excerpt from http://www.globalserve.net/~bumblebee/ecclesia/brothers.htm wrote:First, note that James, Joses, Juda, and Simon are called the brothers of Jesus, not the sons of Mary. No one in the Bible, besides Jesus, is ever called a natural son of Mary. So this verse doesn't show, at all, that Mary didn't remain a virgin - the "brothers" of Jesus could have been his cousins (as I'll be arguing below), or they could have been His brothers by adoption (that is, they could have been adopted by Joseph and Mary), or they could have been Jesus' half-brothers (for instance, if Joseph were a widower and had fathered those children with his previous wife). All of these cases are possible and are in complete harmony with the above Biblical verse.
An explanation of how the word "brother" is used in the Bible.
In the Bible, the term "brother" is used in a more general sense than is common today; it would be better translated as "kinsman" or "relative". There are several Biblical examples of this. The reason for this is that Hebrew didn't have a word for "cousin", so the word "brother" was used to include cousins. The people who wrote the Bible were of Jewish culture and were accustomed to this usage, and so they applied it when writing in other languages as well, such as Greek. The Greek Old Testament used by the Evangelists, called the "Septuagint", was translated into Greek by Jewish scholars about a century before Jesus' time, and it refers to cousins and other close relatives as "brothers" in exactly the way I've described. In the following examples, I'll provide the verses in English, and also a transliteration of the Greek Old Testament used in Jesus' time.
The first example concerns Abram and Lot.
Genesis 11:26
Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.
This verse tells us that Abram is the uncle of Lot: Abram is the brother of Lot's father. But in another verse, Abram is called Lot's "brother":
Genesis 14:12,14
And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. And when Abram heard that his brother [Lot] was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan.
[Here's the Greek version from the Septuagint:]
Genesis 14:14
akousas de abram hoti Echmalwteutai lwt ho adelphos autou ErithmEsen tous idious oikogeneis autou triakosious deka kai oktw kai katediwxen opisw autwn hews dan
Similarly, the Bible tells us here that Laban is Jacob's uncle:
Genesis 29:13
And it came to pass, when Laban heard the tidings of Jacob his sister's son, that he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house. And he told Laban all these things.
However, two verses later, Laban calls Jacob his brother:
Genesis 29:15
And Laban said unto Jacob, "Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for nought? tell me, what shall thy wages be?"
Genesis 29:15
eipen de laban tw iakwb oti gar adelphos mou ei ou douleuseis moi dwrean apaggeilon moi tis o misthos sou estin
In the following, the cousins of the daughters of Eleazar are called their "brethren":
1 Chronicles 23:21-22
The sons of Merari; Mahli, and Mushi. The sons of Mahli; Eleazar, and Kish. And Eleazar died, and had no sons, but daughters: and their brethren the sons of Kish took them.
1 Chronicles 23:21-22
uioi merari mooli kai mousi. uioi mooli eleazar kai kis. kai apethanen eleazar kai ouk Esan autw uioi all' E thugateres kai elabon autas uioi kis adelphoi autwn.
In the following, the "brethren" of Ahaziah include at least 42 men, who were not his brothers - his brothers were all killed before he became the king (2 Chronicles 22:1) - but rather his cousins or other similar relatives:
2 Kings 10:13-14
Jehu met with the brethren of Ahaziah king of Judah, and said, Who are ye? And they answered, We are the brethren of Ahaziah; and we go down to salute the children of the king and the children of the queen.
And he said, Take them alive. And they took them alive, and slew them at the pit of the shearing house, even two and forty men; neither left he any of them.
2 Kings 10:13-14
kai iou euren tous adelphous ochoziou basilews iouda kai eipen tines umeis kai eipon oi adelphoi ochoziou hmeis kai katebEmen eis eirEnEn twn uiwn tou basilews kai twn uiwn tEs dunasteuousEs.
kai eipen sullabete autous zwntas kai sunelabon autous zwntas kai esfaxan autous eis baithakad tessarakonta kai duo andras ou katelipen andra ex autwn.
So we see that the term "brother" in the Bible can refer to family relationships other than the one to which we usually apply it.
Now that we know that the word "brother" in the Bible doesn't necessarily mean a sibling, we shall proceed to look at what else the Bible has to say about the "brothers" of Jesus (James, Joses, Juda and Simon).
The Bible shows us that James and Joses had a different mother than Jesus did.
Mark 15:40
There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome;
Obviously, Mary the mother of James and Joses is not the mother of Jesus. The context here is the crucifixion of Jesus, and if the Mary in question here were Jesus' mother, this would have been stated. Therefore, the mother of James and Joses was not Mary the mother of Jesus.
Now, let us look at Mark 6:3 again:
Mark 6:3
Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.
We've seen that James and Joses were not Jesus' brothers as we understand the term, but rather cousins at best. But what about Juda and Simon? Are they Jesus' "real brothers"? Clearly they are not, because it would be absurd to name Jesus' cousins first, and then His "real" brothers.
So it would seem that Mark 6:3 does not give any evidence at all that Jesus had any siblings. In fact, it proves that He didn't, when we take into account what the Bible says concerning James and Joses.
It is claimed that the following verse says that Mary and Joseph had sex after Jesus' birth:
Matthew 1:25
And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus.
However, what the Bible is actually doing here is underlining the fact that Joseph is definitely not Jesus' father, since he didn't have sexual intercourse with Mary before Jesus was born. But the word "till" in this verse does not imply that Joseph "knew" Mary after the birth of Jesus (that is, that they eventually had sexual intercourse). Here's a Biblical example to demonstrate this:
1 Timothy 6:14
"I charge you to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Does this imply that we are allowed to sin after Jesus appears? Of course not.
In addition, note that if Joseph intended to ever have sex with Mary, why did he wait until after Jesus' birth? There was nothing to stop him. So this actually indicates that Joseph did not intend to have sex with Mary.