John 19:25

These things therefore the soldiers did. But there were standing by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

His mother's sister ... was Salome, the wife of Zebedee, and the mother of James and John, according to Westcott, thus making James and John cousins of Jesus. He wrote:

This connection of St. John with the mother of the Lord helps explain the incident which follows .... The omission of the name of Salome, on this supposition, falls in with John's usage as to his brother and to himself.[15]

Any so-called "problem" concerning the mention by one Gospel of different women, or different numbers of women at the cross, or of different distances from which they viewed it - all such differences derive from eyewitness observance of the scene at different times throughout the day. Where is the critic who will affirm that exactly the same number of women, and exactly the same women, stood in exactly the same place throughout the whole day?