Did Jesus have a brother?

There are two references in the Bible to Jesus’s brothers and sisters, made by crowds who stand before Jesus. In Mark 6:3, the crowd refers to Mary and Joseph’s children James, Joses, Judas and Simon as Jesus’s brothers.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus rejects his mother, brothers and sisters, and announces that his family are “those who hear the word of God.” Some scholars believe this is proof that Jesus did not have brothers and sisters. Others argue that Jesus’ siblings mentioned in the gospels of Mark and Luke are his half siblings. Saint Jerome argued that the brothers and sisters referenced were the children of Jesus’ maternal aunt.