Historically, there is no longer any doubt that Jesus had brothers and sisters. Some “played a significant role in the young Christian community,” analyzes historian Simon Claude Mimouni, author of a monumental work on Jacques, brother of Jesus.
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Interview. If many uncertainties surround the “historical” Jesus, the oldest texts indicate that he had brothers and sisters. The New Testament lists at least six: Jacques, Joset, Jude and Simon; the sisters, if they are mentioned, are never named.
The exegetes have given several interpretations to this fact: for some, these “brothers and sisters” would be the children that Joseph would have had by a first marriage. For the others (liberal Protestants, in particular), they would have been conceived by Mary and Joseph after the birth of their firstborn; if this interpretation preserves the doctrine of the virgin conception of Jesus, it nevertheless contradicts that of the perpetual virginity of Mary. Still others argue that the term meaning “brother” (ach), in Hebrew and Aramaic, can also refer to cousins or half-brothers.
Jesus’ relationship with his family have apparently been marked by the conflict. His brothers “did not believe in him”, notes the Gospel of John (7, 5), and they are worried: “He is mad”, they say in the Gospel of Mark (3, 21). On the day of the crucifixion, of his immediate family, only Mary was present.
In fact, the family of Jesus could have been concerned about the fate that awaited him, at a time when the agitators had quickly made an impact. ‘to be put to death. Jesus, for his part, is not surprised by the unbelief of his own: “A prophet is despised only in his country, in his kinship and in his house”, he laments (Mk 6, 4) . He himself seems to give only secondary importance to blood ties. “If anyone comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).
However, after the death of Jesus, some of his brothers assumed important responsibilities in the Christian movement, as Simon Claude Mimouni, director of studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE ) and author of a large study on James the Just, brother of Jesus of Nazareth (Bayard, 2015).
Why are Jesus’ brothers named in the Gospels and not his sisters?
Simon Claude Mimouni. I don’t believe it is a disinterest in them. This is undoubtedly linked to the fact that the brothers of Jesus subsequently played a not insignificant role in the young Christian community – in particular Jacques and Jude – which is not the case with his sisters. Moreover, in Antiquity, with some exceptions, women are never mentioned. Nevertheless, thereafter, names [Mary and Salomé] were given to the sisters of Jesus, notably by the theologian Epiphanes, in the fourth e century. But they are most likely fictitious.
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