Tool Beta
Is It Actually in the Bible?
Phrases people quote as Scripture. The real verse, or the honest answer that there is not one.
Elizabeth is called Mary's "cousin" (Luke 1:36), which reads like the two women were specifically first cousins.
"Cousin" translates a Greek word meaning "kinswoman": a broad term for a female relative, not a specific first-cousin relationship.
Luke 1:36, in every translation this tool compares.
The Greek word is syngenes, "kinswoman" or "relative," a catch-all term Jews used for anyone of their own extended family or even their own nation. It says nothing about the precise degree of relationship between Mary and Elizabeth; given that Elizabeth was of the tribe of Levi and Mary of Judah, the exact link, if by blood, would have run through the maternal side rather than a clean first-cousin line.
"Cousin" in 1611 English still had this looser sense of "kinsfolk" generally, before it narrowed to the specific modern relationship of an aunt or uncle's child.
