Helen Bond
Helen K. Bond is Professor of Christian Origins at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on the social and political history of Judaea under Roman rule, the historical Jesus, and the canonical gospels. She is the author of Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation (CUP, 1998), Caiaphas: High Priest and Friend of Rome? (Westminster John Knox, 2004), The Historical Jesus: A Guide for the Perplexed (Bloomsbury, 2012), Jesus: A Very Brief History (SPCK, 2017), The First Biography of Jesus: Genre and Meaning in Mark’s Gospel (Eerdmans, 2020), Women Remembered: Jesus’ Female Disciples (Hodder, 2022), and a number of shorter studies and articles. She has contributed to over 50 TV and radio documentaries, including acting as historical consultant to The Nativity (BBC, 2010) and co-presenter (with Joan Taylor) of Jesus’ Female Disciples (C4, 2018). With ancient historian Lloyd Llewellyn Jones, she hosts the podcast Biblical Time Machine.
Presenter at
Bible & Archaeology Fest XXIX, November 7th and 8th, 2026
Was Mary of Nazareth Joseph’s Second Wife?
The gospels suggest that Jesus came from a large family, consisting of five sons and at least two daughters. Comparison with Egyptian census returns, however, suggests that such a large family would be extremely rare at the time. Given high mortality rates and the frequency of multiple marriages, it will be proposed that Jesus came from a typically “blended” family in which Mary was the second (or subsequent) wife of Joseph, and that the brothers and sisters listed by the gospels were a range of step- and half-siblings.
