Posted on 09/21/2004 7:43:13 AM PDT by Tantumergo
I don't see where Abraham was REWARDED for sleeping with Hagar.
The Adamic pattern of having only one wife is confirmed in Timothy, where they were to pick men for eldership who one had one wife, the Biblical pattern. Men with more than one wife (and that includes more than one mother-in-law) and those who were not Biblicaly divorced were not allowed to serve as elders or deacons.
Since we are on the subject, where is it found in the Bible that priests cannot be married?
***1) 2 Sam 6,2 “So David arose and went…set out for Baala of Judah” Lk 1,39 “And Mary rising up in those days, went…to a town of Judah”
2) 2 Sam 6,9 “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?” Lk 1,43 “And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
3) 2 Sam 6,14 “And David danced with all his might before the Lord” Lk 1,44 “the infant in my womb leaped for joy.”
4) 2 Sam 6,11 “ And the ark of the Lord abode in the house of Obededom the Gittite three months.” Lk 1,56 “And Mary abode with her about three months.” ***
BTW - These points were really awesome!
Very Biblically sound.
Definitley seems to be a Type there.
(It doesn't speak to her sinlessness however.)
It is not that they can't be married, but Jesus Himself imparts to us in scripture that it's much better that they not be. This is also found in Paul's letters.
By not marrying, good priests are following the example Christ set by leading an chaste life focused on serving God.
You're willingness as of late to keep an open mind is quite refreshing. Thank you for brightening my morning.
Pardon me for waiting so long to reply to your post. I wanted to make sure I had my information straight before I replied. I emailed one of my college professors and his reply will be below your post.
You clearly don't know koine Greek. The fact of the matter is that Greek speaking Christians from the beginning have always held that the "brothers" of Christ you refer to were cousins or, more likely, step brothers. Why would they have not understood their own language? It is just a little irritating to a Greek that native English speaking Christians, most of whom know no Greek (or at best have a "bible college" knowledge of it) and none of whom speak it as their first language, insist on squeezing koine into an English straight jacket.
The most natural meaning of brother in Greek corresponds to that of English. However, the word can be used in a wide range of meaning. For example, Paul often addresses his Jewish audiences as "brothers," as he does at Antioch of Pisidia (Acts 13:15), and the Sanhedrin in Acts 22:1. Here it simply means something like "fellow Jew." The key is to consider the context. In Mark 6:3; 3:31-35; Matt 13:55-56, the words "brothers" and "sisters" occur in the context of his mother and father, making the usual use of the term to indicate immediate family members most likely. More likely, some Christians of the 3rd through 5th centuries were very moved by the Neo-Platonic view that the body is evil, and that spiritual concerns transcend the needs and pleasures of the body, reading back into the text those ascetic values. The spiritually superior deny the body, do not marry, and live a simple lifestyle in a monastery. I think later generations read those values back into the text of the New Testament, so surely Mary the mother of God did not endulge in sexual pleasure, even with her lawful husband. The contexts mentioning the brothers and sisters of Jesus are understood more naturally as brothers than cousins. The latter can be resorted to only when one has bought into the notion of an other worldy spirituality that denies the will of God expressed regarding marriage in Genesis 1-2.
What are the odds that when you say "literal reading" you actually mean your own contemporary reading of the word in English?
Was Lot Abraham's brother as a "literal reading" would make him?
SD
There's no "only" to be found in these verses. That's kind of the point. Sola Scripturists would like there to be an "only," a "sufficient" found in these verses.
But it isn't there.
To affirm that something is profitable in order to "complete" or "perfect" a person is not logically at all the same as saying only that something is profitable. Or that only that something is sufficient.
Upon these verses rest Sola Scriptura, so it is understandable that none want to examine them for what they actually say.
SD
Given the language the scripture was written in and/or first translated into, I'd say excellent.
Greek is really even more fundamental than that.
Obviously the New Testament was all written in Greek initially, but what about the Old?
Parts of it were originally composed in Greek.
And more importantly, the only compendium of Jewish Scriptures that would qualify as an ancient "Bible" in the time of Christ was the Septuagint. There was not, as yet, in the Jewish world a formal, settled canon, and the only full collection of Jewish Scriptures in use everywhere in the Jewish diaspora was the Greek Septuagint. When Jesus and the Apostles refer to the Scriptures, they are not referring to the Masoretic Text: there was not yet a Hebrew Canon. They were referring to the Septuagint. Greek was the primary OLD TESTAMENT language at the time of Christ as well as the language of the New Testament.
It isn't.
Paul does recommend the unmarried state at one point.
And Jesus says that there are some who give up sex for God ("become eunuchs for God" - Origen took this a bit too literally).
Paul says that married people are divided in their attentions, which is certainly true.
But the Bible does not say that priests need to be unmarried. Indeed, it say that they can only be married once, and to one woman. Priestly celibacy is a disciplinary rule of the Roman Catholic Church, put in place because the Church was convinced, by bad experience, that Paul comments about divided focus was correct. Christ and Paul set celibacy for the reign of God as an extremely high aspirational goal. The Church decided to make a rule for its clergy out of that aspirational goal.
It could, of course, change this rule. There is currently no strong argument to do so.
In haste, because I am at the office.... Your old college professor may have an academic's knowledge of Koine, but not of Church history. He seems to imply that the origins of the dogma of the Perpetual Vurginity of the Mother of God is later than the Fifth Century. In fact, we have Iconic proof that that is not so. The Icon of the Hodigitria is perhaps the oldest form extant, at the latest from the Third Century and by tradition even older. It shows the three stars on Mary denoting that she was, is and always will be a virgin. The Panagia, sometimes called Panagia Orans shows the same stars and is found throughout the old Roman world in catacombs and are contemporary with the use of the catacombs as hidden places of worship, thus pre mid Fourth Century. Sorry, your professor's Neo-Platonism theory just doesn't hold water. I'd have thought he'd have spoken about the virgin birth myths about pagan gods current at the time the Holy Tradition was developing. That is the usual Western "academic" response.
Just to be complete, there are priests in the Catholic Church's Eastern Rites who are indeed married. There are even a few converts in the Western Church (from Anglican or Lutheran) who were ordained as priests while retaining their wives.
So it's not a dogma. Just a well-established practice.
SD
Scripture always clarifies a name when the person is a major player.
How did you know that Lot wasn't Abraham’s sibling brother?
Because scripture clarified it in Genesis 11:31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
There is no doubt left what their relationship was.
However if you don't read Matthew and Mark literally, concerning Jesus brothers, you end up in lala-land, requiring endless speculations just to support some tradition you have no idea where it even started.
JH :(
Scripture always clarifies a name when the person is a major player.
I guess then any useage that isn't "clarified" isn't a "major player."
You have sidestepped the point. The word "brother" in this context among the semitic peoples had a broader meaning than the word in general use in English. We need more information upon hearing the word "brother" than to automatically assume that they are co-uteral siblings. Or to assume that they are not.
So there is absolutely no reason to suspect that the Brothers of the Lord are co-uteral siblings. We know the word has a broader meaning. And we know that the exact meaning needs to be clarified in order for the ambiguity to be resolved.
And since the Bible nowhere resolves this ambiguity, by for instance calling James a son of Mary, why do you assume this one usage?
SD
Once again, and back to my original question, when you say to read it "literally" don't you really mean to assign it the modern English meaning of the word?
SD
You know the word brother has a broader meaning because it doesn't fit into your traditions.
And since the Bible nowhere resolves this ambiguity, by for instance calling James a son of Mary, why do you assume this one usage?
And it's just that reason the Bible nowhere resolves this ambiguity, because there is no ambiguity other then for those who are trying to wedge it into their puzzle when it doesn't fit.
Anyone who believes that Mary and Joseph had a perfectly normal marriage after Jesus was born, has no problem understanding Matthew and Mark's identification of Mary's birth children and Jesus brother's and sisters.
It's you who has the square block and the round hole, not me.
JH :)
Sorry, I won't get caught up in this play on words. There is absolutely no scriptural case for your argument that Mary remained ever virgin.
JH :)
No, we know the word "brother" has a broader meaning cause the Bible uses the very word in that way. You yourself admit that its use needs to be clarified.
So why do you assume a narrow meaning when it is entirely within reason that the broader meaning is intended? Semitic language doesn't even have seperate words for "brother" and "kin." Our attempts to choose one word or the other are because we can seperate the notions.
You need to heed the Bible and the existing lingustic and cultural traditions that demonstrate this very same thing in action.
The basic fact is that no matter how an American in the 21st Century reads the word "brother," what a semitic person meant by "brother" 2000 years ago is entirely different.
They don't share your presumptions. An American who points at someone and says "that is my brother" means one thing. A Hebrew 2000 years ago means something else. Your refusal to see this is typical of the myopic view of the Sola Scripturist.
SD
Oh but it does, many times.
Matthew 27:56 Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children.
Mark 15:40 There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome;
Luke 24:10 It was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.
Three times should be enough.
JH : )
That's a different Mary. You think so little of the Mother of the Lord that you think she would be referred to in a list 1) not in the first place listed and 2) as something other than "Mary the Mother of the Lord."
It's preposterous. And on this your argument hangs. That the Mother of Jesus is referred to as "The Mother of James and Joses"
Why not share your other thesis point, the one where she is referred to as "the other Mary"?
SD
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