Hill, interpret the Matthew 1:25 statement that Joseph "knew her not until she had brought forth her firstborn son" as meaning that Joseph and Mary did have normal marital relations after Jesus's birth, and that James, Joses, Jude, and Simon, were the natural sons of Mary and Joseph and, thus, half brothers of Jesus.
Jesus had two half brothers. They were half because they were Mary and Joseph's, whereas Jesus was Mary and God's.
Adelphoi (brethren) of Jesus
Mark 6:3 names James, Joses, Judas (conventionally known in English as Jude) and Simon as the brothers of Jesus, and Matthew 13:55, which probably used Mark as its source, gives the same names in different order, James, Joseph, Simon and Judas.
The book of James was written by James the half-brother of Jesus (Matthew 13:55). During Jesus' life, the Bible records that “even his own brothers did not believe in him,” (John 7:1-10), but after Jesus' and resurrection, “he appeared to James,” (1 Corinthians 15:7) and James believed.
In Mark 6:3, the "brothers" of Jesus are named; they are James and Joses and Judas and Simon. Two of the names, James and Joses, appear again in Mark 15:40, where they are said to be the sons of a Mary, one of the women watching the crucifixion.
Did Jesus have a twin brother? Actually the name Thomas Didymos -- well, Thomas is Hebrew for twin. Didymos is Greek for twin.... The implication here is that he is Jesus' twin.
Though both Matthew and James are described as being the "son of Alphaeus," there is no Biblical account of the two being called brothers, even in the same context where John and James or Peter and Andrew are described as being brothers.
The Orthodox think Joseph had James by his first wife, and after she died he married Mary — whose only child was the virgin-born Jesus. Thus, James was Jesus' stepbrother. Catholics commonly hold that James was merely Jesus' close relative, perhaps the son of Joseph's brother Clopas or a cousin on Mary's side.
A careful look at the New Testament shows that Mary kept her vow of virginity and never had any children other than Jesus.
Yet the Protoevangelium of James was not a text that had come to be accepted formally as part of the biblical canon. In fact, especially in the West, it was referred to explicitly as an apocryphal gospel and was excluded from the canon.
Jesus is sometimes referred to as Jesus Christ, and some people assume that Christ is Jesus' last name. But Christ is actually a title, not a last name. So if Christ isn't a last name, what was Jesus' last name? The answer is Jesus didn't have a formal last name or surname like we do today.
"Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was not married, even though no reliable historical evidence exists to support that claim," King said in a press release.
Aramaic is best known as the language Jesus spoke. It is a Semitic language originating in the middle Euphrates. In 800-600 BC it spread from there to Syria and Mesopotamia. The oldest preserved inscriptions are from this period and written in Old Aramaic.
By contrast, the apocryphal History of Joseph the Carpenter, from the 5th or 6th century, has a long account of Joseph's peaceful death, aged 111, in the presence of Jesus (aged about 19), Mary and angels. This scene starts to appear in art in the 17th century.
The Epistle of James is a general epistle and one of the 21 epistles (didactic letters) in the New Testament. James 1:1 identifies the author as "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ" who is writing to "the twelve tribes scattered abroad".
The text is framed as an explanation by Jesus on the Mount of Olives concerning the life of Joseph, his stepfather. Agreeing with Mary's continued virginity, the text proclaims that Joseph had four sons (Judas, Justus, James, and Simon) and two daughters (Assia and Lydia) by a previous marriage.
According to Christianity.com, Mary was 46 to 49 years old when Jesus died. Britannica states that she “flourished” from 25 B.C. to A.D. 75. Assuming this is in reference to her lifespan, according to Britannica, Mary was approximately 54 to 59 years old when Jesus died.
After the Ascension of Jesus
Her death is not recorded in the scriptures, but Orthodox tradition, tolerated also by Catholics, has her first dying a natural death, known as the Dormition of Mary, and then, soon after, her body itself also being assumed (taken bodily) into Heaven.
As for Jesus' half brothers, James is the anglicized Greek form of the Hebrew Ya'akov, or Jacob, the same name as that of the Hebrew patriarch who was the son of Isaac and the grandson of Abraham.
But Catholicism has long declared that when the Gospels described Jesus' siblings, or the apostle Paul mentioned the “brothers of the Lord,” the words--translated from the Greek--really meant “cousins” or “relatives.”
James was given the nickname “the Less” so that he would not be confused with the other Apostle named James, whose feast we celebrate on July 25. We believe that it means that he was younger than the other St. James, who was called “the Greater.” James the Less was the son of Alphaeus.
In the lists of the twelve apostles in the synoptic Gospels, there are two apostles called James, who are differentiated there by their fathers: James, son of Zebedee, and James, son of Alphaeus. Long-standing tradition identifies James, the son of Alphaeus, as James the Less.
There are 3 James that are mentioned by Matthew; James, Brother of Jesus, Joseph, Simon and Judas (Matthew 13:55), James son of Zebedee and brother of John (Matthew 10:2) and James, son of Alphaeus.
James (brother of Jesus) was Joseph's son by Joseph's first wife, not by Mary..." He adds that Joseph became the father of James and his three brothers (Joses, Simeon, Judah) and two sisters (a Salome and a Mary or a Salome and an Anna) with James being the elder sibling.