Footnote 2 – All in the Family
The list in John 19:25 reads as follows: “[Jesus’] mother and his mother’s sister, Mary of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” This could be read as a list of four women. Most likely, however, there are only three. “Mary of Clopas” is probably in apposition to “his mother’s sister.” If Mary of Clopas was Clopas’s wife, then she was in fact Jesus’ mother’s husband’s brother’s wife—a relationship that, not surprisingly, the evangelist has preferred to state less precisely as his mother’s sister.