Latest / Brandon Fogal Evolution / #168 - Did Jesus Really Have Siblings? Let’s Talk About It

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#168 - Did Jesus Really Have Siblings? Let’s Talk About It · Brandon Fogal Evolution

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  Did Jesus have brothers and sisters?
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  Did he have siblings? We're going to take a look at this. First of all, Matthew 13, 55.
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  This says, is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary?
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  Are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?
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  That's from the Gospel of Matthew. And this is the crowds that his hometown
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  in Nazareth saying that they're questioning Jesus because they've grown up with
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  him their whole life, and they're questioning him being the Messiah,
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  the Christ, and all this, and they throw that in there.
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  They point as just a common fact that are not his brothers among us,
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  are not his sisters among us.
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  So I wanted to take a look at this because Jack Pasebiak, he comes from the
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  Catholic perspective, and I don't know whether it's, I'm not.
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  If this could be true or it could not be true, I don't know,
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  100%, you know, I don't think anybody does, and Jack doesn't as well,
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  whether Jesus had brothers or not.
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  I think from the plain reading of the text, it seems like Jesus had brothers and sisters.
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  It seems like he had brothers and sisters, but it comes from the Catholic teaching
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  and doctrine of the church that Jesus' mother, Mary, that she stayed a virgin
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  her whole life, the perpetual virginity of Mary.
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  And that might be true and all, I don't know.
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  But from the plain reading of the text, it does not seem like,
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  it seems like he had brothers and sisters.
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  And I'm just going to read a couple of the things that Jack's put on Acts yesterday.
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  He kind of, he went off on it. He tweets a lot. So it's hard to find everything
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  he does. When you, when you go to his page, I had it a second ago.
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  So he says, if Joseph, and I think that when he's saying this,
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  he says, if Joseph had older sons, why didn't they come to Bethlehem for the
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  census with their father?
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  And I think he's kind of reacting to people that are holding to almost the Catholic
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  position to say that, yes, he did have, Jesus had brothers and sisters,
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  but they came from Joseph coming into the marriage and he brought them into the marriage.
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  And that's why they're there. That's why they're there.
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  And then he goes into, if they were, if Joseph brought sons and daughters into
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  the marriage with Mary, and that could explain, that could explain those texts
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  that we just read in Matthew,
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  but then he brings up, then why weren't they searching for Jesus at the temple
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  when he was young and all that?
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  Let's kind of skip forward a couple of things he said. He says,
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  another tweet yesterday, if Mary and Joseph had other kids, why didn't they
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  go to Jerusalem with their parents for the Passover festival. And then it says,
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  It's not just a common sense reading of the gospel that Jesus was an only child,
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  no brothers at Bethlehem, no brothers at the temple, at the wedding, at the cross.
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  The mentions of brothers meant close relations in the context of the time.
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  There really isn't anything else to it. I don't, I don't, it doesn't seem like
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  that from the straight literal reading of the text.
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  And it doesn't really make much sense.
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  So the town in Nazareth was just, they bring, they throw this in there.
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  They aren't his brothers and sisters among us. Aren't his just his relatives
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  among us? Aren't his cousins among us?
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  That doesn't really make sense. It doesn't flow. And it's not the actual wording.
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  And I know there's flexibility with the wording, you know, with brothers,
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  you know, in the Old Testament, Abraham calls Lot his brother when it's not his brother.
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  But I mean that was I mean we use it
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  so like loosely you know you could say you're
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  my brother you know to all my brothers out there it's just
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  a comment of familiarity but it doesn't
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  make sense in the context of what he's saying aren't his brothers and sisters
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  among us and like to even say the sisters part of it why would like just to
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  say your female cousins and your male cousins is it and then also he goes into
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  why didn't Mary and Joseph ask their other children to help look for Jesus when
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  he went missing at the temple.
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  It doesn't say they didn't. And I wouldn't be coming from the Catholic perspective
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  that Jesus had no other brothers or sisters.
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  I would say that the brothers and sisters were after Jesus was born.
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  They were younger brothers and sisters. And I think this is where it gets to
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  the heart of the issue, because in the Catholic Church, It's they put Mary so high.
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  They put Mary so high and say that it would almost desecrate her that if she
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  had children after Jesus was born.
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  And I know there's a lot of arguments from both sides.
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  But I don't, I don't think it necessarily would because I've heard like arguments
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  for the Ark of the Covenant, you know, because it was a holy place.
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  Jesus was holy. He was inside the womb of Mary. And to just make it just an
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  unholy thing by him having or her having other children, it would do that.
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  And I don't think it would at all.
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  I don't, I don't think you necessarily, this isn't something where I could say
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  the Catholics might have this right. The Catholics might have this right,
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  but I don't think they do on this one.
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  I think it becomes where it's all about your posture, I would say.
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  Are you, do you feel like doubt in your heart that you have to just make other
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  people believe this to almost secure your own faith?
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  Because I think that is the perspective of when we talk about these things,
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  like at the heart of Christianity and at the heart of every Christian,
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  it's like we want truth. What is truth and wherever that leads, I'm good with it.
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  And I think it becomes tough when you become like just.
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  Completely tied to a organization, a particular church that now if like,
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  if one of their doctrines is not exactly correct, then my faith falls apart.
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  My faith falls apart because I, I, I'm completely diehard bought in for this particular viewpoint.
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  And I think that is the misconception of a lot of Christians.
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  They think whatever church they're going to, whatever church they have chosen.
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  That that that has to be the correct church
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  everything about them everything they are the inspired word
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  of god whatever they say goes and most churches
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  out there don't necessarily do that but like with the
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  catholic church it is that is a claim of
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  theirs that is a a strong claim of theirs and i'm not saying that they don't
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  they got everything wrong or got everything right i think they got a lot of
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  things right but this one it doesn't particularly make sense just just it just
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  This comes from the point of view of the Catholic church believes that Mary
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  was a virgin her whole life.
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  So we are going to kind of maneuver the text.
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  We are going to reform it to make sense with our already conceived doctrine.
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  That's where it feels for me because that doesn't fit in like when you have
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  to kind of push so hard that Jesus, he was the only son of Mary.
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  I think that's where you go. That's where you end up at, because the text itself
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  doesn't seem like it says that. I want to continue because he said a bunch of stuff.
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  Jack, I love he does this. He's always tweeting Christ is king.
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  He's probably being a little bit
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  controversial about that, if you know the underlying things with all that.
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  He says, I love Jesus. He says, nothing to debate.
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  Adelphos doesn't mean biological brother, and it certainly didn't in the first
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  century Israel. Israel, they all, like, when Paul writes a letter,
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  he always writes to all my brethren, my brothers that are out there, you know?
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  So there is flexibility with the word itself, you know? I get that.
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  But in the context of what happens in the Gospels and just the plain reading
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  of the text, I'm of the opinion right now, it does not seem like Jesus was the only son.
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  I believe he was the firstborn of Mary.
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  And then some way along the way, the other brothers came, James,
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  Judas, Simon, or the list that they have on there.
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  And we know that like, there's that emphasis in the Bible that after Jesus'
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  resurrection, He appears to the apostles, to Peter, and then to James, the skeptic.
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  You know, this is his hometown back in my hometown, still messing around.
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  I think about Jesus, his hometown.
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  They saw him grow up their whole life, and it was tough for them to see somebody.
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  They saw him going to prom.
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  They saw him going to his bar mitzvah. They saw him going, doing everything
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  right alongside them their whole life.
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  And they were completely skeptical of him.
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  And it says Jesus was just amazed at their unbelief and how much harder it would
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  have been for his own brothers, his own brothers.
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  And that's why it says his brothers, they, they dissed on Jesus.
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  They, they, they made a mockery of him. They said, oh, go, go to Jerusalem.
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  You're a time. They were just poking him and just making fun of him constantly, berating him.
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  And that is why James probably had a lot.
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  He had a literal come to Jesus moment when Jesus appeared to him after the resurrection.
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  And it says that's why it specifically points that out. It says,
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  and the brother of James that he appeared to him because one who was an unbeliever.
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  He disbelieved in his own brother. And it...
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  When you really think about it, it would be hard to believe because he saw Jesus
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  was probably just goody two-shoes, the perfect child. Mom and dad love him more than me.
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  It would have been tough to just believe that he's the actual son of God,
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  no matter how much people tell you about it.
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  That's why I firmly believe that I can talk about this all day and along.
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  Anybody can hear this stuff and nobody can, it is impossible to believe in Jesus
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  unless God turns on the lights.
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  Somebody, and that's why I can look back before I became a Christian,
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  somebody could be telling me directly to my face and it would,
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  they were talking to a wall.
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  And that's why if you're talking to anyone that doesn't believe in Jesus yet,
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  it's not for their lack of maybe trying or it's that they don't have the hardware
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  inside of them yet or the software upload, whatever it is.
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  And I think James, he had to have that software upload. And then the hardware
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  came alongside when Jesus literally appeared to him.
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  But the plain reading the text, it seems like that Jesus had brothers and sisters to me.
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  I'm not saying that it's like a done deal. We'll find out when we get to heaven.
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  When Jesus comes back, he can tell us.
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  But at this point, it seems from the plain reading text, if you don't come to
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  it with any just preconceived notions, that's where it seems like we land.
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  All right. So I know you've loved this video. Follow me on X and Instagram at
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  at Brandon Fogle and I'll see y'all later. Peace.