The difficulty of John’s text comes from the fact that his sentence can be understood in two different ways.
Some translations, such as the , give the impression of a simple list:
John 19.25 ()
25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of , and Mary Magdalene.
Others, such as Darby or the Parole Vivante, preserve a certain ambiguity in the construction:
John 19.25 (Darby)
25 Now near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary, of , and Mary Magdalene.
In these wordings, it is possible to attach the name “Mary” either to the sister of Jesus’ mother or to the wife of .
A difficulty: two sisters called Mary?
If “Mary” is attached to “his mother’s sister”, this implies that two sisters bear the same name.
Now, even though Mary (Miryam) was a very common name at the time, it was generally the custom within a single family to distinguish the children by different names. Having two sisters called “Mary” therefore remains possible, but unusual.
This difficulty leads some to prefer another reading.
Two ways of understanding the list
1) Reading as four distinct women (the most widespread)
The verse is understood as a list of four people:
- Mary, mother of Jesus
- his mother’s sister (anonymous)
- Mary, wife of
- Mary Magdalene
In this case, Mary’s sister is not identified, and nothing allows us to say that she is Salome.
2) Reading as three women (with apposition)
Another reading consists in identifying two expressions as referring to the same person:
- Mary, mother of Jesus
- his mother’s sister, Mary wife of
- Mary Magdalene
Here, Mary’s sister would be Mary of . This reading reduces the number of women to three, but it assumes that two sisters bear the same name.
Why this uncertainty?
It comes from the original Greek text, which has no punctuation. It is therefore up to readers and translators to decide how to divide the sentence.
Conclusion
The most common reading today holds that there are four women: Mary, mother of Jesus; an anonymous sister; Mary of ; and Mary Magdalene. In this case, three of the four women bear the name Mary.
However, Salome, mentioned by Mark as the mother of the sons of Zebedee, does not appear explicitly in John. Should we see in her a fifth woman, or identify her with Mary’s sister? This hypothesis is possible, but it remains uncertain, since no text states it clearly.
We are therefore dealing with a plausible reconstruction, but not with an explicit certainty of the Gospels.