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the book of james

James the Persian

Dreptcredincios Crestin
may said:

Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? ... MATTHEW 13;55

(Mark 6:3) This is the carpenter the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon, is it not? And his sisters are here with us, are they not?" So they began to stumble at him

Neither of these quotes say that James's mother was Mary. If, to pick one of the possible explanations of James's relationship to Christ that doesn't posit that he was Mary's son, we were to assume that James was the son of Joseph from a previous marriage, both of these quotes are still accurate. Christ's mother was Mary and James was Christ's brother, but the two together do not prove that James's mother was Mary. If his father was Joseph he still would be Christ's brother even if he had a different mother, would he not?

Having said this, it is also true that the term 'brother' was widely used in the New Testament era to describe male relations that were more distant, such as cousins. In this case, then, it is just as likely that Christ's 'siblings' were actually the children of either Mary or Joseph's siblings, perhaps both. The Scriptures you have asserted are evidence of Mary being the mother of James are nothing of the sort - they merely show that Christ had some (at least reasonably) close relatives.

I am not denying that one possible interpretation of these quotes is that Mary had further children (such an interpretation would fly in the face of Holy Tradition but you do not, and nor do I expect you to, accept this). I am, however, saying, and this is self-evidently true, that the Scriptures are not at all clear as to whether or not Mary had further children. I believe she did not as Tradition tells me she was ever virgin, but that is beside the point. In order to state, unequivocally, as was done several times in this thread, that James was Mary's son, you must rely on some extra-Biblical source. The texts of the Scriptures by themselves simply do not contain the evidence to allow one to make such an assertion.

James
 
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