How many siblings did Jesus have?

Well, I suppose this is sort of a trivial posting, but I am in a trivial mood, so I will ask the question. How many siblings did Jesus have? Based on the canon and not anything extra-canonical in this case, the answer can be found easily in the Gospel of Mark. Yes, the Gospel of Mark contains a verse that gives us an idea of how many siblings Jesus had more or less. The verse is the following:


Mark 6:3 says: “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 (ESV Bible)?"


Well, now we have a good understanding of how many brothers and sisters Jesus had while he was on planet Earth based on this previous verse alone. He had four brothers (half-brothers, I am sure). The brothers were James, Joses, Judas and Simon. He had at least two sisters or more because the word sisters appears as plural in the verse; however, we do not know their names based on this verse. Well, I hope you enjoyed the trivia question. I also encourage you to read the entire chapter 6 in context to get a better idea of what was going on in the story. Moreover, if you have time read the entire Gospel or Book of Mark, I think that you will find it fascinating. Oh, a little inside information, the last 12 verses of chapter 16 do not appear in some older manuscripts, so it is very possible that the book ends in chapter 16 and verse 8. Although, I really do not think that is a huge deal because some of the things described in those last 12 verse seemingly take place in the Book of Acts written by Luke the Physician, and both Luke and Mark were students of the Apostle Paul. Furthermore, some of the things described in those 12 verses are still happening today….



References:

ESV Bible