Radio Replies by Rev. Dr. Leslie Rumble & Rev. Charles Carty

Author:Rev. Dr. Leslie Rumble & Rev. Charles Carty [Rumble, Rev. Dr. Leslie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TAN Books
Published: 2015-04-20T04:00:00+00:00

When Jesus said that He had no honor among His own kin He was speaking quite intelligibly despite His not having brothers and sisters. The expression kith and kin is verified by relatives independently of the precise degree of consanguinity.

761. St. Matthew XIII., 55, 56, implies the whole family.

He implies too big a family, if the strict sense you wish were true. In verse 56. he says, "His sisters, are they not all with us?" The use of the word "all" in reference to the sisters implies not one or two, but a large number in various degrees of relationship. They were certainly too many, together with four brothers, to be sisters of Jesus in the strict sense of the word. There is a little axiom that "he who proves too much proves nothing." The wording used by St. Matthew tells distinctly in favor of the Catholic interpretation.

762. St. Luke VIII., 19, implies the whole family when he says, "His Mother and brethren came unto Him."

He implies that His Mother and other relatives in various degrees came to Him. Those relatives were not brothers and sisters in the first degree of consanguinity.

763. Luke I., 36, confutes the story that there was no word in the Greek to describe James, Joseph, Jude and Simon as cousins.

I have never heard it said that there was no word in Greek for cousin. It is certain that there was no word in Hebrew for cousin. The Hebrew word for brother, ah, and in the Aramaic, aha, was used to describe brothers, half-brothers, nephews and nieces, cousins, and relatives in general. It is certain that any cousins of Jesus would have to be described in Aramaic as brethren. And, in translating the Hebrew expression literally by the Greek word brethren, the Evangelists merely followed the example already given in the Septuagint Greek version of the Old Testament.

764. St. Paul wrote: ". . . But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother. Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not. . . ." Galatians I., vv. 19, etc.

Quite so. St. Paul did not lie. He saw St. James. But when he alluded to James as the Lord's brother, he had not in mind the sense you imagine. He made a perfectly lawful use of the term in the broad sense which included cousins, according to Jewish usage at that time. Critical scholarship demolishes the idea that these brethren were other children of Mary the Mother of Jesus. It observes that these brethren are depicted as older than Jesus, though it is certain that Mary had no children prior to Jesus. And precisely because Mary had no other children of her own, Jesus had to confide His Mother to the care of John, the son of Zebedee, as He died upon the Cross. One wonders why Protestants wish to assert that Mary had other sons after Jesus was born. Is it for the sheer love of

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