I'm not sure what other belief Mary's ever-virginity would be tied to in your sneaky mind. I can't think of why her not remaining a virgin after her birth would affect our salvation. We do believe that Joseph, after all of the visions and angels and shepherds and virgin birth and so forth realized that this child was the Messiah and that this Messiah was perhaps more than they had ever suspected he would be. Whether he fully realized from the first that Jesus was God, we of course do not know. But in light of this, we find it unlikely that he would treat Mary as an "ordinary wife."
This is of course a retrospective comment, and it is *not* the reason why we believe in the ever-virginity of the Theotokos. There is not a "she must have been ever-virgin in order that ____ could be true" involved at all.
"I can't figure how either of our respective core principles is strongly affected based on what the truth of this is, but I could be wrong."
I don't either. Which is why I am frankly surprised at the level of hostility to the belief in her ever-virginity amongst the Protestants on this forum. For her to be ever-virgin affects no Protestant doctrine whatsoever, and I don't think it affects our core doctrines, either. For that reason, I do not feel that I am being untrue to my own beliefs by saying that I can understand why Protestants would believe as they do -- and yet there is a rigid unwillingness on the part of Protestants on this thread to acknowledge that *just maybe* it is reasonable for us to believe as we do.
With regard to your story from your teaching, I'm afraid that you made my point. Protestants will mention interesting things from archeology, Jewish histories or traditions, and secular histories as being plausible and worth mentioning. But anything that is written by the Church of the early centuries is suspect at best, verboten at worst. There is a double standard at work, where the presumption is that what the Church believed in the early centuries (anything but the New Testament as read through Protestant eyes) is untrue unless somehow conclusively proved otherwise, whereas other archeological and historical accounts or theories are accepted with relative ease.
I just find it interesting.
Then why does so much of your faith revolve around Mary?:
It is absolutely unbiblical, and therefore untrue to say that Mary remained a virgin.Part of the problem with spreading that falsehood in the face of God saying other wise is that it cast aspersions upon the Word of God.
Satan himself sowed the first seeds of doubt by saying "Yea, hath God said?"
So it is very important that fables and folk tales not be held as true.
I don't either. Which is why I am frankly surprised at the level of hostility to the belief in her ever-virginity amongst the Protestants on this forum. For her to be ever-virgin affects no Protestant doctrine whatsoever, and I don't think it affects our core doctrines, either. For that reason, I do not feel that I am being untrue to my own beliefs by saying that I can understand why Protestants would believe as they do -- and yet there is a rigid unwillingness on the part of Protestants on this thread to acknowledge that *just maybe* it is reasonable for us to believe as we do.
Well, when it comes to Protestants standing up strongly against the idea of an ever-virgin Mary, I think Full Court makes an excellent point. I interpret his 6198 as a concern about extra-scriptural material making its way (de facto) into scripture. I also sense, and agree with (if I'm right), his concern about a scriptural domino effect. With every extra-scriptural concept that is accepted as fact, it does not affect the interpretation of only one verse. No, it affects the interpretation of whole lines of passages throughout many books of scripture in some cases.
Referring to my earlier post, the above was really my first "sneaky" point. :) So here, while I basically said "In this case it shouldn't be a big deal because it doesn't spill over...", Full Court was very correct in saying, in effect, "But it's the principle that counts.". One thing I had not realized until recently is that an ever-virgin Mary not only affects all the passages that talk about the siblings of Jesus, but it also potentially directly affects the authorship of two books in the NT, James and Jude.
AND, I do appreciate your olive branch in saying that you can understand why we hold the views that we do. I can reciprocate and say that with the common theology among Catholics and the Orthodox, I can see how a person could conclude that it was a consistent system and perfectly valid. I somehow doubt that if it was riddled with inconsistencies within itself that there would be 2 billion of you. I can respect that, even though I disagree. :)
[Re: my anecdote about teaching a Bible lesson and including extra-scriptural history] Protestants will mention interesting things from archeology, Jewish histories or traditions, and secular histories as being plausible and worth mentioning. But anything that is written by the Church of the early centuries is suspect at best, verboten at worst. There is a double standard at work, where the presumption is that what the Church believed in the early centuries (anything but the New Testament as read through Protestant eyes) is untrue unless somehow conclusively proved otherwise, whereas other archaeological and historical accounts or theories are accepted with relative ease.
This is apples and oranges, and there is no double standard. :) As I have said, just because the Church writes something does not make it wrong. There are plenty of things that the Fathers have written with which I fully agree, including many portions of the Creeds.
History, archeology, non-religious traditions, etc. are not agenda driven, in theory. :) This is contrasted against all three sides having a fully reasonable agenda of consistency.
Assuming our respective sources are correct, "history", etc. should be freely available for either of us to use to support a point. "History" shouldn't care which of us is right. (Of course if either of us ever slanted the history to fit a point, then that changes everything, so I am talking pure history.)
Many times, OTOH, an isolated objective viewpoint cannot be taken of even the most innocent sounding beliefs on each other's sides. Much of this could be due to the domino effect. I think that many on all three sides see it as difficult to give an inch because of the potential ramifications. I also see this as reasonable, albeit unfortunate, considering we are all Christians.