Catholic Biblical Association The Catholic Biblical Quarterly

On Retrojecting Later Questions from Later Texts: A Reply to Richard Bauckham
Author(s): JOHN P. MEIER

Source: The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 3 (July 1997), pp. 511-527
Published by: Catholic Biblical Association
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On Retrojecting Later Questions
from Later Texts:
A Reply to Richard Bauckham
JOHN P. MEIER
The Catholic University of America
Washington, DC 20064
In his article "The Brothers and Sisters of Jesus: An Epiphanian Re-

sponse to John P. Meier," Professor Richard Bauckham took issue with my
position that the brothers and sisters of Jesus probably were his siblings. I
had presented my approach in different formats in volume 1 of my trilogy A
Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus and in my presidential address
to the Catholic Biblical Association of America in 1 99 1 . 1 While thanking
Professor Bauckham for deeming my presentations worthy of his critique, I
must admit that I am not convinced by his arguments for the Epiphanian
view, namely, that Jesus' brothers and sisters were actually the offspring of
Joseph by a previous marriage.
1 My treatment of the brothers and sisters of Jesus appeared in an earlier form in John P.
Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus I: The Roots of the Problem and the
Person (AB Reference Library; New York: Doubleday, 1991) 318-32. I was able to take into
consideration Richard Bauckham's defense of the Epiphanian position in my revised treatment,
"The Brothers and Sisters of Jesus in Ecumenical Perspective," CBQ 54 (1992) 1-28, in which
I refer to his book Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,
1990). Bauckham, in turn, refers to both my book and my article in his reply, "The Brothers and
Sisters of Jesus: An Epiphanian Response to John P. Meier," CBQ 56 (1994) 686-700. Since in
both cases our articles, rather than our books, present the more advanced stage of our thinking,
and since I want to spare the reader a complicated system of cross-references, I will regularly
refer to the two articles in the abbreviated forms Meier, "Brothers and Sisters," and Bauckham,
"Brothers." Moreover, to avoid multiplying footnotes in this present article, I will regularly give
the references to these two articles in the main text and reserve the footnotes for other references
and secondary discussions.
511
512 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 59, 1997
Our debate is not an easy one to follow, since each of us has expressed
himself first in a book and then in an article. To compound the problem, each
of us shifts his position, or at least his perspective, as he moves from book
to article.2 Hence, it would be best to begin my reply by outlining for the
reader the points of agreement and disagreement.
1. St. Jerome's solution, namely, that the brothers and sisters of Jesus
were really his cousins, is considered by both Bauckham and myself to be
highly improbable.
2. Both authors admit that one cannot entirely exclude the possibility of
either the Epiphanian solution or the Helvidian solution (that the brothers
and sisters were the offspring of Joseph and Mary after Jesus' birth).3 In his
book, Bauckham held that the historical evidence is not decisively in favor
of either solution. In both of my works, I held that the evidence favors the
Helvidian view, although I stressed in my article that absolute proof of the
Helvidian view is impossible and that the Epiphanian view could be upheld
with intellectual integrity (Meier, "Brothers and Sisters," 27). This seemed to
leave a very narrow range of disagreement.
3. Bauckham sharpened our differences by suggesting in his article that
an additional argument might tip the balance of probability slightly in favor
of the Epiphanian view (Bauckham, "Brothers," 687). However, this sharpening
of differences seems somewhat blunted in the last sentence of his article, "I
should be content to have demonstrated at least that the issue between the
Epiphanian and Helvidian views must remain more open than Meier con-
cluded it should" (Bauckham, "Brothers," 700).
Granted the history and complexity of our debate, it would take a long
article to reply to Bauckham point by point. To focus instead on the heart
of the matter, I attempt in this essay to isolate two major problems or areas
2 I am puzzled by Bauckham's statement ("Brothers," 686) that my two discussions of the

brothers and sisters of Jesus "are identical" except for the application of the discussion to
doctrinal and ecumenical issues in my article. As a matter of fact, between the publication of
volume 1 of A Marginal Jew and the writing of my article I had the opportunity to read
Bauckham 's book Jude and the Relatives of Jesus. I not only took his book into consideration
during my discussion but also modified my statement of conclusions at the end of my discussion.
In the article I state explicitly: "One cannot say that they [the data] provide absolute proof that
the traditional Catholic interpretation is simply impossible. Indeed, Catholic theologians might
appeal to the work of Richard Bauckham ... to show that they can support the Epiphanian
solution without surrendering intellectual integrity" (Meier, "Brothers and Sisters," 27). I readily
admit that this modification stems from the "extrinsic" authority of Bauckham as a scholar
rather than from the "intrinsic" authority of his arguments.
3 As I indicate below, Bauckham seems to miss this point when he states that I claim that
the NT evidence is able "to exclude the possibility" of adelphos meaning "stepbrother" (Bauck-
ham, "Brothers," 690). I make no such claim.
LATER QUESTIONS FROM LATER TEXTS 513
of disagreement in Bauckham 's argument for the Epiphanian solution. The

first area of disagreement concerns Bauckham's use of the second-century
apocryphal gospels as sources for history. The second concerns his represen-
tation of my argument about the NT use of adelphos.
I. The Problem of Second-Century Apocryphal Gospels as

Sources of Historical Knowledge
In my view, Bauckham's argument about the historical reliability of
second-century apocryphal gospels ("Brothers," 695-98) constitutes the focal
point of our disagreement. These texts of the mid-second century and later
are a major reason why some exegetes of the canonical gospels take seriously
the idea that Jesus' brothers and sisters were the sons and daughters of
Joseph by a previous marriage. If a reader of the NT knew nothing about the
second-century apocryphal gospels and later patristic disputes about Jesus'
brothers and sisters, would it ever occur to the reader to take "his brothers"
and "his sisters" to mean the offspring of Joseph by a previous marriage? After
all, when we read about Peter and his brother Andrew (e.g., in Matt 4:18),
or James and his brother John (e.g., in Matt 4:21), or Mary and her sister
Martha (e.g., in John 11:1), it never crosses our minds that the supposed
sibling might actually have been a person living in the same family but with
no blood bond to the other person named in the text (what we call a "step-
brother" or "stepsister").4
4 I readily admit that in using terms like "full blood brother," "half brother," and "step-
brother" I employ labels from my own culture, labels not used by the ancient authors under
consideration (cf. Bauckham, "Brothers," 689-90). However, I do not consider these labels
simply illegitimate. They are useful tools if they point to biological realities or the lack thereof
in the situations under discussion, in other words, if these labels have "objective correlatives" in
the first centuries A.D. - and they certainly do. In the first centuries a.D., just as today, certain
children shared the same two biological parents, while certain other children shared one bio-
logical parent, while still other children lived with another child in a household governed by a
husband and wife and yet did not share any biological parent with that other child. It is to these
physical, biological realities that the labels I use point.
Actually, Bauckham proceeds in a similar manner when he speaks of Jesus' relationship
to Joseph's children by a previous marriage as that of an "adoptive brother." As Francis Lyall
points out ( Slaves , Citizens, Sons : Legal Metaphors in the Epistles [Grand Rapids: Zondervan/
Akademie, 1984] 67), Roman law, and probably Greek law, around the turn of the era had a
precise concept of "adoption" and legal procedures for it; "interestingly, however, it [adoption]
was not a concept of the Jewish law of the time." A few pages later (p. 70), Lyall is more
emphatic: "It is quite clear that adoption as a legal form was unknown to the Jews. No Jewish
legal writing contains any provisions that can be rightly construed as adoption and the historical
examples some cite from the Old Testament can be explained without bringing in the idea of
adoption as part of Jewish law." It is not by accident, then, that in the NT the vocabulary of
To put the same question the other way round: Why would anyone
spontaneously think in terms of a "stepbrother" when he or she reads in
John 2:12, for example, that Jesus went down to Capernaum along with "his
mother and his brothers"? Is there anything in the context of John 2 that
would move the reader to take "his mother" in the obvious, natural sense of
a blood relation but "his brothers" in the sense of "stepbrothers"? The
answer is no.
The pivotal place of the second-century apocryphal gospels in our debate
thus becomes clear. Only credible historical evidence coming from a source
outside the canonical gospels could make an interpretation of "brother of
Jesus" as "son of Joseph by a previous marriage" probable rather than
gratuitous. Such a source would have to supply reliable evidence that the
relationship of Jesus to his brothers and sisters was in fact not a blood rela-
tionship and, therefore, was fundamentally different from what we naturally
suppose Andrew's relation to Peter to have been.5 Failing such evidence, there
is no reason for a historian dealing with the historical question of precise
blood relationship to interpret Jesus' brothers and sisters as "stepbrothers"
and "stepsisters" who would, thus, be fundamentally different from other
famous siblings in the canonical gospels.
Bauckham's argument for trusting the second-century gospels on this
precise point rests on a basic principle: "It is not good historical method to
dismiss evidence simply because it occurs in relatively late sources rich in
imagination" (Bauckham, "Brothers," 696). This is an acceptable principle if
one may understand the phrase "a priori" after the words "to dismiss," but
what if one inspects the late sources and finds that "rich in imagination" is
a euphemism for an absolute riot of pious imagination and an astounding
ignorance of the basic conditions of the period described in the narrative? In
that case, only weighty considerations could move a careful historian to give
credence to detailed information about familial relations found in such texts.
Such a riot of imagination and such an ignorance of historical conditions are
precisely what we find in the second-century apocryphal gospels. An inspec-
tion of the contents of the three apocryphal gospels that Bauckham wishes
to use as sources of historical information about Jesus' relatives will bear out
my contention that a cautious historian would decline to use them for that
purpose.
adoption is used only in the Pauline literature: Gal 4:5; Rom 8:15,23; 9:4; Eph 1:5 - all passages
in epistles sent to communities made up mostly or entirely of Gentiles.
5 I use the phrase "fundamentally different" to allow for a difference of opinion between
those who would accept the reality of the virginal conception (hence, Jesus would be a "half
brother") and those who would not (hence, Jesus would be a full blood brother).
A. Three Apocryphal Gospels

1. The Gospel of Peter. When one takes up the first candidate, the Gos-
pel of Peter, one sees immediately that the supposed testimony of the docu-
ment is highly questionable. The fragments we possess of the Gospel of Peter
cover only the end of the trial of Jesus, his crucifixion, his resurrection, and
the beginning of a resurrection appearance. These fragments contain nothing
to support the Epiphanian interpretation of the brothers and sisters of Jesus.6
Bauckham refers instead to a statement of Origen in his commentary on
Matthew ( In Matt. 10. 17), which, according to Bauckham ("Brothers," 696),
attests the Epiphanian view. Bauckham does not cite the text of Origen in his
article. When one examines Origen's statement, the supposed attestation of
the Epiphanian view in the Gospel of Peter becomes highly questionable.
Origen mentions approvingly that some people hold the brothers of Jesus to
be the products of a previous marriage of Joseph (an idea that in fact is found
in Prot. Jas. 9:2, as we shall see). Origen, however, says with distressing
vagueness that these people rely upon "the Gospel entitled 'according to
Peter' or the Book of James."7 Obviously, Origen is not clear about the source
of the idea and has not checked the reference. Indeed, Wilhelm Schneemelcher
thinks that, as the idea Origen is discussing is actually found in the Prote-
vangelium of James , "it is . . . questionable, if not indeed excluded, that Origen
knew the Gos[pel of] Pet[er] itself."8 The Gospel of Peter must drop out of
serious consideration.
6 For a description of the fragmentary texts of the Gospel of Peter and an English
translation of the texts, see John Dominic Crossan, The Cross That Spoke: The Origins of the
Passion Narrative (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988) 3-9, 409-13. Crossan does not include
the reference from Origen as one of our sources of knowledge of the Gospel of Peter : Léon
Vaganay (. L'Evangile de Pierre [EBib; 2d ed.; Paris: Gabalda, 1930] 8-9 and n. 1 on p. 8) strongly
rejects the tendentious translation "the Gospel according to Peter and the Book of James";
Vaganay stresses Origen's vagueness at this point. The Greek text of the Gospel of Peter can be
found both in Vaganay's volume and in Aurelio de Santos Otero, Los evangelios apócrifos (BAC
148; Madrid: Editorial católica, 1966) 403-17.
7 For the Greek text, see PG 13 (vol. 3 of Origen), cols. 876-77; the key sentence reads:
tous de adelphous lēsou, phasi tines einai, ek paradoseõs hormõmenoi tou epigegrammenou
kata Petron Euaggeliou, ē tēs biblou lakõbou, huious Iõsêph ek proteras gynaikos synçkêkuias
autç pro tēs Marias.
8 Wilhelm Schneemelcher, "The Gospel of Peter: Introduction," New Testament Apoc-
rypha I: Gospels and Related Writings (rev. ed.; ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher and R. McL.
Wilson; Cambridge: James Clarke; Louisville: Westminster/ John Knox, 1991) 217. Christian
Maurer expressed the same view in an earlier German edition of the same work, Neutesta-
mentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung (4th ed.; ed. Edgar Hennecke and Wilhelm
Schneemelcher; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1968) 118. Emile de Strycker {La forme la plus
ancienne du Protévangile de Jacques [Subsidia Hagiographica 33; Brüssels: Société des Bol-
landistes, 1961] 395) goes further and suggests that Origen knew even the Protevangelium only
through commentators on the work.
2. The Protevangelium of James. We come, then, to the two infancy

gospels cited by Bauckham, the Protevangelium of James and the Infancy
Gospel of Thomas . In contrast to the fragmentary Gospel of Peter, the full
text of each infancy gospel is available to us.9 For our discussion, the more
important of these two gospels is the Protevangelium of James (hereafter:
PJ).10 Indeed, it is the only directly relevant text, as we shall see.
The basic question we must put to the PJ is whether it gives indications
of being a trustworthy repository of detailed information about the early
years of Jesus' life, in particular about his relation to his brothers. In my
opinion, anyone who reviews the contents of the PJ must answer in the
negative. To substantiate this judgment, I invite the reader to join me in a
thorough test of the contents of the PJ. For this test, I suggest that the reader
draw three columns on a page and use them to "keep score" as he or she reads
through the PJ with me.
9 At the same time, one must issue a firm caution: both gospels have extremely compli-
cated text-critical histories; see Oscar Cullmann, "Infancy Gospels," New Testament Apocrypha
(ed. Schneemelcher and Wilson) 1. 421-22, 439-41. In neither case do we have a completely
satisfying critical edition of the Greek text. The situation is especially complicated in the case
of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. It is daring to claim that any precise reading of the Greek text
of Thomas is the one that was known in the second half of the second century A.D. - if, indeed,
the gospel was written by that time. As Cullmann (p. 441) says of Thomas, "we cannot at present
reconstruct any original form of this work."
10 For the Greek text of the PJ and a commentary on it, see H. R. Smid, Protevangelium
Jacobi: A Commentary (Apocrypha Novi Testamenti 1; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1965); de Santos
Otero, Evangelios apócrifos, 135-88; de Strycker, La forme la plus ancienne, 64-191; and the
earlier edition by Emile Amann, Le Protévangile de Jacques et ses remaniements latins (Les
Apocryphes du Nouveau Testament; Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1910). See also Johannes Quasten,
Patrology 1: The Beginnings of Patristic Literature (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1983,
originally 1950) 1 18-22; Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, Their History and Develop-
ment (London: SCM; Philadelphia: Trinity, 1990) 308-11.
As an aside, I should note that not all scholars feel as certain as Bauckham does that all
three works, the Gospel of Peter, the Protevangelium of James, and the Infancy Gospel of
Thomas, were written in Syria. Since Serapion of Antioch is the first patristic witness to the
Gospel of Peter, Syria is as good a guess as any for that work, though it remains a guess. Willem
S. Vorster ("James, Protevangelium of," ABD, 3. 630) notes that both Egypt and Syria have been
proposed as places of origin for the Protevangelium Jacobi. Smid ( Protevangelium , 20-22)
stresses our uncertainty about the place of composition; Syria is possible, but neither Egypt nor
a number of other locations can be excluded. In contrast, de Strycker (La forme la plus ancienne,
419-23) strongly favors Egypt and considers Greece, Asia Minor, and Syria-Palestine all very
unlikely candidates.
I should also note that for convenience1 sake I retain the generic label "infancy gospels."
It is a commonly accepted term (so, e.g., in Schneemelcher's New Testament Apocrypha, 414-19;
Pheme Perkins, "Apocrypha," NJBC, 1065-66), but it scarcely fits all the material that it usually
covers. De Santos Otero ( Evangelios apócrifos, 133, 297) employs a distinction between gospels
"of the nativity" (e.g., the Protevangelium) and gospels "of the infancy" (e.g., the Infancy Gospel
of Thomas). While this is an improvement, it still does not do complete justice to the material,
since Thomas covers the life of the boy Jesus from age five to age twelve - hardly his "infancy."
In the first column, the reader should note (a) all the material containing
mistakes about Palestinian geography,11 political conditions, or Jewish prac-
tices during the Second Temple period, and ( b ) all the material that confuses
or conflates in a maladroit fashion the infancy narratives of Matthew and
Luke. Obviously, such material cannot be taken seriously as the source of
new historical information about Jesus. In the second column, the reader
should note statements that seem to be the product of pious imagination or
Christian legend building that flows from a type of "midrash" on OT and NT
texts, especially the canonical infancy narratives. In the third column, the
reader should note any statement in the PJ that may have a serious claim to
represent independent historical information.
Anyone with a fair knowledge of the PJ can guess beforehand the out-
come of this test. By the time we finish reading the contents of the PJ - now
sorted out in the three columns - we shall find that almost the entire text of
the PJ will wind up in columns one and two; there will be practically nothing
in column three. The consequence of this survey for the question of Jesus'
brothers is clear. There is no reason to suppose that in the unique case of
Jesus' brothers the PJ had access to privileged historical information that it
otherwise totally and woefully lacked. This, in brief, is my claim. Now I must
justify it by a detailed sifting of the contents of the PJ.
In the first column, we will find a lengthy list of mistakes showing
ignorance of Jewish practices and beliefs in first-century Palestine, as well as
products of confusion or maladroit conflation.12 To run quickly through the
main examples in the twenty-five chapters of the Protevangelium: As the
gospel opens, the father-to-be of Mary (Joachim) is told by a certain Reuben
(not described as a priest) that he cannot be the first to offer his gifts at the
temple in Jerusalem, because he has no children. The saddened Joachim
goes, in Jerusalem, to the record of all the offspring of the twelve tribes of
Israel; the record shows that in fact all the righteous in Israel had offspring.
When the priest offering Joachim's sacrifice descends from the altar, Joachim
can see from the headpiece fastened on the priest's turban that God has
graciously forgiven all his sins. To prepare Mary's later residence in the
temple, her mother (Anna) turns her bedchamber into a sanctuary, isolated
from anything common or unclean; there the undefiled daughters of the
Hebrews serve Mary's needs. When Mary is three years old, she is received
11 Quasten ( Patrology ; 1. 121) delivers the summary judgment: "He [the author of the
Protevangelium ] shows an astonishing ignorance of the geography of Palestine."
12 The line between column one and column two will at times be thin and porous, since
examples of ignorance of matters Jewish and examples of imaginative midrash on OT and NT
texts are often intertwined in the same section of the narrative. Understandably, then, some
readers might prefer to transfer a few examples from column one to column two and vice versa.
Such minor differences in opinion will not affect the overall results of the test.
by the priest in the temple, where she dances on the third step of the altar.
Mary remains in the temple, brought up in the holy of holies (!) and fed by
an angel.
When Mary is twelve years old, the priests hold a council to decide how
to avoid having her pollute the sanctuary. The high priest (named Zacharias)
enters the holy of holies, where he is instructed by an angel to assemble the
widowers from among the people. Each widower presents a rod to the high
priest, who brings the rods into the temple while he prays. When he returns
the rods to the widowers, the last goes to Joseph. A dove then comes out of
Joseph's rod and flies onto his head, a sign that Joseph is to take the virgin
Mary under his care when she leaves her abode in the temple. Joseph does
not want to assume this obligation, but he does so out of fear when the high
priest threatens him with destruction.
The council of priests decides to have seven virgins of the tribe of David
(sic),13 one of whom is Mary, make a veil for the temple. Meanwhile, the high
priest Zacharias is struck dumb (the father of John the Baptist is being
confused here with the high priest, or is being elevated to the high priest's
post). Mary visits her kinswoman Elizabeth, who apparently lives near the
temple, but Mary forthwith forgets what the angel Gabriel has told her and
wonders, therefore, at Elizabeth's praise of her. Mary, accordingly, turns one
of the lines of the Magnificat into a puzzled question. Because she has for-
gotten Gabriel's message, Mary cannot explain to the horrified Joseph why
she is pregnant (a maladroit attempt to conflate the annunciation narratives
of Matthew and Luke).
After Jesus' birth, Herod's slaughter of the innocents (a Matthean tradi-
tion) causes Mary to hide Jesus by wrapping him up in swaddling clothes and
laying him in a manger (a Lucan tradition). Herod also seeks to kill the infant
John (the Baptist) and demands his whereabouts from his father Zacharias
as the priest stands at the altar in the temple. When Zacharias refuses to tell
Herod where John is, Zacharias is martyred at the altar by Herod's officers
(an echo of 2 Chr 24:20-22, perhaps by way of Matt 23:35). Unaware of what
has happened, the priests outside the sanctuary do not understand why
Zacharias has not come out of the temple to bless them (cf. Luke 1:21). One
priest finally goes into the sanctuary and hears the blood of Zacharias
speaking of the vengeance to come. Zacharias' body is not found, but his
blood turns into stone. Zacharias is replaced as high priest by the Symeon
mentioned in Luke 2:25-26. At the end of the PJ, James (the brother of the
Lord?) is identified as the author.
In the second column , containing the elements of pious legend and
Christian midrash, we should first note all the implicit citations of, or allusions
13 The text has apo tes phylěs tou Dauid, and there is no alternate reading for phyles. On
the glaring error, see de Strycker, La forme la plus ancienne, 111.
to, the OT and NT that run through the PJ like so many threads knitting the
whole together. Oscar Cullmann has provided a convenient list of the main
citations and allusions.14 Cullmann counts eighty-five separate passages in
the PJ, many of which allude to more than one scriptural text. The attentive
reader could easily expand this list with many more allusions.15
Other midrashic expansions probably include the name Joachim, given
to Mary's father. When Joachim is denied the right to offer his gifts first in
the temple, he fasts forty days and forty nights in the desert. Mary's mother
also receives a name, Anna. The childlessness of Joachim and Anna echoes
similar OT stories of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and
Rachel, and notably of Elkanah and Hannah (= Anna) with the subsequent
dedication of the child Samuel to the Lord's service in the sanctuary.
In the grand biblical style, Anna receives from an angel the annuncia-
tion of the birth of Mary. Joachim, like Joseph in Matt 1:18-25, also receives
an angelic annunciation. The house of Joachim and Anna is located in Jeru-
salem, not in Nazareth or Bethlehem. On Mary's first birthday, Joachim
invites the chief priest, the priests, the scribes, the elders, and the whole people
of Israel to the celebration. When Mary is brought into the temple to live,
the priest alludes to a phrase in the Magnificat. The annunciation to Mary
takes place partly at a fountain, and partly in the temple;16 the text is mostly
Lucan, with a small contribution from Matthew's annunciation to Joseph.
When Joseph discovers that Mary is pregnant, he raises the possibility
(echoing Gen 6:1-4?) that what is in Mary's womb may have sprung from
angels. At the instigation of Annas "the scribe," Joseph and Mary are put on
trial before the high priest in the temple. Each is made to drink "the water
of the conviction of the Lord," each is sent into the wilderness, and each
returns vindicated (a confused application of the ordeal of the "water of
bitterness" in Num 5:11-31).
Later, King Augustus decrees that all the inhabitants of Bethlehem in
Judaea (sic) be enrolled.17 On the road to Bethlehem, the pregnant Mary is
both sad and happy as she sees two peoples (in prophetic vision), one weeping
and one rejoicing (probably nonbelievers and believers; cf. Luke 2:34). Joseph
14 Cullmann, "Infancy Gospels," 437-39.

15 In his commentary on the PJ, Smid studies in detail all LXX allusions and, to a lesser
extent, NT parallels.
16 Smid ( Protevangelium , 81) discusses the way in which the author splits up the annunci-
ation scene in Luke 1; while Smid allows that the author may have been influenced by folk
concepts of girls going to a (sacred) spring and having miraculous experiences, he also points
to a (distant) parallel in Plutarch Isis and Osiris 12 (355e).
Smid ( Protevangelium , 1 18) suggests that the worldwide census of Luke 2: 1 had proven
so difficult for Christian interpreters that by the second half of the second century the census
was already being restricted by various authors to Bethlehem or Judaea.
brings Mary to a cave near Bethlehem while he seeks a midwife. All creation
stops for a moment as Jesus is born.
The midwife summoned by Joseph sees a cloud overshadowing the cave,
and then a bright light appears. As the light departs, the child Jesus appears
(perhaps a docetic understanding of Jesus' birth that explains how Mary's
virginity is preserved intact). The babe goes to Mary and begins to suckle.
The midwife attending Mary recounts the virgin birth to one Salome. Thomas-
like, Salome says that she will not believe until she puts forth her finger and
tests Mary's virginal condition (cf. John 20:25). Salome confirms Mary's vir-
ginity, but Salome's hand is consumed by fire because of her unbelief. An angel
hears Salome's prayer and orders her to touch Jesus, and her hand is healed.
The Matthean story of the Magi is recounted with a few expansions; for
example, the star announcing Jesus' birth dimmed all the other stars. Because
of Herod's slaughter of the innocents, Elizabeth tries to hide her son John
(neither Herod nor John has been mentioned previously in the PJ). When she
can find no hiding place in the mountains, a mountain splits asunder and
receives her, while an angel protects both mother and child.
We come now to the third column , devoted to historical knowledge of
Jesus and his family not derived from the canonical books of the NT. Putting
aside for the moment the disputed question of the brothers of Jesus, I think
it safe to say that no serious critic would claim that the PJ supplies us with
any independent historical information about Jesus. To be sure, the canonical
gospels have their own supply of historically impossible or unlikely events,
confusion about historical situations, and midrash on the OT. Yet all but the
most hypercritical of scholars would acknowledge a basic fund of reliable
data that can be extracted from the canonical gospels by the criteria of
historicity, to provide a sketch of Jesus' public career.
It is this fund of reliable data that is lacking in the PJ. Columns one and
two above do not contain odds and ends of the story in the PJ; they contain
the very substance of the narrative. Apart from the question of Joseph the
widower and his sons, practically everything in the PJ belongs in columns
one or two. Hence, the critical question: Is it probable that this mid-second-
century apocryphal gospel, which is otherwise a tissue of improbable or
impossible events, pious legends, and midrash, has in this one case preserved
the precise details of Jesus' relationship to his brothers, details not trans-
mitted by the first-century canonical gospels? It is obvious where the weight
of probability lies: the presentation of Joseph's status as a widower and of his
sons as the products of a previous marriage belongs with all of the PJ' s other
pious legends and midrashic expansions.
The particular legend of Joseph the elderly widower with sons from a
previous marriage could have been a tradition already circulating among
certain second-century Christians prior to the PJ, but I tend to agree with
Emile Amann: it is more likely that the author of the PJ invented the Epi-
phanian solution (perhaps more accurately labeled the "Jacobin solution").18
It is difficult to imagine how the tradition of Joseph the widower with sons
was first created and then handed down apart from the larger story of the PJ.
In any case, though, the development of the legend of Joseph the widower-
cum-sons is easily explainable in the context of mid-second-century Christi-
anity. If, for example, one locates the composition of the PJ in some Christian
group in mid-second-century Syria, the docetic and gnosticizing tendencies
of some Syrian Christians, the general tendency of second-century Christian
works to engage in pious legend building, and the growth of Marian piety
would adequately explain the status of Joseph and his sons in the PJ. 19
This judgment becomes all the firmer when we notice where in the text
of the PJ the references to Joseph's widowerhood and to his sons appear. The
first mention of Joseph's being a widower and having sons is in PJ 9:l-2.20
This occurs in a pivotal context: Mary, having been reared in the holy of
holies, is now reaching the age of twelve, thus threatening the sanctuary with
pollution. It is because of this special crisis that Joseph, along with all the
widowers of Israel, is summoned to the temple. When the miraculous dove
from Joseph's rod points him out, he protests that he is already old, has sons,
and so will become a laughing stock if he takes Mary under his care. He is
persuaded only by the blatant threat of a priest. The second relevant passage
is in chaps. 17-18. The sons of Joseph are mentioned right after we are told
about King Augustus' census. Joseph willingly agrees to enroll his sons but
wonders whether he should enroll Mary as his wife or as his daughter (17:1).
As one of Joseph's sons is leading the ass on which Mary is riding to Bethle-
hem, Mary sees in a prophetic vision the fates of two peoples, one rejoicing
and one lamenting (17:2). In 17:3-18:1, Joseph leaves Mary in a cave in a
desert place, in the care of his sons, while he seeks out a midwife.
The important point here is that the idea of Joseph's being a widower
with sons does not appear in splendid isolation from the web of improbable
18 Amann, Protévangile, 37.

19 On this, see Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, 310. Koester, as is his wont, stresses
the element of Hellenistic piety in the story. For him, the Prot evangelium extols "the wondrous
virtues of virginity and ascetic dedication" as they are seen in "the mystery of the female that
demands worship." Smid ( Protevangelium , 7-8) stresses instead the "haggadic" nature of the
narrative and suggests that the contents of the Protevangelium be described as midrashic exe-
gesis of the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke. See also Koester's treatment of the
Protevangelium in his article "Überlieferung und Geschichte der frühchristlichen Evangelien-
literatur," A NRW 2/25/2, 1463-1542, esp. 1483-84.
20 I might note as an aside that Bauckham ("Brothers," 696 n. 22) misreads my statement
in my article ("Brothers and Sisters," 5 with n. 8). What I state there is that the perpetual
virginity of Mary is only implied in the Protevangelium , while that gospel contains a clear
statement (9:2) that Joseph the widower (cf. 8:3-9:1) already has sons.
or clearly legendary events that make up the substance of the midrashic

narrative in chaps. 9 and 17-18. Unless one has already decided on other
grounds to declare the status of Joseph and his sons historical, one finds no
reason to do so in the text of the PJ. Joseph the widower and his sons by a
previous marriage belong organically to a text that is legendary, midrashic,
and wildly improbable from start to finish. The widower and his offspring
cannot apply for a special exemption from this judgment.
3. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (here-
after: Thomas) may be surveyed more briefly, for three reasons. First , it is
mainly to the PJ that defenders of the Epiphanian solution appeal when they
treat second-century apocryphal gospels. As a matter of fact, some defenders
of the Epiphanian solution make no reference at all to Thomas.
That brings me to my second reason for not treating Thomas in detail:
compared to Thomas , with its bizarre and wild contents, the PJ looks like
the very soul of sobriety. The PJ is, among other things, an imaginative mid-
rashic expansion of the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke. Thomas is
not so narrowly contained within that genre. Instead, Thomas seeks to fill in
the time between the end of the infancy narrative proper and the story of the
twelve-year-old Jesus in Luke 2:41-52. It deals with an "empty time," a time
in no way controlled or restricted by the infancy narratives of the canonical
gospels. Without any such constraint, Christian imagination in Thomas turns
decidedly weird.
In Thomas we meet a child Jesus who is a divine brat, a malicious boy
worthy of some Hollywood horror movie. From making live birds out of clay,
the capricious child Jesus gleefully turns first to making one child wither up
and then to striking another boy dead for the crime of having bumped into
him. The child Jesus does begin to perform some beneficent miracles as well
(miracles usually derived from the miracle stories of the public ministry in
the canonical gospels), after people complain to Joseph, "Teach him [Jesus]
to bless and not to curse, for he is slaying our children" - though the com-
plainers are struck blind for their pains.
If the fictional nature of the PJ makes it an unlikely candidate for a
source of detailed historical knowledge about Jesus' familial relations, the
same must hold true a fortiori of the macabre Thomas .21 A critical historian
could not take seriously an attempt to extract exact information about Jesus'
family situation from such a dark reflection of what some second-century
21 As Koester ( Ancient Christian Gospels, 314) remarks, "it is evident that the majority
of these stories [in Thomas ] are either based on the older traditions about Jesus* public ministry,
especially as they are already enshrined in the canonical gospels, or are drawn from the wider
store of various narratives of the ancient world
Christians - perhaps a docetic or gnosticizing group - apparently considered

pious entertainment.22
The third and most decisive reason why Thomas should not be invoked
to support the Epiphanian solution is that this solution is never explicitly
mentioned in Thomas.2* To begin with, Joseph is the main character along-
side Jesus throughout this gospel. Jesus' mother, unnamed, makes a cameo
appearance in 1 l:l-2.24 Otherwise, she is absent from the body of the gospel
until its last anecdote, which is simply an expanded recital of the story of the
twelve-year-old Jesus in Luke 2:41-52. Only here is Mary mentioned by name.
More to the point, in Thomas Joseph is never said to be a widower. Even
the virginal conception is alluded to rather than explicitly affirmed - in stark
contrast to the PJ Intriguingly, we hear of no other son of Joseph until close
to the end of the gospel. Then, in 16:1-2, Joseph sends "his son James" to
bind wood. While James is gathering sticks, a viper bites his hand, and James
almost dies. "The child Jesus" breathes on the bite, and James is cured. From
this cryptic narrative one might conclude that James is older than Jesus and
is not the product of the union of Joseph and Jesus' mother,25 but such a
conclusion would spring spontaneously to the reader's mind only if one read
this story through the lenses of the PJ. Read in isolation, Thomas does not
clearly articulate the Epiphanian solution, here or elsewhere. In my opinion,
22 Quasten (Patrology, 1. 123-24) judges this apocryphal gospel to have "originated in

heretical, probably Gnostic, circles."
23 Some might want to add a fourth reason, namely, that not all critics are convinced that
the Infancy Gospel of Thomas dates from the second century. Koester ( Ancient Christian Gos-
pels, 311) remarks that although the existence of Thomas "in some form" in the second century
"is not certain but also not improbable," in any event, the textual history of Thomas is so
complicated and confusing that "no final judgment about the original form and content [of
Thomas ] is possible." For a late dating of any fixed written form of Thomas, see Stephen Gero,
"The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: A Study of the Textual and Literary Problems," NovT'3 (1971)
46-80. All of this makes arguing over the exact wording of Thomas in the latter part of the
second century a precarious endeavor.
24 To be more precise: the Greek text (as it is presented by de Santos Otero, Evangelios
apócrifos, 313) speaks only of hē mētēr autou, while the Church Slavonic tradition, not sur-
prisingly, supplies the proper name Mary; see Aurelio de Santos Otero, Das Kirchenslavische
Evangelium des Thomas (Patristische Texte und Studien 6; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967) 116.
25 Perhaps the best argument for such a conclusion would be the apparent distinction
between James, who is called ho huios autou [i.e., of Joseph] in 16:1, and Jesus, who is called to
paidion. However, this is not as probative as it might at first seem. The phrase to paidion ļlēsous]
is the fixed way in which Jesus is referred to throughout the narrative of Thomas, from the first
words of the narrative in 2:1, when Jesus is five years old, down to the final story in 19:1, when
he is twelve years old. While the possessive pronoun is lacking after paidion in 16: 1, it does occur
in 2:3, to paidion sou [i.e., of Joseph]. If anything is being hinted at here, it is the tradition of the
virginal conception, which, of course, creates an essential distinction between James and Jesus.
Bauckham 's claim ("Brothers," 696 n. 24) that Thomas 16:1 "implies that
Joseph's son James is older than Jesus" is not substantiated by the text of
Thomas taken by itself.
In brief, then, the three second-century apocryphal gospels to which
Bauckham appeals cannot carry the weight of the proof of his thesis. First,
contrary to Bauckham's claim, they do not offer clear, united witness to the
Epiphanian solution. Unambiguous witness to the Epiphanian solution is
given only by the PJ Second, and more to the point, none of these three
works can be shown to be a trustworthy source of historical information
about the details of Jesus' familial relations.
I return to my initial observation: without the support of these apoc-
ryphal gospels, it is gratuitous to retroject the Epiphanian solution into
various passages of first-century canonical gospels that show no inkling of
such a solution because they sense no problem to be solved. Taken by them-
selves, the canonical gospels no more offer a reason to take "the brothers" of
Jesus in the sense of the offspring of Joseph by a previous marriage than they
offer a reason to take "the brother" of Simon Peter in a similar sense. Given
all this, it is a fortiori gratuitous to retroject the Epiphanian solution into the
actual family of the historical Jesus. And what is gratuitously asserted may
be gratuitously denied.
B. The Theological Approach in Second- Century Christianity

In addition, the theological approach to the brothers of Jesus in second-
century Christianity was not as simple as Bauckham would have it. At least
one text in Hegesippus and the implicit thrust of an analogy in Irenaeus
argue in favor of the existence of something like the Helvidian solution
among some Christians in the second century.26 While the texts of Hegesip-
pus are fragmentary, and some are open to more than one interpretation, it
is clear from various fragments that Hegesippus knew how to speak of "the
brother," "the uncle," and "the cousin" of Jesus. More to the point, in one
passage, quoted by Eusebius, Hegesippus speaks of Jude as the brother of the
Savior (or the Lord) "according to the flesh."27 Since Hegesippus knows
26 For detailed citations of texts and critical editions, see Meier, "Brothers and Sisters,"
22-26. 1 stress that at this point in the argument I am simply claiming that some second-century
Christian writers seem to have held what we call the Helvidian solution. I am not arguing at this
point that these writers were historically correct or - in the case of Hegesippus - even consistent
in their various statements about Jesus' relatives.
27 The two relevant phrases are "of Jude, who [is said] to be the brother of the Savior
according to the flesh" ( louda touton d' einai adelphon kata sarka tou sõtêros, Eusebius Eccl.
Hist. 3. 19. 1) and "of Jude, said to be his [the Lord's] brother according to the flesh" ( louda tou
kata sarka legomenou autou adelphou, ibid., 3.20. 1). In 3.19, Eusebius is giving a brief summary
perfectly well how to distinguish among Jesus' brother, uncle, and cousin,
it is special pleading to take the emphatic phrase "his [Jesus'] brother
according to the flesh" as meaning anything other than a blood brother.
Less clear is the analogy Irenaeus draws between the story of Adam and
Eve in paradise and the virginal conception. In developing this analogy Ire-
naeus makes two statements that may imply that Mary had other children
after Jesus' birth. In Adversus Haereses 3.21.10, Irenaeus asserts: "Just as
that first-formed man, Adam, received his make-up from the untilled and
up-to-that-time [ adhuc ] virgin earth (for God had not yet sent rain, and man
had not yet worked the earth) and was formed by the hand of God, that is,
the Word of God, ... so too the Word, recapitulating Adam in himself and
existing from Mary, who was up-to-that-time [adhuc] a virgin, correctly
received the kind of generation that recapitulated Adam's." Similarly, in
3.22.4 of the same work, Irenaeus draws an analogy between Eve and Mary.
Eve was disobedient when she was still [adhuc] a virgin, though she already
had a husband. Mary was obedient when she had an already-chosen husband
and, nevertheless, was still [adhuc] a virgin.
Hence, I think that Bauckham's claim that "only the Epiphanian view
[and not the Helvidian view] is unambiguously attested before Tertullian" is
too sweeping. I consider Hegesippus' statement about Jude the brother of the
Savior according to the flesh to be quite unambiguous. Irenaeus' statements
are ambiguous, but I think it more likely than not that they point in the
direction of the Helvidian solution.
II. The Misrepresentation of My Position on Adelphos in the

New Testament
While I wish to avoid the sort of line-by-line refutation that makes the
"reply to a reply" such a tiresome genre, there is one point in Bauckham's
treatment of my argument about the NT use of adelphos that should be
addressed. Quite unintentionally, I am sure, Bauckham misrepresents my
claim about the NT usage of adelphos. Summarizing my observations about
the usage of adelphos in the NT, Bauckham states: "His [Meier's] argument
is simply that in the NT adelphos and adelphē cannot mean 'stepbrother' and
'stepsister.' . . . This [claim about NT usage] he [Meier] considers sufficient
of events in his own words, while in 3.20 he is quoting Hegesippus, who has just mentioned the
Lord {ho kyrios). Since in the context "the grandsons of Jude" are said to be "of the family of
David," "related to Christ himself," and "of the family of the Lord," it is arbitrary to interpret
"his brother according to the flesh" as a phrase simply distinguishing Jude from spiritual brothers
of Jesus. The most natural interpretation of the phrase tou kata sarka . . . autou adelphou is "his
[Jesus'] physical brother."
evidence to exclude the possibility that it [ adelphos ' can mean anything
else in the case of the brothers of Jesus [than blood brother]" (Bauckham,
"Brothers," 690; emphasis mine).
As a matter of fact, my observations on adelphos in the NT do not
contain the categorical assertion reported by Bauckham, namely, that the
possibility that adelphos can mean anything other than blood brother is
simply excluded. Phrases like "simply cannot mean" and "exclude the possi-
bility," which Bauckham attributes to me, are not present in my article when
I treat this question. Not only do I not make such a categorical assertion of
the impossibility of adelphos meaning anything but blood brother: I hold that
such an assertion would make nonsense of my basic position. Throughout my
article I am at pains to stress that we are dealing not with absolute certitude
but with varying degrees of probability in a question for which the data are
obscure and ambiguous. When I refer to the Helvidian solution, I regularly
refer to it as "the most probable opinion," not as a matter of certitude. My
stance is emphatically reaffirmed at the end of my presentation (and, indeed,
is cited by Bauckham, "Brothers," 686): "Needless to say, all of these argu-
ments, even when taken together, cannot produce absolute certitude in a
matter for which there is so little evidence. Nevertheless . . . the most probable
opinion is that the brothers and sisters of Jesus were true siblings" (Meier,
"Brothers and Sisters," 26; emphasis added). I could hardly hold this position
throughout my article and yet, at the same time, speak in absolute terms of
what adelphos cannot mean in the NT and of what I can exclude as an
impossible meaning.
Nor do I propose a view that Bauckham seems to attribute to me, namely,
that NT Greek in general or the NT usage of adelphos in particular was
somehow cordoned off from ordinary Greek usage "in some kind of linguistic
ghetto" (Bauckham, "Brothers," 691). I claim nothing of the sort. Indeed,
precisely because NT Greek was part of the whole phenomenon of first-
century koine Greek, in which there were many varied uses of the word adelphos ,
the de facto use of adelphos by NT authors in a notably restricted range of
meanings attracts attention. But such a restricted range of meaning in Chris-
tian writings stemming from ca. a.D. 50-100 is something to be verified by
inspection of individual cases, not something to be decreed by excluding a
priori the possibility that adelphos could mean in the NT what in fact it does
mean in other examples of first-century Greek literature. This point is so
obvious that it need not be belabored.
Various other elements of the linguistic argument, as well as the exegesis
of individual passages, could be debated,28 but I do not wish to make a lengthy
28 For example, I think Bauckham 's exegesis of key Synoptic passages dealing with the
mother and brothers of Jesus - Matt 12:46-50; 13:55; and Mark 6:3 (Bauckham, "Brothers,"
694-95, 698-700)- highly unlikely.
reply still lengthier. Let me conclude, rather, by harking back to my major

point, which is relevant to the exegesis of these Matthean and Marcan texts:
Bauckham's claims that three second-century gospels give united witness to
the Epiphanian solution and that they are reliable sources of historical
information about the exact relation of Jesus to his brothers have, upon
examination, not been verified. Failing the vindication of these claims, any
retrojection of the Epiphanian solution into the first-century Christian gos-
pels, or further into the actual family relationships of the historical Jesus,
must be judged gratuitous. Indeed, the very supposition that the Epiphanian
solution was on anyone's mental horizon in the first century must likewise be
judged gratuitous. To intone for the last time the mantra of my reply: what
is gratuitously asserted may be gratuitously denied. That is the true and
sufficient reply to the Epiphanian solution.

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On Retrojecting Later Questions from Later Texts: A Reply to Richard Bauckham

Author(s): JOHN P. MEIER

In his article "The Brothers and Sisters of Jesus: An Epiphanian Re-

2 I am puzzled by Bauckham's statement ("Brothers," 686) that my two discussions of the

of disagreement in Bauckham 's argument for the Epiphanian solution. The

I. The Problem of Second-Century Apocryphal Gospels as

A. Three Apocryphal Gospels

2. The Protevangelium of James. We come, then, to the two infancy

14 Cullmann, "Infancy Gospels," 437-39.

18 Amann, Protévangile, 37.

or clearly legendary events that make up the substance of the midrashic

Christians - perhaps a docetic or gnosticizing group - apparently considered

22 Quasten (Patrology, 1. 123-24) judges this apocryphal gospel to have "originated in

B. The Theological Approach in Second- Century Christianity

II. The Misrepresentation of My Position on Adelphos in the

reply still lengthier. Let me conclude, rather, by harking back to my major

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