---
title: Matthew 13:55
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/matthew-13-55/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/matthew-13-55.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Matthew 13:55
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Matthew 13:55

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t His mother’s name Mary, and aren’t His brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?"

## JW Usage

Matthew 13:55 is a primary JW text against Catholic perpetual virginity of Mary. The verse names Jesus's brothers — James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas — and v. 56 mentions his sisters. The Watchtower reads adelphoi straightforwardly as biological half-brothers, Mary's other children, conceived after the virgin birth. The verse is treated as decisive evidence against perpetual virginity and as a wedge against Catholic Mariology more broadly.

## Protestant Usage

Common ground with the Witness against Rome. Protestants read Matthew 13:55-56 the same way: those are Jesus's biological half-brothers and half-sisters, Mary's other children. Jerome invented the "cousins" theory in AD 383 in his Against Helvidius specifically to preserve perpetual virginity, and the New Catholic Encyclopedia admits this. The Greek adelphoi in the Septuagint and New Testament regularly means biological brothers when used in family contexts; the cousins theory is imposed on the text to protect a doctrine that emerged centuries after the apostles. On Mary's other children, the Watchtower and the Protestant tradition agree against Rome. The pivot is to use the agreement to open the question of who her firstborn was — pair Matthew 13:55 with Matthew 1:23 (Immanuel = "with us is God") and Colossians 2:9 ("in him all the fullness of the divine quality dwells bodily") to move from Mariology, where common ground exists, to Christology, where the real disagreement lies.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Theotokos Is About Jesus, Not About Mary](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/mary-theotokos-christological-fence.md) — Luke 1:43 / John 1:14 / Colossians 2:9 [Deity of Christ]