Posted on 10/31/2010 11:59:22 AM PDT by RnMomof7
One can be an only child and yet be legally firstborn, and have the benefits and duties of the fact.
Other than ignoring the point made, you are now arguing against yourself.
YOU taught us that the context of Matthew 1:24-25 was ONLY about establishing Mary's virginity up to the birth of Christ, and while the theme of establishing that fact is indeed true, you have gratuitously shut the door to deriving anything else from that passage.
So now we come to "firstborn", and while you have already closed the door to any other light to come out, you have reopened the door a crack to say that we now have a theological truth pouring out and that is in the significance of legal and traditional responsibilities, "benefits and duties" assigned to it. The problem with this is that you have elevated the meaning of "firstborn" from that of something slightly more than trivial, to that of a defining attribute. Normally you could get away with that, despite the lack of evidence in the gospel narratives. I'm not denying His role, but the Paraclete through the Gospel writers didn't see fit to make this a factor until we reach the tree where our LORD was slain where he assigned to John the role of caretaker for Mary.
Furthermore, borrowing from some lower criticism, we have the interesting problem in that only the Byzantine texts care to include the "firstborn" language - for it is absent in the Majority texts. If this was a semi-trivial point, this wouldn't be a problem, but if it is elevated as you propose, then we seem to have a drain on our jots and tiddles.
If the "firstborn" language is semi-trivial, then it would support the secondary theme that Joseph didn't touch his wife until after she gave birth to Jesus and that Jesus was the first of several more sons and daughters to come from this legally wed couple. This logical flow of "firstborn" as first of several in v25 is complementary to the "until" of Joseph knowing his wife in v24. Your imposition of a theological attribute in that context is unjustified and is arguably out of place.
Combine these passages with the "adelphi" (sisters)* used in later passages, and the argument pretty much is made that Jesus had siblings.
You have exhausted your Scripture and language based arguments, they have been refuted time and time again. All that is left is for Holy Tradition to trump historical narrative and declare by fiat that which the Scriptures say isn't so.
* the Greek word for "sisters" has NEVER been used to indicate cousins, neioghbors, tribesmen or distant kin and has always been used to indicate out-of-the-same-womb female sibling.
Annalex: The hymen was closed even after birth [of Jesus]. Compare John 20:19
count-your-change: Compare it to what? [quotes verse]
To Jesus passing through the locked door.
************************************************************
In His post-resurrection body, not His pre-resurrection body.
Catholics still have no proof for that assumption. Just because Jesus could pass through physical objects and did so once, does not by default mean that He did it other times.
Those kind of assumptions show a desperation to support some doctrine that is mind boggling.
It gets down to again, that there is simply NO reason whatsoever, for Mary to remain a virgin after delivering Jesus. Her perpetual virginity is totally irrelevant to His work of redemption.
The MO of the Catholic church. You really nailed it concerning what Catholicisms tactics are.
Can I use that?
I’ve been a Catholic over 60 years of my life; baptized at age 21.
I regret that your experience being raised as a Catholic has left an erroneous impression on you.
Similar circumstances can happen to people raised Protestant, raised Jewish, raised Mormon, etc. I have had “experience” of this in my own Protestant roots, but I don’t see that as a blanket condemnation of Protestantism.
I attended a city high school with a huge number of Jewish kids. We used to laugh together about “Jewish guilt”.
Nevertheless, we are all called to know and speak truth—not as we see it subjectively—but truth as it is.
Your perceptions/impressions of Catholicism do not make them Truth as it is in itself.
The human condition of recognizing one’s own capacity to sin is engraved on the hearts of all.
I have observed that people who quickly acknowledge their own sinfulness and then find themselves “saved” can just as quickly become very much like the Pharisees—”thank God I’m saved and not like those (Catholics—or insert here any other applicable denomination)”. See how it can work?
The Catholic Church does not “present God as demanding and not quick to forgive.” Some Catholic people may have thought (and said) so, but that isn’t Truth.
Well, if there is one thing that calvinists are experts on its Satanism and you know what you can kiss.
You didn't respect me in the morning? You're fickle? You'll have to spell it out for me - I'm a post reader, not a mindreader.
That is just creepy and degrades Judith Anne, you and the religion forum. Take your within the rules but across the line crap elsewhere.
Not quite sure I get your OK analogy but OK.
I certainly don’t see what I observe and read about with RC’s and their many flavors of WORSHIP as higher than 7 stories. Maybe deeper than 7 stories into forbidden zones but not higher.
The teeth . . . I use them when the food they are needed for is desired enough to bother with the pain (well past when that should have been over. No big explanation for it—other than maybe needing to use them more and toughen gums up more) and clunkiness. Dentist says I have above average suction for the lowers. Still not as good as I’d hoped for. Still resistent to using adhesive.
Some suggested modifications the Dentist was willing to try helped.
Thanks for asking.
Canadian Outrage—how’s your son’s teeth working out?
Have a blessed Christmas, Bro.
Very sad and more than a little angry Joseph,
of course.
Suffering for a flawed human organization is different than suffering for God.
It gets down to again, that there is simply NO reason whatsoever, for Mary to remain a virgin after delivering Jesus. Her perpetual virginity is totally irrelevant to His work of redemption.
kosta50 wrote:
“For what it’s worth, the Son is not the Cause, having himself been caused (begotten).”
I didn’t say that the Son was the Cause, I said we was Cause. I am following the thought and careful language of John. And regarding whether the Logos was “caused (begotten)” as you said, that is, equating the terms “caused” and “begotten,” you are straying from Niceno-Constantinopolitan language. To you, perhaps, it doesn’t matter. To me it does.
OK, what am I driving at? Your question. I am trying to explore what it is you think you know or don’t know about God and how provable or unprovable the existence of God is. You use - at least somewhat - the language of Aristotle and Thomas, but you don’t seem to want to play on their playground. I thought going to the language of John would be helpful in this matter in that John is the one of the four Gospels of which it could be said that it is written from above as opposed to from below. Please note, that I am with that statement making no assertion that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are somehow inferior or less reliable or inspired to a lesser degree or somehow corrupted. No, it is merely a matter of perspective, perspective of the author, He writes as “from above,” so much of the time, that those who read him are often confused. As an aside, it is ironic that so often John’s Gospel is the one first handed out to the new Christian or to the prospect, the assumption being that John with his simple, childlike language is the easiest of the Gospels to understand and the obvious entree to Christ. Nothing could be farther from the truth. John is the hardest Gospel to understand ... by far.
John’s Gospel is quite distinct in its style, perspective, and purpose from the other three, not to mention its being written a significant amount of time later than the others.
So, why John’s Gospel in this discussion? Because John talks about what you claim to want to know about, both the what of God and the how do we know the what.
I guess it makes it easier to justify a celibate priesthood and nunneries. Oh well.....just some more of the old paganism tarted up.
Your post once again reveals that RCs cannot abide by the rules. Instead, they "make it personal," with every post.
I talk about a religion and the obvious error of your pope, and you talk about me.
Your personal insults are noted and then ignored. They are representative of an inability to defend the papacy and of a faith that kneels to men other than Christ.
Both are emblematic of hell-bound blasphemy.
The only real difference is that Obama still has time to repent.
I had a step-grandfather that was a Baptist, and he was one of the most Christian people I've ever known. He would attend his Baptist services every Saturday nite, and then go to the Divine Liturgy every Sunday with my grandmother. He was so taken with the depth of the Orthodox faith he asked to be, and was burried by the Orthodox Church. I would never want to condemn all Protestants.
I suppose it's the deniers of free will that happen to be the nastiest and most un-Christian of the Prots. They seem to think that because they have no control over who they are because they're the way God made them and always wanted them to be - they can be really horrible people full of false accusations, and they have nothing to worry about - God is giving them a free ride to heaven. That may be why they respond so violently to the idea of "works" based salvation. They're so rotten to the core they need a faith that will accept them the way they are. It's too difficult for them to work on making themselves better Christians. It's much easier to just keep on attacking others until God's limo gives them that final ride to heaven.
Thanks for your excellent scholarship. Bump to 3975.
So was mine.
And once again you have taken an oblique opportunity to spew morte hatred and bile about a subject you clearly know absolutely nothing about.
Once again you have leaped to a conclusion not supported by the facts or even common sense. I do not represent all "RCs". I speak for me. I don't care what the RF rules are or how well you skirt and finesse them with your invective, when you make ad homenem attacks on a man that Catholics know and love you are making personal attacks to the same degree as if you were naming my wife, children and grand children.
If objecting and calling you out on it gets me kicked off the RF so be it. I don't know why you so desperately demand attention and validation from the very people you demonstrably hate. I'm sure there is some reason, but I don't care. I spent the better part of the last two weeks away from the forum and for that whole time I didn't feel dirty from contact with you and your ilk. And during that time you and your ilk had absolutely no negative impact on the Church, zero, zilch, nada, demonstrating the vacuous and complete ineffective nature of your anonymous attacks.
Oh, and let me remind you again, you are not the moderator, assistant moderator, acting moderator, hall monitor, deputy to the assistant monitor, special assistant to the deputy hall monitor or Forum janitor. You are just another poster.
How many "nicknames" does one person have?
... 3,264 posted on 11/26/2010 12:42:37 PM PST by getoffmylawn(aka R.P. McMurphy.....
Another coincidence?
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