© 1996 Lauri Korpelainen
© 1996 International Urantia Association (IUA)
Lauri Korpelainen
Helsinki, Finland
Close by Jesus’ cross were standing his mother and her sister as well as Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. (Translated from the latest version of the Finnish Bible.)
This piece of text, some two thousand years old, is an unceremonial record of the four women who witnessed Jesus’ death on the cross. In its emotional charge it must be one of the most thrilling single verses in the New Testament. Of the four evangelists, only John was able to tell us that near the cross there were Jesus’ mother and her sister, and that present was also his “most beloved disciple.”
It is somewhat embarrassing that this emotionally charged verse of the Fourth Gospel (John 19:25) has proven to be very problematic for the Bible translators and the exegetists. The core of the problem is the original Greek text which is subject to multiple interpretations.
The problem does not limit itself to translation techniques; what is more essential is the interpretation that any translation of this passage should receive. Let us have a look at what the problems are.
Standing near the cross at one time or another during the crucifixion were Mary, Ruth, Jude, John, Salome (John’s mother), and a group of earnest women believers including Mary the wife of Clopas and sister of Jesus’ mother, Mary Magdalene, and Rebecca, onetime of Sepphoris UB 187:3.2. This passage seems to indicate that Mary’s sister was another Mary. Can it be true that Mary’s sister was another Mary? Lauri Korpelainen explores this problem in his article which was originally published in Heijaste, and is reproduced here in a slightly shortened wording.
In the words of the Apostle John, there were four women close by the cross: Jesus’ mother and her sister, as well as Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. The names of the two first women are not given. Other pericopes, though, reveal that the name of Jesus’ mother is Mary. But who was the sister of Jesus’ mother, and by what name was she known?
An answer to this question has been sought in comparing the information provided by Mark and Matthew, two synoptics, in their records of the same event (Matthew 27:56; Mark 15:40). The two evangelists mention three of the women who were present at the cross, and two of these recorded women are identical in the two synoptic Gospels, viz. Mary of Magdala and Mary, the mother of both James and Joseph. Matthew asserts that the third woman was the mother of the sons of Zebedee. In the words of Mark, she was Salome. If we combine these pieces of information, we may conclude that Salome, the wife of Zebedee, was sister of Mary, Jesus’ mother. Accordingly, if the “beloved disciple” was John, one of Zebedee’s sons, it follows that John must have been Jesus’ cousin.
This kind of conclusion seems very logical and natural; and there hasn’t been much polemics in refutation of such an interpretation. Gospelic information on many an episode is scant, and every piece of knowledge must be used to the fullest.
This conclusion, however, leads up to a grave problem in making us wonder, did Jesus make himself guilty of nepotism? Nepotism in Jesus would seem most implausible in the light of what the synoptics report Jesus to have replied to his mother and his brothers: “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?.. Whosoever does the will of my Father is my brother and my sister and my mother.” (Mark 3:31-35; cf. The URANTIA Book UB 154:6.5). Jesus’ reply was a shock, more so than we perhaps can comprehend. We should remember that in Jesus’ days family was the groundwork of society. The families of the old were considerably larger entities than today. The Hebrew or Aramaic word for “brother” could mean both a stepbrother and a cousin, or even other male relatives.
The notion of Jesus’ mother and Zebedee’s wife to have been sisters must be questioned. It does not seem plausible that Jesus, the advocate of brotherhood of man, had, in addition to Peter, selected James and John Zebedee, two close relatives, as his most trusted apostles. Moreover, had there been any reason to call attention to the circumstance that Jesus, before his death, entrusted the care for his mother with one of his close relatives?
Our analysis has so far failed to reveal the name of the sister of Jesus’ mother, who was seen near by the cross. So let us go on with our scrutiny. Let us first go and find out how far the tools of the exegetists will take us, and then have a look into The URANTIA Book for more enlightenment.
Writers of the antiquity made practically no use of punctuation, neither were words separated by spaces. A papyrus roll, which could maximally hold one Gospel, was awkward to handle, and the material was very brittle. New rolls had constantly to be copied in replacement of the worn-down rolls, and old, worn and torn rolls were not usually preserved. This explains why most of the papyrus literature of the Early Church has been completely lost; only occasional fragments remain and have been detected in the sands of Egypt.
The New Testament texts came to be preserved for later generations in parchment books, codexes, with the most ancient of the extant ones having been copied around A.D. 300 . Scholars have been struggling with the difficult task of detecting, and as far as possible, of correcting the many mistakes which were committed in the incessant copying of these texts.
The Fourth Gospel, with the discussed verse, makes no exception in all this. The Greek text of the very verse of John 19:25 reads like this in a word-by-word translation:
And [there] were standing by the cross Jesus’ mother his and sister of mother his Mary of Clopas and Mary Magdalene.
This is a faithful, non-interpretative, rendering of the original Greek wording which has come down to us. If you find the translation complicated, so is the original. It is very unlikely that we shall ever come to know how the wording looked like in John’s formulation. No linguistic analysis of the phrase can ascertain how many women there were present: two, three, or four.
One thesis suggests that only two women were present. Such a conclusion is possible if we read the sentence like this: “his mother, and his mother’s sister, viz. Clopas’s wife Mary, Mary Magdalene.” Since it seems unlikely that John had identified Jesus’ mother with Clopas’s wife Mary, this interpretation has been considered the least plausible.
Another theory has been suggested expounding that there were present only three women. For this postulate to be truthful, we have to read the phrase like this: “his mother, his mother’s sister (Mary of Clopas), and Mary Magdalene.” Even if this interpretation is grammatically possible, it has been considered highly implausible. How could it be that Jesus’ mother had a namesake for a sister?
Tatianus (Tatian), one of the early Christian theologians, in late second century, was so convinced of the women having been four that he amplified the text in adding the words “as well as” in the phrase. He made the text read: “his mother, and his mother’s sister, as well as Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.”
Many intriguing justifications have been presented in defence of this latter interpretation. That it is possible to interpret Salome, Zebedee’s wife, to be a sister of Jesus’ mother, was discussed above. It has also been thought that tradition required the names of Jesus’ mother and aunt to be ignored. In substantiation of this view the fact is quoted that John never reveals his own name or that of his brother. A reference has also been made to the Johannine literary style: four women believers standing by the cross, opposite to four unbelieving soldiers.
There is some interest also in the supposition presented by Eusebius but originating in Hegesippus, that Clopas might have been Joseph’s [Jesus’ father’s] brother, and that Clopas’ and Mary’s son Simeon, who was the successor of James the Righteous as the leader of the Jerusalem church, consequently, had been the Lord’s cousin. With Simeon’s family ties with the “Holy Family” being thus established through Clopas, it was no longer needful to presume his wife Mary to have been a sister of Jesus’ mother.
Our conclusion at this stage is that when it comes to the verse John 19:25, the crux is not in its translation but rather in its interpretation. This verse was found in need of interpretation as early as in the second century. The interpretation which involves four women is currently so firmly established that only the most sophisticated literature makes any reference to the problems in the interpretation of the verse. Even this literature fails to give any thought to the apparent nepotism. The assumed kinship of Jesus and the sons of Zebedee is always presented in the best possible terms.
Readers may find a discussion about the name of Jesus’ aunt and on his family ties highly irrelevant. The authors of The URANTIA Book seem to have thought otherwise. They did find it imperative to rectify the Johannine verse to read:
Standing near the cross at one time or another during the crucifixion were Mary, Ruth, Jude, John, Salome (John’s mother), and a group of earnest women believers including Mary the wife of Clopas and sister of Jesus ’ mother, Mary Magdalene, and Rebecca, onetime of Sepphoris. UB 187:3.2
This record reveals more names than does John’s report. Most of these names are known from other contexts. The first to be mentioned by name is Jesus’ mother, Mary. Ruth is Jesus’ youngest sister, and Jude is one of his younger brothers. John is undoubtedly one of the sons of Zebedee, and John’s mother, Salome, must then be the wife of Zebedee. Mary Magdalene we know well from earlier contexts, and who could be forgetful about Rebecca, the eldest daughter of Ezra, who in her late teens wanted to become one of Jesus’ followers. But The URANTIA Book is silent about Clopas’s wife Mary except for the above brief mentioning. What makes her such an important personage that she finds a place in this very context?
Our riddle is approaching its solution. In the quoted passage, Mary has two attributes: “the wife of Clopas” and “sister of Jesus’ mother.” Only one conclusion can be made: Mary’s sister was Mary. This explains why the wife of Clopas is mentioned by name as one of the persons who were standing by Jesus’ cross.
In Israel of Jesus’ days, Mary (in Hebrew, ‘Mariam’ or ‘Miriam’) seems to have been an overly preferred girl’s name. There has been a great deal of disagreement as to the etymology of this name. One recent explanation averts that ‘Mariam’ means ‘gift of God.’ But does this suffice to explain how two girls in one and the same family could have been called by identical names?
The URANTIA Book is somewhat enigmatic when it comes to the names of the sisters of Jesus’ mother. In the passage recording Mary’s visit to her parents during her expectancy of her first child, her two brothers are mentioned, along with her two sisters. One of the sisters was Salome, and it was to her that Mary confided her secret. (UB 122:3.3)
The name of the other sister is disclosed in the record on Jesus’ burial:
The women who thus tarried by the tomb on this Friday evening were: Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Clopas, Martha another sister of Jesus’ mother, and Rebecca of Sepphoris. [UB 188:1.7]
We now have three names for Mary’s sisters-Salome, Martha, and Mary. But we were informed at an earlier stage that she had only two sisters. We may, thus, conclude that one more daughter was born to Joachim and Hannah after their eldest daughter had been married to Joseph.
The selection of a name for a child was a very serious issue for the Jews of those days. In likeness with other peoples of the old, the Jews regarded a name to have a kind of supernatural power. The name had an effect on the character and destiny of its bearer. Maybe Joachim and Hannah, despite their doubts, had some sort of precognition of the role of their daughter Mary as the mother of the “divine messenger.” Otherwise, why should the youngest daughter have been given the same name of great promise. The elder Mary being married, there was no danger of confusing the two Marys in their home. The name did prove to be a portent, at least in that respect that Jesus’ mother’s baby sister became a believer in Jesus while he was still alive.
The URANTIA Book tells us that Zebedee was a friend of Jesus’ father (UB 129:1.2). Salome, Zebedee’s wife, is reported to have been a relative of Annas, the onetime High Priest in Jerusalem (UB 129:1.5). These notions exclude every possibility that the Zebedee family had had blood ties with Joseph’s family. This is contrary to what was traditionally believed in the early churches, and this belief may have had its origins in the fact that one of Jesus’ aunts was Salome, a namesake with Zebedee’s wife.
A similar confusion regarding family relations seems to have happened in the case of Clopas. His son, Simeon, was positively known to have been one of Jesus’ cousins, and hence to have belonged to the “Holy Family.” But there was some reluctancy to regard his wife Mary as one of the sisters of Jesus’ mother, and that is why a legend had to be conceived expounding Clopas as Joseph’s brother.