox believe that Mary remained a virgin for her entire life.

3. A stepbrother of Jesus, a son of Joseph and a previous wife. Many Christians believe that Joseph had a least one previous marriage that resulted in children.

4. A stepbrother of Jesus, an adopted son of Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary. When parents died, relatives frequently took their children in and raised them as thier own. An adopted orphaned boy would be considered the brother of Jesus.

5. A cousin of Jesus. The Aramaic language has no word for cousin. Aramaic frequently uses the word “aha,” which we translate into Greek as “adelphos” or English as brother, for cousin.

6. A comrade of Jesus. This is a remote possibility. Greek uses adelphos the same as English does in “a band of brothers.”

Possibilities 1 and 2 obviously go against Catholic beliefs.

The Catholic Church prefers possibility 5 but 3, 4 and 6 would not go against doctrine.

The genealogy of people who were not of royal blood was seldom tracked before 1000 C.E.

With love in Christ.

Answer 4

The Bible refers to the apostle James as being the brother of Jesus.. but a careful reading of scripture shows that James is the son of Mary the wife of Clopas...

so while he might have been called the "brother" of Jesus.. clearly he did not sure the same mother as Jesus.
as such most likely he was a cousin or close relative of some sort to Jesus.

In fact if one believes the Traditions of the Catholic church (and there is no reason to believe that they might be wrong) Jesus had neither siblings nor children.

Answer 5

No for his purpose was not to be so
The Bible frequently speaks of the "brothers" and "sisters" of Jesus.

First it is important to note that the Bible does not say that these "brothers and sisters" of Jesus were children of Mary.

Second, the word for brother (or sister), adelphos (adelpha) in Greek, denotes a brother or sister, or near kinsman. Aramaic and other semitic languages could not distinguish between a blood brother or sister and a cousin, for example. Hence, John the Baptist, a cousin of Jesus (the son of Elizabeth, cousin of Mary) would be called "a brother (adelphos) of Jesus." In the plural, the word means a community based on identity of origin or life. Additionally, the word adelphos is used for (1) male children of the same parents (Mt 1:2); (2) male descendants of the same parents (Acts 7:23); (3) male children of the same mother (Gal 1:19); (4) people of the same nationality (Acts 3:17); (5) any man, a neighbor (Lk 10:29); (6) persons united by a common interest (Mt 5:47); (7) persons united by a common calling (Rev 22:9); (8) mankind (Mt 25:40); (9) the disciples (Mt 23:8); and (10) believers (Mt 23:8). (From Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Thomas Nelson, Publisher.)

2) A second objection to Mary's virginity arises from the use of the word heos in Matthew's gospel. "He (Joseph) had no relations with her at any time before (heos) she bore a son, whom he named Jesus" (Mt 1:25, NAB).

The Greek and the Semitic use of the word heos (until or before) does not imply anything about what happens after the time indicated. In this case, there is no necessary implication that Joseph and Mary had sexual contact or other children after Jesus.

3) A third objection to the perpetual virginity of Mary arises from the use of the word prototokos, translated 'first-born' in Luke's gospel.

But the Greek word prototokos is used of Christ as born of Mary and of Christ's relationship to His Father (Col 1:25). As the word does not imply other children of God the Father, neither does it imply other children of Mary.

The term "first-born" was a legal term under the Mosaic Law (Ex 6:14) referring to the first male child born to Jewish parents regardless of any other children following or not. Hence when Jesus is called the "first-born" of Mary it does not mean that there were second or third-born children.

Answer 6

No siblings


The word "brother" or "brethren" is often used in Scripture for relationships other than that of those born of the same parents.


If Jesus had brothers and sisters, don't you think their descendants would know it? At least in the first 300 years or so of the Church? Where were they? Did they speak of "Uncle Jesus" often? I'd think that if He had all of these brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews around, there'd have been some word of it.

Answer 7

Here is the prime biblical reference to Jesus' siblings:

"Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" (Mark 6.3)

There are also references to Jesus' brother James having a leadership position in the Jerusalem community, in, for example, Galatians 1.18-19, and in the Jewish historian Josephus' "Antiquities" (20.9).

Based on the latter, biblical scholar, John Crossan notes that when, during a changeover of Roman governors of Judea in 62 C.E. the High Priest at the time took it upon himself to have Jesus’ brother James executed, that High Priest—Ananus the Younger—lost his job for it, despite the fact that Ananus came from a powerful family which had dominated control of the High Priest’s office for decades. Crossan suggests this implies that James, called “James the Just,” must have been a man of significant social standing in Jerusalem at that time. (Crossan, 1994, pp. 133 136)]

Another quotation:

The doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary has impeded the recognition that Jesus had brothers and sisters. Except for James, the brothers are named only [in Mk 6.3] and in the Matthean parallel in early Christian literature: James, probably the eldest of the four, Joses or Joseph (a variant), Judas, and Simon. The sisters are never named.
James is well known from his later role as a leader of the Jerusalem community (Gal 1.19, 2.9), although he apparently did not support Jesus during Jesus’ lifetime (Jn 7.5). Nothing is known of the other three brothers. (The Acts of Jesus, p. 85)


As for their descendants, I don't recall ever reading anything on that.
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Answer 8

The bible nor Sacred Tradition does not give any indication that Jesus had siblings, so the answer would be no.

Answer 9

The problem arises from how one understands the texts of Sacred Scripture: In the New American Bible's English translation of the Gospel of St. Mark, we do indeed read about the crowd asking, "Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary, a brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters our neighbors here?" (Mk 6:3). A similar reference occurs earlier in Mk 3:31 — "His mother and brothers arrived...." At first hearing, the words seem to state that Jesus did indeed have blood brothers and sisters. Someone with a fundamentalist or literalist bent toward sacred Scripture would make this conclusion. However, such a conclusion is contrary to not only a thorough understanding of Sacred Scripture but also sacred Tradition.

The problem emerges in understanding the meaning of the word brother. In the original text of the Gospel, we find the Greek word adelphos, meaning "brother," used. However, adelphos does not just mean blood brothers born of the same parents. Rather, adelphos was used to describe brothers not born of the same parents, like a half-brother or step-brother. The word also described other relationships like cousins, nephews, etc. For example, in Genesis 13:8 and 14:14-16, the word adelphos was used to describe the relationship between Abraham and Lot; however, these two men did not share a brother relationship, but one of uncle and nephew. Another instance is that of Laban, who was an adelphos to Jacob, not as a brother, but as an uncle. (In the New American translation, "kinsman" or "relative" will be used in these Old Testament cases; I do not know why this is not true in the English translation of the Gospel.)

The same understanding is true for the word sister. For example, in the Gospel, Mary of Clopas is called "the sister" of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Obviously, St. Ann and St. Joachim would not have named two daughters "Mary"; instead, the "sister" used here denotes a cousin relationship.

Actually this verbal confusion originates in Hebrew and Aramaic, the languages of most of the original Old Testament texts and of Christ. In these languages, no special word existed for cousin, nephew, half-brother, or step-brother; so they used the word brother or a circumlocution, such as in the case of a cousin, "the son of the brother of my father." When the Old Testament was translated into Greek and the New Testament written in Greek, the word adelphos was used to capture all of these meanings. So in each instance, we must examine the context in which the title is used. In all, the confusion arises in English because of the lack of distinct terms for relatives in the Hebrew and Aramaic, and the usage of the Greek adelphos to signify all of these relations.

Answer 10

He had siblings, but I have no idea if there's an actual family tree outlining their descendants to this day.

Answer 11

No offense at all. I have thought about this too. Jesus would have had half brothers and sisters. No one knows if there are any living descendents from any of them.