Who's who in Jesus' family

Christian Century, May 3, 2003 by John Dart

THE STONE BOX that possibly held the skeletal remains of James the brother of Jesus has continued to come under critical scrutiny. Should the church and scholars take seriously this item of unknown origin sold to an antiquities collector? Did one hand or two scratch the Aramaic inscription on the limestone ossuary? Does the inscribed phrase "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" really narrow the box to the Holy Family?

A new book, The Brother of Jesus (HarperSanFrancisco), offers a helpful account of the archaeological debate, coming down on the side of the relic's authenticity. Coauthor Hershel Shanks, editor of the popular Biblical Archaeology Review, wrote that inconsistencies appear in ossuary owner Oded Golan's accounts of his purchase and of where it was stored. Yet Shanks thinks Golan is "a truth-teller," and that private collectors "who rescue important items from the market should be honored," since many relics are unearthed not by archaeologists but by looters.

Some professors and pastors pooh-pooh the find as "old news." They say the essential "who's who" in the Jesus story is rock solid on scriptural grounds, and the James ossuary is not all it is cracked up to be. (It was revealed that the box arrived at a Toronto museum last November not just badly cracked but broken in five pieces before being patched together.)

According to Paul's letters, the historian Josephus and other ancient writers, the male members of Jesus' family included a brother named James, who led the Jerusalem church in its earliest decades and was put to death about the year 63. Joseph functioned as father to the young Jesus, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Luke and John. Protestants usually have no problem believing that Mary bore James and other children after Jesus was born. At least one other brother--Judas, or Jude--has been credited (as was James) with writing one of the letters incorporated into the New Testament canon.

When I first heard about the bone box and its inscription, I was 1) fascinated by the appearance of Joseph's name, and 2) curious about what this meant for understanding the portrayal of Jesus' family in the Gospel of Mark, which compared to the other Gospels appears to denigrate those close to Jesus. Other Gospel writers apparently sought to repair reputations besmirched in the earliest Gospel.

For instance, Joseph goes unmentioned in Mark, and Mark portrays folks in Nazareth as skeptical of Jesus' sudden fame, asking, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" (6:3). Matthew, however, rewrites Mark to call Jesus "the carpenter's son." And Matthew calls Joseph the "husband of Mary" (1:16), while Luke (3:23, 4:22) and John (6:42) identify Joseph as the man thought to be the father of Jesus.

Most scholars caution against treating the conflicting nativity accounts of Matthew and Luke, each with their theological motives, as historical remembrances. But if the ossuary inscription is increasingly deemed authentic, then the matter-of-fact "son of Joseph" inscription conceivably strengthens the case for the historical place of Joseph--and strengthens the conclusion that Mark is particularly critical of Jesus' family and followers.

Further evidence of this is the way the author of Mark demonizes Peter ("Get behind me, Satan!") and shows him denying Jesus thrice, as Jesus predicted. Judas Iscariot betrays Jesus, and all of the Twelve forsake Jesus at his arrest, again as foretold. The three women at the tomb, including the mother of Jesus, are so afraid when a "young man" inside says Jesus had risen that they flee and tell no one. Mother Mary and the brothers of Jesus are identified in Mark as unbelieving (3:21-35, 6:4).

Commentators on Mark increasingly cite the Gospel's subtle but biting ironies, evident in the play on proper names. When someone has to carry the cross for Jesus, soldiers recruit one Simon of Cyrene--Simon Peter has fled. When someone has to bury Jesus' body, it falls to Joseph of Arimathea because Joseph the father of Jesus is not around (according to this reading, the reference to Joseph of Arimathea is an indirect indication that Mark's author knew the father's name). Likewise, when Mark identifies Jesus' mother as a witness to his crucifixion and entombment, she is called "the mother of James the lesser and of Joses" (15:40), "the mother of Joses" (15:47) and "the mother of James" (16:1). Some argue that this is a different Mary, not the mother of Jesus, but it is more likely that Mark is reminding readers that James and Joses, two brothers of Jesus, were absent for the burial.

Some contend that Mark's abrupt ending does not rule out a reunion of Jesus with his disciples and family in Galilee. But Rice University's Werner Kelber says that "a rehabilitation of the disciples is positively excluded" in Mark. In books published in 1979 and 1983, Kelber contended that the failure, at the end of Mark, of mother Mary, Mary Magdalene and Salome (and the absence of Jesus' brothers) was part of a critique against the Jerusalem church community once led by James. By the time Mark was written in the 70s, James and other authorities were dead, and Rome had smashed the Jewish revolt, the Jerusalem Temple and much of the city.