To all these, however, there opposed himself an Æon who name is Ialdabaoth. He had been conceived by the permixture of a second Æon with inferior Æons; and afterwards, when he had been desirous of forcing his way into the higher regions, had been disabled by the permixture of the gravity of matter with himself to arrive at the higher regions; had been left in the midst, and had extended himself to his full dimensions, and thus had made the sky. Ialdabaoth, however, had descended lower, and had made him seven sons, and had shut from their view the upper regions by self-distension, in order that, since (these) angels could not know what was above, they might think him the sole God. These inferior Virtues and angels, therefore, had made man; and, because he had been originated by weaker and mediocre powers, he lay crawling, worm-like. That Æon, however, out of which Ialdaboath had proceeded, moved to the heart with envy, had injected into man as he lay a certain spark; excited whereby, he was through prudence to grow wise, and be able to understand the things above. Tertullian, Against All Heresies, 2
CHURCH FATHERS: Against All Heresies (Tertullian)
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The later elevation of Mary to the status of demigoddess forced some of those who took this view to invent out of whole cloth the notion that the brothers and sisters of Jesus were perhaps the children of Joseph by a previous marriage. Thus James the Lord becomes James the half brother. However at this point a further contradiction inserts itself. How could James the less be the son of Joseph and also the son of Alphaeus?
While I do agree we have very little to suggest that at least one of the James’s was a step child of Mary. There does exist however pseudographic works that might suggest that Joseph had children by a former wife, but we cannot put any reliance on them. As you’re fond of saying, ‘bible-only’ has the answers. And conspicuously absent from Scripture is the any mention of a previous marriage of any women with Joseph. Further, we do not read anywhere in Scripture the James the son of ‘some woman’ of Joseph. Furthermore, it is more likely, as I’ve discussed in earlier posts, that Joseph lived an ascetic life style prior to the betrothal of Mary to Joseph.
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The answer which apparently has satisfied most of the scholars of the oldest branches of Christianity is to make James the less, a sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus. This reduces James the less to a cousin of Jesus rather than a half brother. One cannot but sympathize with the defense of this point of view under the pressure they were under to preserve the doctrine of perpetual virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus. But their solution is simply impossible. The purpose of names is to distinguish between children. With the great number of names available to the ancients it would be unlikely that there were tow Marys in the same family. We may be safe, therefore in assuming that James the brother of Jesus was indeed that.”
The James of Mark 15:40 is called James the little (where he is called ò mikros "the little", not the "less). There is no half brothers or sisters of Jesus. And if there were, there would need to be a gaggle of them, which would mean that Joseph was indeed very prolific and probably Mary would have been the fourth or fifth wife (Joseph would have had to go through wives as fast as a jack rabbit. It's funny how far afield you’re fanciful imagination can carry you so that you can deny God's miracles in the immaculate Mary. That seems a bit too farfetched for any rational mind. Furthermore, McBirnie merely pronounces his biased assumption without bringing forth any evidence to that effect. It would be very dangerous to accept James as the ‘brother of Jesus as Mr. William McBirnie would suggest. I would suggest that he start writing Tim LaHay type end of the world fiction, his books might be a bit more factual. 
