Mark 3:35

3:35 For whoever does the will of God is ¹  my brother and sister and mother.”

Mark 13:12

13:12 Brother will hand over brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rise against ²  parents and have them put to death.

Mark 12:19

12:19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us: ‘If a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, that man ³  must marry ⁴  the widow and father children ⁵  for his brother.’ ⁶ 

Mark 3:17

3:17 to James and his brother John, the sons of Zebedee, ⁷  he gave the name Boanerges (that is, “sons of thunder”);

Mark 5:37

5:37 He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James, ⁸  and John, the brother of James.

Mark 1:16

1:16 As he went along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, Simon’s brother, casting a net into the sea (for they were fishermen). ⁹ 

Mark 6:17

6:17 For Herod himself had sent men, arrested John, and bound him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod ¹⁰  had married her.

Mark 1:19

1:19 Going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John his brother in their ¹¹  boat mending nets.

Mark 6:3

6:3 Isn’t this the carpenter, the son ¹²  of Mary ¹³  and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” And so they took offense at him.

Mark 6:18

6:18 For John had repeatedly told ¹⁴  Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” ¹⁵ 

Mark 12:21

12:21 The second married her and died without any children, and likewise the third.

¹ tn The pleonastic pronoun οὗτος (Jouto", “this one”) which precedes this verb has not been translated.

² tn Or “will rebel against.”

³ tn Grk “his brother”; but this would be redundant in English with the same phrase “his brother” at the end of the verse, so most modern translations render this phrase “the man” (so NIV, NRSV).

⁴ tn The use of ἵνα (Jina) with imperatival force is unusual (BDF §470.1).

⁵ tn Grk “raise up seed” (an idiom for fathering children).

⁶ sn A quotation from Deut 25:5. This practice is called levirate marriage (see also Ruth 4:1-12; Mishnah, m. Yevamot; Josephus, Ant. 4.8.23 [4.254-256]). The levirate law is described in Deut 25:5-10. The brother of a man who died without a son had an obligation to marry his brother’s widow. This served several purposes: It provided for the widow in a society where a widow with no children to care for her would be reduced to begging, and it preserved the name of the deceased, who would be regarded as the legal father of the first son produced from that marriage.

⁴ tn Grk “to James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James.”

⁵ tn Grk “and James,” but καί (kai) has not been translated since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

⁶ sn This is a parenthetical comment by the author.

⁷ tn Grk “he”; here it is necessary to specify the referent as “Herod,” since the nearest previous antecedent in the translation is Philip.

⁸ tn Or “a boat.” The phrase ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ (en tw ploiw) can either refer to a generic boat, some boat (as it seems to do in Matt 4:21); or it can refer to “their” boat, implying possession. Mark assumes a certain preunderstanding on the part of his readers about the first four disciples and hence the translation “their boat” is justified (cf. also v. 20 in which the “hired men” indicates that Zebedee’s family owned the boats).

⁹ tc Evidently because of the possible offensiveness of designating Jesus a carpenter, several mss ([Ì^45vid] ˹³ 33^vid [565 579] 700 [2542] pc it vg^mss) harmonize the words “carpenter, the son” to the parallel passage in Matt 13:55, “the son of the carpenter.” Almost all the rest of the mss read “the carpenter, the son.” Since the explicit designation of Jesus as a carpenter is the more difficult reading, and is much better attested, it is most likely correct.

¹⁰ sn The reference to Jesus as the carpenter is probably derogatory, indicating that they knew Jesus only as a common laborer like themselves. The reference to him as the son of Mary (even though Jesus’ father was probably dead by this point) appears to be somewhat derogatory, for a man was not regarded as his mother’s son in Jewish usage unless an insult was intended (cf. Judg 11:1-2; John 6:42; 8:41; 9:29).

¹⁰ tn The imperfect tense verb is here rendered with an iterative force.

¹¹ sn It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife. This was a violation of OT law (Lev 18:16; 20:21). In addition, both Herod Antipas and Herodias had each left marriages to enter into this union.