It has been a long time since I had a religion class/bible study. Maybe I forgot, maybe I’ve never learned, but…Mary, the mother of God, had a granddaughter Sara?
A children’s book
Ummmmmmm. am I being particularly dense tonight or what?
I think Sara is the invention of the author, but Jesus is apparently supposed to have had several brothers, who are mentioned in the Bible.
Well, in some Christian traditions (mainly Protestant, I think), it is believed that Mary and Joseph went on to have other children, together. So I would guess that Mary might have had plenty of grandchildren, and that Sarah in the book would be one of Jesus’ nieces.
If I’m not mistaken, in the book The DiVinci Code, the Holy Grail was supposed to be a Holy Blood Line and Jesus had a daughter with Mary Magdeline named Sarah.
Or maybe I heard that on the history channel.
As far as I know, the existence of Jesus’ siblings is a singularly uncontroversial point amongst all Christian denominations, protestant or no:
dragongirl, has it. there is the theory that there was a daughter named sarah.
Well, that’s what I think, too, but I have been led to believe that some denominations (or maybe just some people, I’m not sure) believe that Mary remained a virgin her whole life.
I don’t have a cite, and I don’t remember where I picked up that knowledge, because it seemed pretty silly to me – especially given the verse you quoted. Can anyone enlighten me, please?
Or to summarize:
Catholic doctrine says Mary was a virgin her whole life, and thus any Biblical references to Jesus’s siblings must really be referring to step-brothers, cousins, etc. Other people think that after Jesus’s birth Mary went on to conceive children with Joseph in the usual manner.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. From a Catholic Answers article on this subject:
Well, that’s a fair point. I can’t help but think that the author missed a great opportunity to bust out Matthew 23:24, though. Zing!
And inventing an entire extrabiblical character in the immediate Jesus family – the Gospel only names some of the “brothers” and implies but does not name sisters, makes NO mention whatsoever of nieces, nephews or in-laws – is quite a reach for ANY Christian author, specially in a children’s book (where pious authors would normally tend to be careful lest they mislead a child into thinking a bit of poetic license is a canonical teaching).
Besides, what IS Mary keeping in that box? Leftover frankincense? Jesus’ first hammer? “This belonged to your uncle Jesus, who died before you were born. By the way, he was God, you know?” :eek:
The available scriptural evidence is Jesus and Mary Magdalene never were married and had kids. There’s nothing in the Jewish scriptures that would rule out the possibility, such as the Messiah would never marry. And Jesus was proclaiming to be a rabbi, and it would actually have been typical for a rabbi to be married. However, wouldn’t it seem damn odd that if they had married that no NT writer would mention this fact? The only explanation would be a cover up. However, it would make no sense to cover this up unless this would discredit the claim that Jesus was the Messiah. But this wouldn’t discredit that claim.
Anyone here know Greek who can explain the full nuances of Matthew 13:55-56. On the theory that Joseph had children from a previous marriage before he married Mary, the way I would use English is to call these step-siblings “brothers” and “sisters” unless for some reason I needed to make clear they were really step-siblings. In Greek is it that a stepbrother would never be called a “brother”?
The available scriptural evidence? I’d like to know what that is. I’ve been in the church my whole life, and I’ve never seen anything that would support that. She’s barely mentioned!
Well, yes…
Dan Brown adapted this particular idea from the theories of Margaret Starbird, who based them on the traditions associated with Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in the Camargue in the south of France. But those traditions say nothing about Sarah being a daughter of Jesus and/or Mary Magdalene; she is instead described only as having been a servant with the party of saints who supposedly landed there. Nor was she part of the original traditions, having been added to the legend as late as the sixteenth century.
I think you’re misunderstanding. I’m pretty sure rfgdxm is trying to say “Jesus and Mary Magdalene never were married and never had kids.”
The Greek word the Gospels use to describe Jesus’ brothers is adelphos, which usually refers to a blood brother. The Greek word for male cousin is anepsios.
Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin argues for the ambiguity coming from the translation of Aramaic to Greek:
Dave Miller on the use of the Greek word adelphos in scripture.
In any case…
Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians would tell you that is is impossible for Mary to have a granddaughter Sara since her only child was Jesus, who himself died childless.
Fundamentalists would have no trouble with Mary having a granddaughter, but they would likely have reservations about telling children there was a specific granddaughter named Sara, because it doesn’t say so in the actual text of the Bible. And they too would insist JC died childless.
Middle-of-the-road Protestants may have no trouble speculating about what would Jesus’ niece be named, but they would likely wonder what’s the point.
The primary definitions along with the context of the way adelphoi and adelphai are used in the Gospels pretty clearly indicate literal brothers and sisters. That is the plain reading of the Greek, there is no indication anywhere in the New Testament that Mary remained a virgin all her life (in fact, Mt. 1:25 seems to imply that Jospeph did have normal relations with Mary after the birth of Jesus) and any attempt to interpret those passages as indicating something other than blood siblings to Jesus involves an a priori article of faith in something which is not stated either explicitly or implicitly in the Gospels.
There are, of course, figurative meanings for the use of adelphos/adelphe (“bother/sister”) in Greek just as there are in English. But just as in English, context matters and primary definitions apply primarily if there is no indication to the contrary.
If someone says, “Hey. isn’t that Joe’s mom, and aren’t those his brothers, Bob and Dave? Don’t his sisters work at the gap” You aren’t ging to think they’re talking about lodge brothers or cousins (there was a word for cousin), or nuns, or even step siblings without a specific indication of such. So when reading Matthew 13:55-56, it should be pretty much exactly at face value. There is at least, no contextual reason not to.