Joses, brother of the Lord

When was Joses, brother active?

Joses, brother of the Lord is dated fl. c. AD 30 (death unrecorded) in the archive, which places Joses, brother in the Apostolic Age (AD 4–70). The dating is traditional and approximate; the archive marks it as uncertain rather than fixing a year the sources do not give.

Which early sources mention Joses, brother?

Joses, brother of the Lord is named in 3 primary-source passages catalogued here, drawn from Matthew, Mark and Anonymous. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.

Where was Joses, brother from?

The archive associates Joses, brother of the Lord with Nazareth.

Who were Joses, brother’s contemporaries?

The archive links Joses, brother of the Lord to 5 other figures, including James the Just, Jude, the Brother of the Lord, Simon, brother of the Lord and Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Each connection is drawn from a source that places them together, not from inference.

Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?

Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

2. Moreover, he begot for himself sons and daughters, four sons, namely, and two daughters. Now these are their names — **Judas, Justus, James, and Simon.** The names of the two daughters were Assia and Lydia. … 11. Now Justus and Simeon, the elder sons of Joseph, were married, and had families of their own. Both the daughters were likewise married, and lived in their own houses. So there remained in Joseph’s house, Judas and James the Less, and my virgin mother. [The Egyptian tradition, which makes the brethren Joseph’s children by an earlier marriage. Note the name: where the Gospels have **Joses**, the Arabic recension has **Justus** and the Sahidic **Josetos** — and the same passage gives “Simeon” where the Gospels have Simon. The text is centuries later than the Gospels and is recorded as a witness to Egyptian devotion, not as evidence for the household.]

The History of Joseph the Carpenter — held in this library. English: Alexander Walker, Ante-Nicene Fathers 8 (1886), from Tischendorf’s Latin of the Arabic, public domain. An Egyptian compilation dated by its editors between the fourth and the early seventh century; only its earliest proposed date falls inside this archive’s attestation horizon. It presupposes Mary’s perpetual virginity and so gives the brethren to Joseph by an earlier marriage.

The brethren as sons of Mary and Joseph (the Helvidian view)

That the four brothers and the sisters named at Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3 were children of Mary and Joseph born after Jesus. Argued by Helvidius in the fourth century, and the reading most naturally suggested by the plain sense of “brother”.

The brethren as sons of Joseph by an earlier marriage (the Epiphanian view)

That they were Joseph’s children by a first wife, so step-brothers. The reading of the Protoevangelium of James and of the History of Joseph the Carpenter, both held in this library, and the settled position of the Eastern churches. The History names Joseph’s four sons as Judas, Justus, James and Simon.

The brethren as cousins (the Hieronymian view)

That ἀδελφός renders a wider Semitic kinship term and the brethren were cousins. Argued by Jerome, and the position that became standard in the Latin West. The archive already holds the material this rests on — Hegesippus makes Clopas the brother of Joseph, so that Clopas’s son Symeon was the Lord’s cousin.

Joses, brother of the Lord = the Joses of “Mary the mother of James and Joses”

The woman at the cross and the tomb is identified by two sons, James and Joses, bearing the same names as two of the brethren. A possible relation, unstated in the text; recorded on both pages, adopted on neither.