Thursday, September 8, 2022

The Jameses and the Marys






The Jameses and the Marys


One of the major problems we came up against was sorting out the many people with the same names.  It may not sound important, but we were up against major theological issues. Our first book contains at least eleven Marys.  We have also included three Jameses, and all three are very prominent.  I have been asked many times how I sorted these out, so here goes.


The three main characters, named James, that we use are James the Lord’s brother, James Zebedee and James Alpheus. 


  • James, the brother of Jesus, also called James the Just, was the son of Joseph and Mary. He was the first leader of the church in Jerusalem.

  • James Zebedee was an Apostle, one of the three of the inner circle along with his brother John and with Peter.

  • James Alpheus was also an Apostle, and was called James the Less in scripture. “The less” can mean younger or shorter.  


It’s very clear that James Zebedee and James Alpheus were two different people. No one has ever proposed that they are the same person. But the discussion of who the leader of the Jerusalem church  was is centered around the mother Jesus. Our first consideration is that John said his brothers did not believe in him. In fact, they thought he was out of his mind. For us, this settles the question. None of Jesus’ brothers were among the twelve apostles.


Over the centuries, people from many countries and cultures have conflated (combining two or more people into one) many biblical characters.  In Syria, where the Apostle James Alpheus went, they conflated him with James the Just. The Syrian church was very proud of their James, very adamant that he was one of the Apostles, James the Less.  Then they would say that he was the Lord’s brother who also ruled the church from Jerusalem.  It’s not hard to imagine, when you have two leaders ruling over two areas that are adjacent to each other. There is no other country or group who claim James the Less as their apostle. We see no reason to deny their claim.


* * *


The Marys were more challenging.  The first question is whether Jesus’ mother had other children.  This  is a point of disagreement between the Catholics and the Protestants.  I wrote a whole page on this topic. Then, when wanting to check on a certain point, I came across a great explanation at Gotquestions.org, so I went with theirs instead.  Here’s what they say,


It is the official position of the Roman Catholic Church that Jesus’ mother Mary remained a virgin for her entire life. Is this concept biblical? Before we look at specific Scriptures, it is important to understand why the Roman Catholic Church believes in the perpetual virginity of Mary. The Roman Catholic Church views Mary as "the Mother of God" and "Queen of Heaven." Catholics believe Mary to have an exalted place in Heaven, with the closest access to Jesus and God the Father. Such a concept is nowhere taught in Scripture. Further, even if Mary did occupy such an exalted position, her having sexual intercourse would not have prevented her from gaining such a position. Sex in marriage is not sinful. Mary would have in no way defiled herself by having sexual relations with Joseph her husband. The entire concept of the perpetual virginity of Mary is based on an unbiblical teaching, Mary as Queen of Heaven, and on an unbiblical understanding of sex.


So, what does the Bible say about the perpetual virginity of Mary? Using the New American Bible, which is a Catholic translation, we can see that the perpetual virginity of Mary is not taught in the Bible. Matthew 1:25 NAB tells us, "He had no relations with her until she bore a son, and he named him Jesus." He, Joseph, did not have sexual relations with her, Mary, UNTIL after she bore a son, Jesus." The meaning of this Scripture is abundantly clear. Joseph and Mary did not have sexual relations until after Jesus was born. Matthew 13:55-56 NAB declares, "Is He not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother named Mary and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? Are not His sisters all with us?" Catholics claim, correctly, that the Greek terms for "brothers" and "sisters" in these verses could also refer to male and female relatives, not necessarily literal brothers and sisters. However, the intended meaning is clear: they thought Jesus to be Joseph’s son, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, and the brother of the unnamed and unnumbered sisters. Father, mother, brother, sister. It is straining the meaning of the text to interpret “brothers” and “sisters” as "cousins" or "relatives" with the mentioning of Jesus’ mother and father.


The Apocryphal work, The Infancy Gospel of James, in the second century, was the first to say that the brothers of Jesus were actually cousins or other such relatives. Ambrose of Milan promoted the idea of Mary as the Ever Virgin in the 4th century. The lateness of this doctrine was a big reason for us not to include it in our book.


Another reason was that the gospel writers spoke of the brothers and sisters of Jesus.  They also say quite clearly that Joseph kept Mary a virgin UNTIL after Jesus’ birth. 


In order to explain away these verses, and have Mary be an ever-virgin, several solutions were proposed. One solution was that the brothers and sisters of Jesus were from a previous marriage of Joseph, so they were her step children.  One wonders why they were not brought to Bethlehem for the census…..


Another solution involved the husbands.  Some want to have Cleopas and Alpheus be the same man, so that Mary of Cleopas is the same person as Mary Alpheus.  Being that the church father’s report that Cleopas was the brother of Joseph, Mary Cleopas/Alpheus is the sister in law of Mary and the brothers and sisters of Jesus were really his cousins.  In this solution, James, the Lord’s brother, is the same man as James Alpheus. Whether they are brothers or cousins, the scripture is still referring to the same group of people and says that they did not believe Jesus was the Messiah or follow him, until AFTER he was resurrected. Therefore, they cannot be the same person. 


Another solution, involving which Marys were at the cross and tomb. It has three Marys being sisters, all with the same name.


Being that the Cleopas/Alpheus question was first proposed as a solution for the perpetual virginity of Mary, which we reject, we made sure that Mary Cleopas and Mary Alpheus are two different women in our book.


Now we have the question of whether or not Mary Magdala and Mary of Bethany were the same person.  Pope Gregory, in 591 AD, made a claim that Mary of Bethany, Mary Magdala and the sinful woman at the house of Simon the Pharisee, were all the same woman.  However, this is not supported by scripture.  They were three different women.  Mary Magdala was not a prostitute, but she was delivered from demons.  She was a wealthy woman who traveled with Jesus and supported him from her own funds.  Magdala and Bethany were many miles away from each other.


A certain reason for the great preponderance of Marys in the first century has been suggested.  It goes back to Herod the Great.  He had several wives and many children.  One of his wives was the last Jewish Princess, who was named Mary.  She was very much loved by the people.  King Herod, in his madness, had her murdered, and her sons.  This ended the Jewish royal line. In revolt, the Jews in Jerusalem started naming their daughters Mary, en masse. So the story goes.


So, we have:


  • Mary the mother of Jesus, whom we call Mother Mary

  • Mary Cleopas (which is her sister-in-law)

  • Mary Alpheus (mother of James Alpheus)

  • Mary Caiaphas (wife of the High Priest, whose name was Joseph)

  • Mary of Magdala

  • Mary of Bethany

  • Mary Marcus, also called Mary of Jerusalem.  This is the mother of John Mark.

  • Mary Tolmai, sister of the Apostle Nathaniel (from Apocrypha)

  • Mary Philippos. Daughter of the Apostle Philip. (from the church fathers)

  • Mary Thaddeus (this is not from history, but we assigned her this name)

  • Mary Joses.  Here we had Jesus’ younger brother name his daughter in honour of their mother.


These are our eleven Marys and three Jameses.  Stay tuned for our blog post of the conflation of Philip the Deacon and Philip the Apostle and their famous daughters.


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