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stuff about jesus's brothers etc.
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I thought that another theory on this was that some of those "siblings" were Joseph's children from a prior marriage - hence, again, half siblings since Joseph accepted responsibility as Jesus's father by marrying Mary after she was knocked up? Joe was traditionally quite old when he and Mary married, and I thought that the supposed prior wife was some close relation of Mary's. (Which was usual at the time - you kept intermarrying among and within families to prevent wealth dissipation, a practice which only in fact got stamped out sometime around the 12th/13th century when the Church got involved in consecrating marriages and instituted the "no cosanguinity" rules by way of trying to break the power of the secular nobility in Europe.) So, anyhow, I thought, it was though quite possible that the "confusion" about the term for brother/cousin arose because people were very often both half-siblings AND cousins.
I also believe that Joseph and Mary were supposed to be first cousins, to loop back into a prior topic.
