[HarleyD]

Our Catholic friends will undoubtedly tell you that a number of early Protestant fathers such as Luther, Calvin, Wesley, etc all believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. I believe this was simply because many of these leaders carried the "baggage" of the Catholic Church from where most of them came; not because of critical biblical study.

Matthew 1:25 shows Mary to be a virgin UNTIL she gave birth. There are other places in scripture that talks about the brothers of Jesus. While some suggest the meaning of this word could also mean "cousin" I remain skeptical. James (from the book) identifies himself as the "brother" of Christ; others books written by Peter, Paul and John do not do this. Another point is that God only came to Mary once choosing to work through Joseph after they were married; since Joseph was now head of the house as God intend. But there is no mistaking the conjunction "until" in Matthew 1:25 which even John Calvin had a hard time explaining away.

To me the problem isn't with Catholic doctrine of Mary being a virgin because we all would agree that she was and remained a virgin until Christ was born. The problem is that this virginity is elevated far beyond reasonableness which has spawned other errors, the chief believing Mary was not tainted with original sin in order for Christ to be born. New Advent states:

In the Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of 8 December, 1854, Pius IX pronounced and defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary "in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin."

Personally I think they’ve made a grave error. Mary, IMO, had just as much original sin as everyone else. Sin is passed on by the male. It is not carried by the female.

This is where this perpetual virginity has led the Church; to compare Mary against Eve. Jesus is to Adam as Mary is to Eve and as Jesus was untainted by original sin so was Mary. Thus Mary becomes a “co-redeemer” in the work of Christ by being untainted with original sin, she freely gives herself to God unlike Eve who gave herself to temptation.

While this is very poetic it is wrong theologically speaking. The scriptures plainly says that Eve was deceived (2 Cor 11:3, 1 Tim 2:14). In other words, Eve was duped. This is important in that sin came into the world through the willful act of Adam-not Eve who was the FIRST to eat of the fruit. It was through Adam that the world was corrupted and condemned-not Eve. (We'll leave out why God didn't give Adam the wisdom and understanding of his action for now.)

One more note of interest as I was looking something up. Please look at how the Catholics interpret Gen 3:15

Book of Genesis (3:15): "I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel."

And here is the actual translation from the Hebrew:

Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

The Catholic Vulgate completely altered the text and the meaning of Gen 3:15 between “crush” vs “bruise” and “she shall” vs “it shall”. I won’t go into the first point of “bruising” which they also changed. As far as explaining why they changed the Hebrew text from “it shall” to “she shall” our Catholic friends claim:

(2) The second point of difference between the Hebrew text and our version concerns the agent who is to inflict the mortal wound on the servant: our version agrees with the present Vulgate text in reading "she" (ipsa) which refers to the woman, while the Hebrew text reads hu' (autos, ipse) which refers to the seed of the woman. According to our version, and the Vulgate reading, the woman herself will win the victory; according to the Hebrew text, she will be victorious through her seed.

New Advent on Mary

In other words, they simply ignore it saying that their version agrees with the WRONG translation of the Hebrew text. They agree with a mistaken, bias translation from a Catholic father then what the original Hebrew text actually states! This, btw, was a similar experience that Luther discovered with indulgence; a doctrine built around a poorly translated piece of text. Our Catholic brethren are fond of talking about the inconsistencies of the King James Version. Yet here is but one inconsistency of the Latin Vulgate yet they refuse to change it. I wonder why?

[annalex]

You are correct that "she shall crush" is a mistranslation, both the Sepuagint and the Hebrew original have the masculine pronoun referring to the seed. The commentary to that verse in Douay says

15 "She shall crush"... Ipsa, the woman; so divers of the fathers read this place, conformably to the Latin: others read it ipsum, viz., the seed. The sense is the same: for it is by her seed, Jesus Christ, that the woman crushes the serpent's head.

It is acknowledged as St. Jerome's mistake. You are wrong however to insist that anything deep comes out of the mistranslation since the entire verse still speaks of the victory of the Woman.

I explained both the reasoning for perpetual virginity and the lack of scriptural support for the denial thereof in my previous post.

The parallel between Adam and Christ and Eve and Mary is perfect. Adam is the first to sin and Christ is the first to redeem. Eve is listenes to Satan, questions him, and agrees with the Devil. Mary listens to the angel, questions him, and agrees with God. Adam sins through the mechanism of the seduction of Eve cooperatiing with Satan, and Christ redeems through the mechanism of His incarnation through Mary cooperating with the Holy Ghost.

[Bohemund]

One more note of interest as I was looking something up. Please look at how the Catholics interpret Gen 3:15

Book of Genesis (3:15): "I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel."

And here is the actual translation from the Hebrew:

Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Where did you find that translation? Here is the modern, approved Catholic translation:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel."

And in a footnote:

3 [15] He will strike . . . at his heel: since the antecedent for he and his is the collective noun offspring, i.e., all the descendants of the woman, a more exact rendering of the sacred writer's words would be, "They will strike . . . at their heels." However, later theology saw in this passage more than unending hostility between snakes and men. The serpent was regarded as the devil (Wisdom 2:24; John 8:44; Rev 12:9; 20:2), whose eventual defeat seems implied in the contrast between head and heel. Because "the Son of God appeared that he might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8), the passage can be understood as the first promise of a Redeemer for fallen mankind. The woman's offspring then is primarily Jesus Christ.

[Forest Keeper]

Our Catholic friends will undoubtedly tell you that a number of early Protestant fathers such as Luther, Calvin, Wesley, etc all believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. I believe this was simply because many of these leaders carried the "baggage" of the Catholic Church from where most of them came; not because of critical biblical study.

This is the impression I am getting as well. Thank you for your whole post. Very informative.

Sin is passed on by the male. It is not carried by the female.

I agree that Eve was duped, and I know that Adam is the source of original sin. Does this mean that Eve did not sin? I know there are provisions in the OT for unintentional sin. Is there any connection? It just seems strange to me because Eve had full knowledge of what God commanded.