Jesus’ Family Ties

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Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was probably the sister of Salome, the wife of Zebedee, the father of the disciples James and John. So, Jesus, James and John were probably cousins and knew each other from childhood.

The disciples Peter and Andrew grew up to be business partners of James and John.

The disciples Matthew Levi and James the Less may have been brothers – the Bible records the name of the father of both as Alphaeus – and since James the Less was probably Jesus’ cousin, they both were possibly Jesus’ cousins. (Mary was related to Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were both Levites, so she must have had Levite blood, and Matthew’s second name was Levi.)

The disciple known as Judas Thaddaeus Labbaeus (a different Judas from the one who betrayed Jesus) may have been the son of James, the son of Zebedee, and, if so, he was probably Jesus’ second cousin.

Early extra-biblical tradition suggests that Simon the Zealot was the bridegroom at the Wedding of Cana. Since Mary, Jesus, and all his half-brothers and half-sisters were attending the wedding, and since Mary took charge of the wine supply, as if she had family authority, it is possible that Simon, too, was a relative of Jesus.

The clues about these relationships to Jesus are all embedded in plain sight in the Bible, but whether or not James, John, Matthew, James the Less, Judas, and Simon were Jesus’ relatives, all the disciples were Galileans except Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus. So, most[i]of them, would have grown up together with Jesus in the small region of Galilee and would have known each other from boyhood.

[i] Nathanael Bartholomew was the exception. He seems not to have known Jesus by sight, although Jesus knew him.