What is Jesus' Family Tree?

What is Jesus' Family Tree?
Do people exist TODAY that are related to Jesus?

Q. What is Jesus' family tree? After his resurrection, what happened to the remaining family members of Jesus? Are there some relatives living today?

A. Several New Testament scriptures confirm the fact that Jesus was not the only child of Joseph and Mary. See Matthew 13:55-56 :

"Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us? . . . " (New International Version Bible)

Notice here that Joseph, the husband of Mary, is not listed. It is probably because he had already died. A parallel account of these verses can be found in Mark 6:3. There is also mention of Jesus' family in Matthew 12:47, John 2:12, and Acts 1:14.

Accounts are sketchy as to what happened to the family of Jesus after His resurrection. As mentioned before, Joseph, husband of Mary, mother of Jesus, was probably already dead.

"Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, 'Woman, behold your son!' Then He said to the disciple, 'Behold your mother.' And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home." (John 19:25-27, NKJV).

Now, a question, "Did Mary, the mother of Jesus, spend the remainder of her life in the care of John, the Apostle?"

In Raymond Capt's book, The Traditions of Glastonbury: The Biblical Missing Years of Christ - Answered, the tradition is that John put Mary in the care of an uncle of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, a rich tin merchant who sailed to Britain shortly after the resurrection of Jesus, settling in Southwest England in a village called Glastonbury. This tradition holds that Mary lived there with a few other disciples for 15 years and that she died and was buried there in A.D. 48.

Of the four brothers of Jesus, I could find information on only two -- James and Jude. The New Testament mentions 4 men named James :

1. James, the son of Zebedee, and Salome (cf. Matthew 27:56 with Mark 15:40) elder brother of the Apostle John (therefore cousin of Jesus) [this identifies Zebedee and Clopas as being the same individual].

2. James, the son of Alpheus and disciple of Christ. It is not at all clear whether this is the same James as the son of Zebedee.

3. James, the father of the Apostle Judas, (not Iscariot) who is referred to in Luke 6:16 and Acts 1:13. Nothing else is known of him.

4. James, the brother of Jesus.

The Apostle Paul wrote in 1Corinthians 15:7 that the first post-resurrection appearance of the risen Christ was to James who from that time forward gave the rest of his life to Christ. Acts 12:17; Acts 15:13-29; 21:18; Galatians 1:19; 2:9, 12 prove that he was an early leader of the Jerusalem Church. The last Biblical mention of James is in Acts 21:18 where the Jerusalem elders exhorted the Apostle to take a Nazarite vow. James is accredited with writing the epistle that bears his name even though the Christian Church in the West did not accept it as canon until the end of the 4th century. It is said that James was martyred in A.D. 63 under the authority of Ananus, the high priest, whom Josephus claims was " a bold man in his temper, and very insolent". Ananus illegally called a Sanhedrin who agreed to stone James to death. (See Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, book 20, chapter 9, 1)

Another account of the martyrdom of James comes from Hegisippus who wrote in A.D. 170 that James was killed by being pushed off a ledge of the temple and then having his brains beaten out with a club. Hegisippus asserted that James was buried on the spot. New interest has arisen because of a recent discovery of an ossuary allegedly containing the bones of "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." A vivid account of this ossuary and the story behind it can be read in the November/December 2002 and January/February 2003 issues of the magazine Biblical Archaeology Review . Philip Schaff in his History of the Christian Church, Volume 1 notes that the aforementioned historian Hegisippus alleged that James "drank no wine, ate no flesh, never shaved, nor took a bath, and wore only linen." Schaff countered this description with one by Epiphanius, a 4th century church historian who wrote that James, like John at Ephesus, wore a golden plate on his forehead, with the inscription "Holiness to the Lord", classifying James as a "bishop of bishops". Here is how Schaff described James:

"The character which shines through these James-legends is that of a loyal, zealous, devout, consistent Hebrew Christian, who by his personal purity and holiness secured the reverence and affection of all around him."

Jude, another brother of Jesus, also did not believe in Jesus until after His resurrection. Jude is attributed to be the author of the Epistle that bears his name. The Epistle was recognized as part of The Muratorian Canon circa 200, but was undoubtedly read many, many years before. The only extra-Biblical mention of Jude I found was a note by Hegisippus (c.110- circa 180) saying that two grandsons of Jude appeared before Emperor Domitian (ruled A.D. 81 -- A.D. 96) as descendants of David, but were considered harmless peasants and dismissed.

Of the two brothers, Joseph and Simon, I could find nothing extra-Biblical.

Matthew 13:56 verify that Jesus had at least 2 sisters, traditionally named Mary and Salome. There is a parallel account in a later chapter of Matthew and in the 15th chapter of Mark that further link Mary and Salome:

"And many women who followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to Him, were there looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's sons. " (Matthew 27:55-56)

"There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, and Salome." (Mark 15:40)

Mary, mother of James and Joses, is considered to have been the wife of Clopas (John 19:25). Was she the sister of Jesus? Possibly. Salome was the wife of Zebedee and mother of James and John.

Was she the sister of Jesus? Possibly.

Are there people living today who are descendants of Joseph and Mary, who are blood related to Jesus? Probably? Why not? Perhaps, soon there will be a news bombshell of epic proportions. Someone may step forward and produce DNA evidence linking that person genetically to the family of Jesus.