[wagglebee]

Shhh! You're not supposed to go saying such things. Only us papists are supposed to say that the Blessed Mother remained a virgin. Don't you know that this is the reason that Luther split from Rome? There was nothing at all special about Mary, God just picked a virgin to bear His Son and then the virgin went off and acted like any other newlywed, there was nothing unusual about having Jesus in the home, she needed more children, He wasn't enough.

[redgolum]

LOL! Since the general consensus among Lutherans is that Mary remained a virgin her whole life, I doubt it. :) Mary wasn't one of the reasons for the Lutheran Reformation, nor the Calvinist one if I recall right. If you want to go into the theological and political reasons, that is a whole different thread. One that would probably get to heated for FR.

Now, Joseph might have had kids from a previous marriage, which is talked about in some places. But there is very little historical evidence that there were any half siblings of Jesus.

[The_Reader_David]

Hey, watch it: us Orthodox have *major* feasts based on the events recorded in the Proto-Evangelium, not to mention still using in every Divine Liturgy a hymn composed by St. Justinian, the convener of the Ecumenical Council that proclaimed the Perpetual Virginity of the Theotokos.