# Were Jesus and John the Baptist Cousins? They Were Relatives Through Their Mothers

Source: https://christianpure.com/learn/jesus-john-baptist-cousins/
Publisher: Christian Pure (https://christianpure.com/)
Published: 2024-05-24
Updated: 2026-10-26

Jesus and John the Baptist were related through their mothers, but no one knows how closely. In the King James Version the angel Gabriel calls Elizabeth, John's mother, Mary's "cousin" (Luke 1:36), though Luke's Greek word means a kinswoman of any degree. One old tradition makes Mary and Elizabeth first cousins, and so Jesus and John second cousins.

Only Luke's Gospel mentions the family tie, and it gives the two of them a meeting before either was born. John was conceived about six months before Jesus, and when Mary came to visit, Elizabeth told her, "the babe leaped in my womb for joy" (Luke 1:44). Joy is the first thing that passes between them. When Jesus was about thirty, John baptized him in the Jordan. Afterwards, in John's Gospel, the Baptist says of Jesus, "I knew him not," words that readers have tried for centuries to square with Luke's account.

## Does the Bible call John the Baptist Jesus's cousin?

Not in those words. Scripture calls their mothers kin, and it does so once, in Gabriel's message to Mary. The King James Version and the Douay-Rheims both render it "thy cousin." Luke's Greek word is syngenis, the feminine of syngenes, "relative." Thayer's Greek lexicon defines syngenis simply as "a kinswoman," and Strong's concordance gives the range of the word: "a relative (by blood); by extension, a fellow countryman."

In older English, "cousin" was itself a loose word. The Online Etymology Dictionary traces it to the thirteenth century as "a collateral blood relative more remote than a brother or sister," and Noah Webster's dictionary of 1828 still gave that general sense first: "one collaterally related more remotely than a brother or sister." Luke uses the word again, in the plural, when John is born and Elizabeth's "neighbours and her cousins" rejoice with her (Luke 1:58), and when Mary and Joseph search for the boy Jesus "among their kinsfolk and acquaintance" (Luke 2:44).

Most modern Bibles say "relative" in Luke 1:36, among them the New International Version, the English Standard Version and the Catholic New American Bible; the American Standard Version has "kinswoman." Commentators agree on what the word leaves open. "'Relative,' but how near the word says not," wrote Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, and the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges puts it plainly: "What the actual relationship was we do not know."

## How were Mary and Elizabeth related?

Luke introduces John's parents at the start of his Gospel: "a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth" (Luke 1:5). John came from priestly families on both sides. Jesus's human line ran through another tribe: "it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda" (Hebrews 7:14), and Paul calls him "of the seed of David according to the flesh" (Romans 1:3). How his descent from Judah and from David is traced is explained in [what tribe Jesus came from](https://christianpure.com/learn/jesus-tribal-roots/).

That leaves an old question: how could a daughter of Aaron be kin to Mary, whom Christian tradition places in David's line? Augustine of Hippo held that Mary "was descended in some way, according to the laws of blood, from the lineage of David," and he took the kinship with Elizabeth as a sign that "the flesh of Christ sprang from both lines; to wit, from the line of the kings, and from that of the priests."

Israel's tribes could marry one another, and the first high priest did. "Aaron took him Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab, sister of Naashon, to wife" (Exodus 6:23), and her brother, "Nahshon the son of Amminadab," was "captain of the children of Judah" (Numbers 2:3). Elisheba is the Hebrew form of the name Elizabeth. A passage that Thomas Aquinas's Catena Aurea gives under the name of Gregory of Nazianzus uses this marriage to explain how the two women could be kin, saying God's plan was "that the royal race might be united to the priestly stock." The Cambridge Bible adds that "except in the case of heiresses there was free intermarriage between the tribes."

How Mary and Elizabeth were actually related, no one knows. These are the main proposals:

| The proposal | Where it comes from | What it would make them |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Mary's mother, Ann, and Elizabeth's mother, Soba, were sisters | A tradition recorded under the name of Hippolytus | Second cousins |
| Elizabeth was Mary's aunt, her mother's sister | An old Persian translation of Luke | John would be a first cousin of Jesus's mother |
| A parent of Mary or of Elizabeth came from the other tribe | The commentaries of Ellicott and Gill | Relatives of unknown degree |
| Luke's word means kin in its widest sense | Raised by Poole and Gill; Gill prefers the closer tie | Kin only in the wide sense of fellow Israelites |

The tradition of the sisters is a small family tree. A man named Mathan had three daughters, Mary, Soba and Ann, and Soba married "a 'son of Levi', by whom she had Elizabeth." The Catholic Encyclopedia, which reports it, calls the account "probably borrowed from some apocryphal writing, and perhaps correct." Two commentaries look instead for a marriage across the tribes a generation back. Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers says that, taking the word in its usual sense, "it would imply that either the father or the mother of Mary had been of the house of Aaron, or that the mother of Elizabeth had been of the house of David." Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible suggests that Elizabeth "was of the daughters of Aaron, or of the tribe of Levi by her father's side, yet might be of the tribe of Judah by her mother's side, and so akin to Mary."

## Did Jesus have other cousins?

The Gospels name no other cousin, but some Christians count the men the Gospels call Jesus's "brethren" among his cousins. In Nazareth people asked, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us?" (Mark 6:3). Catholic teaching holds that these were not other children of Mary, and the Catechism calls them "close relations of Jesus, according to an Old Testament expression." The Cambridge Bible judges that they were "in all probability the children of Clopas and Mary, the sister and namesake of the blessed Virgin, and so the 'cousins' of our Lord," and lists other views, including that they were children of Joseph by an earlier marriage, or children of Joseph and Mary. That question is answered in full in [did Jesus have siblings?](https://christianpure.com/learn/bible-mysteries-did-jesus-have-siblings/)

## Who was born first, Jesus or John the Baptist?

John was born first, about six months before Jesus. After Elizabeth conceived, she "hid herself five months" (Luke 1:24). Then "in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth" (Luke 1:26), and he told Mary of Elizabeth's pregnancy: "this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren" (Luke 1:36). Mary "abode with her about three months, and returned to her own house," and then "Elisabeth's full time came that she should be delivered; and she brought forth a son" (Luke 1:56–57).

The year of either birth is not known. "The Gospel suggests that the Precursor was born about six months before Christ," notes the Catholic Encyclopedia's article on John, "but the year of Christ's nativity has not so far been ascertained." The Catholic and Orthodox calendars keep the six months, with John's birth on 24 June and Christmas on 25 December. Most saints are remembered on the day they died. John's birthday is kept, the same article explains, because he was "filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb."

## What happened when Mary visited Elizabeth?

Soon after the angel's visit, Mary "went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda; And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth" (Luke 1:39–40). Luke does not name the town; one tradition places it at Ain Karim, near Jerusalem, and the Orthodox Church in America's life of John names Hebron. "And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost" (Luke 1:41). Elizabeth asked, "whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Luke 1:43), and explained what had happened: "as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy" (Luke 1:44).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that John "already from his mother's womb welcomes the coming of Christ." It teaches that he was "filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb" by Christ, "whom the Virgin Mary had just conceived by the Holy Spirit," so that "Mary's visitation to Elizabeth thus became a visit from God to his people." The Orthodox Church in America's life of John says: "Saint John leaped in his mother's womb at the visit of the Most Holy Virgin Mary and the Son of God incarnate within Her." The same life adds that Elizabeth "was the first to greet the Virgin Mary as the Mother of God."

## Did Jesus and John grow up together?

Scripture records no meeting between them from the visitation until the Jordan. Joseph and Mary "returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth" (Luke 2:39), and there "the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom" (Luke 2:40). Luke says almost the same of John and adds where he lived: "the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel" (Luke 1:80).

The Orthodox Church in America's life of John says more. When Herod ordered the infants killed, "Saint Elizabeth fled into the wilderness and hid in a cave." Herod's soldiers found Zacharias serving in the Temple; he told them he did not know where his wife and son were, "and he was killed right there in the Temple." Elizabeth died in the wilderness, and "the child John, protected by an angel, dwelt in the wilderness until the time when he came preaching repentance." John Chrysostom, preaching on John's Gospel, said the Baptist "had passed all his time in the wilderness away from his father's house."

## Did John the Baptist baptize Jesus?

Yes. "In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea" (Matthew 3:1), and he was called the Baptist for the baptism he gave in the Jordan. Jesus came "from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him," and John tried to stop him: "I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?" Jesus answered, "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness" (Matthew 3:13–15). As Jesus came up out of the water, "he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:16–17).

Luke, telling the same baptism, adds that Jesus "began to be about thirty years of age" (Luke 3:23). Why Jesus asked John to baptize him is the subject of [why Jesus was baptized](https://christianpure.com/learn/why-was-jesus-baptized/).

## Why did John say "I knew him not"?

John's Gospel does not tell the baptism itself, but it gives the Baptist's testimony about it. Seeing Jesus coming toward him, John said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29), and then: "And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God" (John 1:33–34).

Matthew sharpens the puzzle, because there John knew enough to protest before the dove came down. Augustine put the question to his congregation directly: "But did he know Christ, or did he not know Him?" Most interpreters have read them together, in one of three ways.

**John had not known him by sight.** John Chrysostom pointed out that John "was His kinsman according to the flesh," yet "knew Him not before or for a long time," and explained: "That therefore he might not seem to favor Him because of the relationship, he repeats the I knew Him not." Barnes' Notes on the Bible takes the same view: "Though they were remotely related to each other, yet it seems that they had had heretofore no personal acquaintance."

**John knew the man, not yet the Messiah.** The Cambridge Bible reads "I knew him not" as "I, like you, did not at first know Him to be the Messiah," and says John's protest at the river shows only that he saw Jesus as "superior to himself." The Catholic Encyclopedia gives this as the view of most interpreters: John "had some intimation of Jesus being the Messias," and the sign at the baptism "changed this intimation into perfect knowledge."

**John knew him as Lord and learned something more.** Augustine argued that "John after a manner knew, and after a manner did not at first know the Lord." What the dove taught him, Augustine said, was that Christ "was about to retain to Himself the power of His baptism": whoever pours the water, Christ is the one who baptizes.

Some scholars, such as the nineteenth-century commentator Meyer, doubt that Luke's account and John's words can be fitted together: Meyer's commentary on John calls Luke's account, from 1:36 on, "legendary" and "quite irreconcilable" with John's words, though his own note on Luke 1:36 says the kinship "is not at variance with" John's Gospel.

## What did Jesus and John say about each other?

Neither one mentions their kinship anywhere in the Gospels. What they said was about the work each had been given. John called himself the lesser: Jesus was the one "whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose" (John 1:27), and later, "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30). From prison he sent two of his disciples with a question: "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" (Matthew 11:3). Jesus said of him, "Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he" (Matthew 11:11).

Outside the Bible, the Jewish historian Josephus wrote about "John, that was called the baptist," whom Herod killed though he "was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue." Josephus says nothing of John's family; for the kinship, Luke is the only witness. Matthew records how John's life ended. Herod "sent, and beheaded John in the prison" (Matthew 14:10), and John's disciples "came, and took up the body, and buried it, and went and told Jesus. When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart" (Matthew 14:12–13). The kinsman who had leaped for joy at his coming was dead, and Jesus went to be alone.

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## Related reading

- [Elizabeth in the Bible, the mother of John the Baptist](https://christianpure.com/learn/elizabeth-biblical-meaning/)
- [Zechariah and Zacharias in the Bible](https://christianpure.com/learn/zachary-meaning-biblical/)
- [The name John in the Bible](https://christianpure.com/learn/john-bible-meaning/)
- [Did Jesus baptize anyone?](https://christianpure.com/learn/did-jesus-baptize/)
- [The genealogy from Noah to Jesus in Luke 3](https://christianpure.com/learn/jesus-lineage-generations-noah/)

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