Sure you can. The normal usage of the term in context would imply that the virginity of Mary was a temporary rather than a permanent condition. It was noted that she was married to Joseph, but Joseph did not consummate the marriage (know) "until" after Jesus was born.
It is only if you have a presumption that she was a perpetual virgin that you would have a problem with that being the proper use of the word in context. That presumption did not begin to show its face until 3 centuries later.
That simply begs the question.
-A8
It implies neither one, actually. There are several cases in Scripture where the same expression is used where nothing "temporary" can possibly be implied.
"There is no way to tell (from the context of 1:26) which of these two senses is meant."
But when you add to it the scriptures that say Jesus had brothers all ambiguity is removed and there is no longer silence on the subject.
You know, gang, I've been watching this thread and saying little for the past few days; first because I have been fascinated with the presumption of the some of the arguments and thus thought it would be more fun to simply watch and second, I had a medical proceedure Monday the prep for which took up much of Sunday and the after effects rather dulled me on Monday (well, more than I usually am; all went well, thank-God).
But now I have a couple of observations. First, none of you speak Greek or think in or like Greek or Greeks. I do. It is disingenuous at best for any of you to claim you know better than Greek speaking Fathers did about the meaning of αδελφοι! You can of course believe whatever your English speaking minds tell you to believe. It may even be that the Holy Spirit has guided Anglo Saxon English speaking minds to the Truth, having left the entire Christian world until at least the 1600s, including the Greeks, and most of the Christian world thereafter, including the Greeks, in error. I don't know. It becomes a matter of Faith I suppose, because I can assure you it isn't a matter of linguistics.
Second, the issue of the perpetual virginity of the Theotokos, a subject closely tied to the meaning of the word αδελφοι, did not spring full blown out of nowhere in the Fifth century and the Council of Ephesus or from the writings of +Jerome. Origen argues for it in the 2nd century. Now Origen is not one of my favored sources, but he is a keen observer of what many in the Church believed in his times. +Zeno of Verona, +Augustine of Hippo and +Ambrose of Milan all affirmed her perpetual virginity in the Fourth century. And of course the Council of Ephesus anathemized those who would say otherwise. So far as I know, no one, not even the Reformers of the 16th century, questioned this tenent of the Faith thereafter. So where did this denial of an article of Christian Faith come from? Sola Scriptura? It didn't seem to bother the great Reforming proponents of Sola Scriptura. They believed it, doubtless with the same conviction that they knew that bats are not birds, the OT to the contrary notwithstanding (Thanks Kosta). Now once again, you are of course free to believe whatever you wish. This isn't a linguistic matter, as I am sure we all agree. It is, however, a matter of some Protestant thinkers being completely outside 2000 years of Christian mainstream thinking on the subject, the very thinking which determined the canon of scripture...and apparently believing that bats are birds.
So far as I can see, this thread will go nowhere from here; its just using up bandwidth. The Protestants could care less about 5th century anathemas and the rest of us aren't about to throw over 2000 years of Church teaching. My suggestion is we leave it at that and move on to more arcane subjects like what is grace! :)