The notion that Joseph had children from an earlier marriage is found in the late second-century Protevangelium of James and is advocated in the fourth century by Epiphanius, but there is no hint within the New Testament, other than this possible cryptic reference to ‘the son of Mary’, that Jesus’ brothers and sisters were anything other than products of the marriage of Joseph and Mary. In addition, if Jesus were being distinguished from his brothers and sisters in Mark 6 on the basis of different mothers, then one would have expected his siblings’ mother also to have been named.
