Mary, mother of James and Joses

When was Mary, mother active?

Mary, mother of James and Joses is dated fl. c. AD 30–33 (death unrecorded) in the archive, which places Mary, mother 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 Mary, mother?

Mary, mother of James and Joses is named in 3 primary-source passages catalogued here, drawn from Mark, Luke and Anonymous. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.

Where was Mary, mother from?

The archive associates Mary, mother of James and Joses with Galilee, Jerusalem. The sources record more than one location, so the places are listed in the order the record moves through them.

Who were Mary, mother’s contemporaries?

The archive links Mary, mother of James and Joses to 5 other figures, including Mary Magdalene, Salome the Myrrh-bearer, Joanna, wife of Chuza and Mary of Clopas. Each connection is drawn from a source that places them together, not from inference.

And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid.

It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles. And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.

And Mary found James the Less in his father’s house, broken-hearted and sad on account of the loss of his mother, and she brought him up. **Hence Mary was called the mother of James.** [The text cites Luke 24:10 at exactly this point, and so offers an ancient explanation of the epithet — that the James in question is Joseph the carpenter’s orphaned son, raised by the mother of Jesus. It is a late Egyptian explanation and it identifies this Mary with the Virgin, which most readings do not; recorded here rather than adopted.]

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, and it is cited as a witness to Egyptian devotion rather than to the first century.

Mary mother of James = Mary of Clopas

The two are frequently identified, and both sometimes with “the other Mary” of Matthew 27:61 and 28:1. Not stated by any evangelist; recorded on both pages and adopted on neither.

Mary mother of James = Mary the mother of Jesus

Implied by the History of Joseph the Carpenter, which makes the epithet derive from her raising Joseph’s orphaned son James the Less. A late Egyptian reading, recorded not adopted.