Posted on 11/03/2009 9:42:30 AM PST by GonzoII
There is absolutely ho historical evidence that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had other children. The Catholic Church teaches that Mary was a Virgin before, during, and after the birth of Jesus.
The belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity (which necessarily includes her virginity after the birth of Christ) has been so deeply rooted in Catholic Tradition from the very beginning, that the Fathers of the Church instinctively and vigorously rose to its defense every time early heretics questioned it. Among the many witnesses that could be mentioned in this connection are: Origen, St. Epheaem, St. Hilary, St. Zeno, St. John Chrysostom, St. Epiphanius, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Augustine and many others. The Reformers, Martin Luther and John Calvin also accepted the Catholic doctrine of Our Lady’s perpetual virginity.
Mt.13:55, and Mk. 6:3 name the following as brothers of Jesus: James, Joseph (Joses - the manuscripts vary on the spelling), Simon and Judas. But Mt. 27:56, says at the cross were Mary the mother of James and Joseph. Mark 15:40 says Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses was there. So, although the proof is not conclusive, it seems that – unless we suppose these were others with the same names, that the first two, James and Joseph (Joses) had a mother other than the Mother of Jesus.
Therefore the term brother was used for those who were not sons of Mary the Mother of Jesus. So the same easily could be the case with the other two, Simon and Judas.
Further if Mary had other natural sons and daughters too at the time of the cross, it would be strange for Jesus to ask John to take care of her.
The words “brother” or “sister” were defined by their use.
The Hebrew and Aramaic ah was used for various types of relations. Hebrew had no word for cousin. They could say ben-dod, which means son of a paternal uncle, but for other kinds of cousins they would need a complex phrase, such as “the son of the brother of his mother” or, “the son of the sister of his mother”.
Lot, who was the nephew of Abraham (cf. Gen. 11:27-31) is called his brother in Gen. 13:8 and 14:14-16. Certainly, the Greek language does have words for cousins and other relatives, but the Septuagint (the old Greek translation of the Hebrew OT -- abbreviated LXX) uses Greek adelphos, brother, for Lot - who as mentioned above, was really a nephew, so that objection doesn’t prove the case.
Furthermore, the writers of the Gospels and Epistles often had Hebrew words in mind when they wrote Greek words. This is especially true with St. Paul. And there is strong evidence that St. Luke at some points was translating Hebrew documents.
Mt. 1:25 – “but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus”. Non-Catholics like to point to two words here, “until” and “firstborn”.
Most ancient words have a broad span of possible meanings. Sometimes the word for until leaves room for a change after the time point indicated. However this was not always the case. In Dt. 34:6, Moses was buried, “and to this day no one knows where the grave is”. That was true in the day of the writer of Dt.; it is still true even today. In Psalm 110:1, as interpreted by Jesus Himself (Mt.22; 42-46), “The Lord said to my [David's] Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool’” Of course, Jesus was not to stop being at the right hand of the Father at any point. So the word until here does not mean a change of status. Psalm 72:7, a messianic Psalm, says that in his days “peace will abound until the moon is no more.” Again, the power of the Messiah is not to stop when the moon no longer gives its light (Mt.24:29). In 2 Samuel 6:23 that David's wife Michal had no son until the day of her death. Of course, she did not have one after that either! In Mt.11:23, our Lord says that if the miracles done in Capernaum had been done in Sodom, “it would have lasted until the present day.” Had it lasted, Jesus did not intend to destroy it in His time. In Mt 28:20, Jesus promised to be with His Church, His followers until the end of the world, does that mean He will desert us in eternity. In Romans 8:22, St. Paul says that all creation groans, waiting for the revelation of the sons of God until Paul’s day. Nor did it stop then, that will continue until the restoration at the end. In 1 Timothy 4:13, the Apostle tells Timothy to devote himself to reading, exhortation and teaching “until I come.” He did not mean Timothy should stop such things when Paul did come. There are more, but these should be more than enough to show that not always does until in OT and NT, mean a change of things is to come at the point referred to.
Jesus is called firstborn in Luke 2:7 (and also in Mt 1:25, if we take the Vulgate addition to the Greek). This reflects Hebrew bekor, which chiefly expressed the privileged position of the firstborn among other children. It need not imply there were actually others. We can see this from a Greek tomb inscription at Tel el Yaoudieh (cf. Biblica 11, 1930, 369-90) for a mother who died in childbirth: “In the pain of delivering my firstborn child, destiny brought me to the end of life.
There are no solid evidences in Scripture that Our Lady had other children. The decisive reason is the teaching of the Church. The most ancient creeds all call her aei-parthenos = “Ever-virgin.”
According to Papias [AD second century] – “Mary, the mother of the Lord; Mary, the wife of Cleophas or Alpheus, who was the mother of James the bishop and apostle, and of Simon and Thaddeus, and of one Joseph; Mary Salome, wife of Zebedee, mother of John the evangelist and James; Mary Magdalene. These four are found in the Gospel. James and Judas and Joseph were sons of an aunt of the Lord’s. James also and John were sons of another aunt of the Lord’s. Mary, mother of James the less and Joseph, wife of Alpheus, was the sister of Mary, the mother of the Lord, whom John names of Cleophas, either from her father or from the family of the clan, or for some other reason. Mary Salome is called Salome either from her husband or her village. Some affirm that she is the same as Mary of Cleophas, because she had two husbands” (The Fragments of Papias).
Rather than using the word “brothers” it would be more accurate to use the word “brethren.” Any way you look at it, Mary, the mother of Jesus, had only one child natural child. The rest of us are her children by adoption.
© 2004 – Victor R. Claveau
Part or all of this article may be reproduced without obtaining permission as long as the author is cited.
"For as a virgin she conceived,
as a virgin she gave birth,
a virgin she remained."
-St. Augustine: Sermons, 52. (5th cent.)
|
|
|
Now, now, how can Scripture be expected to trump Catholic tradition. < /sarc>
Such tortured logic to prove a point about Mary’s perpetual virginity which bear no consequence to anyone’s salvation. Continue on....
I don’t agree with this, but it’s also a how-many-angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin type of issue.
"How did Mary keep her virginity at Jesus’ birth? Jesus was miraculously conceived and miraculously born. St. Athanasius and St. Bernard compare the birth of Jesus from the womb of the Blessed Mother to the rays of the sun going through a window pane, leaving the glass intact. Through God’s power two bodies can be at the same place at the same time. His intervention can suspend the impenetrability of the bodies. After the Resurrection Jesus’ risen body went through closed doors."
“Hebrew had no word for cousin.”
LOL.
Brother is “AHKH”
Generic cousin is “doo-dah-NEEM”
Male-line cousin is “ben/bat- DOHD”
Female-line cousin is “ben/bat DOHD-dah”
The words are very specific because a child of an uncle is not necessarily Jewish, but typically of the same tribe.
Other than that, I obviously have no opinions on the rest of the article.
Therefore, Mary could not have remained a virgin after the birth of Jesus. Perpetuating a sham marriage would not burnish the halo of the normal woman (not goddess) who became the means God chose for the Incarnation.
A sham marriage is a form of fraud, of the vilest kind, since it lays an ax to the roots of the most sacred of human bonds. In Catholic doctrine, this is grounds for an annulment, a declaration that a real marriage was never formed, since there was no intention of consummating it.
Somehow, I fail to see how a fraudulent union, a sham wedding, would provide a normal and wholesome family for our Lord to grow up in. Imagine -- a marraige founded in a lie, perpetuated by a fraud, and maintained by the decision of the partners to cheat one another of their legitimate and normal marital obligations. The Freudian stresses induced would have precluded the sane, wholesome, and exuberant delight our Lord had in life, and demonstrated in the course of enjoying His everyday life. Say what you will, Jesus was breathtakingly normal. That's one reason the Jews failed to recognize Him!
(unless, of course, sex is in and of itself a "defilement." This sounds more neoplatonic than Biblical!)
Your threads opening line says that there is no historical evidence that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had other children.
Is there any historical evidence that Mary’s perpetual virginity was taught during the Early Church Apostolic Age?
IOW, we need historical (written) documents from Jesus’ disciples that show that they believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
Since your opening thread line raises the issue of historical evidence, I ask the same in return.
From Luke Chapter 1
And Mary said:
My soul doth magnify the Lord.
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid: for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. *
Because he that is mighty hath done great things to me: and holy is his name.
And his mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear him.
He hath showed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble.
He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He hath received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy.
As he spoke to our fathers: to Abraham and to his seed for ever.
*These words are a prediction of that honour which the church in all ages should pay to the Blessed Virgin. Let Protestants examine whether they are any way concerned in this prophecy.
When forty years of age, Joseph married a woman called Melcha or Escha by some, Salome by others; they lived forty-nine years together and had six children, two daughters and four sons, the youngest of whom was James (the Less, “the Lord’s brother”). A year after his wife’s death, as the priests announced through Judea that they wished to find in the tribe of Juda a respectable man to espouse Mary, then twelve to fourteen years of age, Joseph, who was at the time ninety years old, went up to Jerusalem among the candidates; a miracle manifested the choice God had made of Joseph, and two years later the Annunciation took place. These dreams, as St. Jerome styles them, from which many a Christian artist has drawn his inspiration (see, for instance, Raphael’s “Espousals of the Virgin”), are void of authority; they nevertheless acquired in the course of ages some popularity; in them some ecclesiastical writers sought the answer to the well-known difficulty arising from the mention in the Gospel of “the Lord’s brothers”; from them also popular credulity has, contrary to all probability, as well as to the tradition witnessed by old works of art, retained the belief that St. Joseph was an old man at the time of marriage with the Mother of God.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia.
I never understood the necessity for the perpetual virginity doctrine, or why Christian scholars would even find it necessary to discuss such matters about Mary (or any other saintly woman). Before someone gets the wrong idea, I do understand the necessity of the virgin birth doctrine.
I agree with you. Mary was married to Joseph. Why would a normal husband/wife relationship diminish her being the mother of Jesus?
Besides, Mary doesn’t have anything to do with my salvation, other than the fact that she gave birth to the Savior. For me, she doesn’t have any power to save. That lies with Jesus alone.
>>There is absolutely ho historical evidence that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had other children. The Catholic Church teaches that Mary was a Virgin before, during, and after the birth of Jesus.<<
And now I know why I am not Catholic. I would be embarrassed if my church took the stand in this article. I’d leave. Come to think of it, my wife DID leave.
The teaching that Mary died a virgin is as preposterous as the Church of Christ’s teaching about using musical instruments. The two teachings are of the same sort.
Why? Nobody has ever died a virgin?
Many ancients thought virginity virtuous and having sex evil. That idea crept into the church, and they had to find a way to keep Mary a virgin, even though all the evidence was to the contrary.
Apparently the author of this article doesn’t consider the Gospels to be ‘historical evidence’, although it was written by folks who had probably talked to Mary.
What is the evidence to the contrary?
>>Why? Nobody has ever died a virgin?<<
Two things:
1. Not married women.
2. There is no reason whatsoever to suggest that she did. At least not in the bible. Not one. I honestly do not understand what would compel a person to even teach such claptrap. I can see a new Christian reading the bible and maybe getting a first impression that that may have happened, but further reading, or discussion with anyone with an adults understanding of His word would put that idea to bed soundly.
Mt. 1:25 – “but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus”.
To say this sentence and the context that the sentence was written in, does not mean what it simply means, is to render the entire sentence worthless and unnecessary to Scripture.
You have a problem with “until” not meaning “until after Jesus was born”, and “firstborn” not meaning “first of more than one”, let’s focus on the word “KNEW” then.
This word, in the context of sex, or marriage, or having children, has always been about sexual intercourse. The sentence opens discussing the fact Joseph, who did not follow Jewish tradition of consummating - and thereby completing the validation of the marriage - with Mary, because she was with child form the Holy Spirit. This act still was not yet performed and it was a step that was normally done the night of the wedding. The two had not yet become one flesh, going back to Genesis. Joseph had not yet KNOWN Mary.
This statement says he DID wind up ‘knowing’ Mary, his wife, and consummating the marriage according to the Jewish traditions. A marriage wasn’t complete until that act was done.
Now one can argue that simply Joseph KNOWING Mary doesn’t mean she had more children, and it is possible. But the fact is the statement recorded says he did KNOW her, and the very fact Joseph did, means Mary could not have been a virgin. Joseph did not know her before Jesus was born, but afterwards, he did. Whether or not you believe Jesus had brothers or sisters.
To deny the clear meaning of the sentence and its context is to turn the sentence into something non-sensical and devoid of meaning, which begs the question if it doesn’t mean what it appears to mean, and in fact according to some, supposedly proves the opposite of what the clear meaning is, why is it there at all?
Even if you give the Roman Church their machination arguments for “until” and “firstborn”, the word “KNEW” in the context of sex and children, is about sexual intercourse, and this particular case, between Joseph and Mary. It means she wasn’t a virgin AFTER Christ was born, regardless of whether He had brothers and sisters.
In this instance, it does not.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.