Matthew 1:24-25 - “When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not UNTIL she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.”
Seems clear. Doesn’t it?
Seems clear. Doesn’t it?
Yes, it does, but dogma is dogma.
Mary was a fallible human being who sinned (for all have sinned), and she obviously had sex with Joseph afterwards (which was not a sin.)
Her perpetual virginity is a quaint notion, but is contradicted by scripture in several places, including the one you have cited.
Tradition can never supplant scripture.
Matthew 1:24-25 - “When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not UNTIL she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.”
Seems clear. Doesn’t it?
IT’S QUITE CLEAR . . . unless one has an agenda from another power . . . focus.
http://www.catholic.com/library/Brethren_of_the_Lord.asp
Fundamentalists insist that “brethren of the Lord” must be interpreted in the strict sense. They most commonly make two arguments based on Matthew 1:25: “[A]nd he did not know her until (Greek: heos, also translated into English as “till”) she brought forth her firstborn son.” They first argue that the natural inference from “till” is that Joseph and Mary afterward lived together as husband and wife, in the usual sense, and had several children. Otherwise, why would Jesus be called “first-born”? Doesn’t that mean there must have been at least a “second-born,” perhaps a “third-born,” and so on? But they are using a narrow, modern meaning of “until,” instead of the meaning it had when the Bible was written. In the Bible, it means only that some action did not happen up to a certain point; it does not imply that the action did happen later, which is the modern sense of the term. In fact, if the modern sense is forced on the Bible, some ridiculous meanings result.
Consider this line: “Michal the daughter of Saul had no children till the day of her death” (2 Sam. 6:23). Are we to assume she had children after her death?
There is also the burial of Moses. The book of Deuteronomy says that no one knew the location of his grave “until this present day” (Deut. 34:6, Knox). But we know that no one has known since that day either.
The examples could be multiplied, but you get the idea—nothing can be proved from the use of the word “till” in Matthew 1:25. Recent translations give a better sense of the verse: “He had no relations with her at any time before she bore a son” (New American Bible); “He had not known her when she bore a son” (Knox).
http://www.cathtruth.com/catholicbible/evervirg.htm
1. The conjunction “until” in Scriptural usage expresses what has occurred up to a certain point, and leaves the future aside. Thus God says in the book of Isaias: “I am till you grow old” (Isaias 46:4). Are we to infer that God would then cease to be? Again, God says to His Divine Son: “Sit Thou on My right hand until I make Thy enemies Thy foot-stool” (Psalm 109:1). Will the Messias, once His enemies are subdued, relinquish His place of honor? St. Matthew’s principal aim was to tell his readers that Christ’s birth was miraculous and that Joseph had no part in the conception of Mary’s child. His statement is confined to this point.
In itself the statement, “He knew her not till she brought forth her first-born Son,” neither proves Mary’s subsequent virginity nor contains an argument against it. Speaking as he does, the Evangelist in no wise affirms that the abstention mentioned by him ceased after the expiration of the time indicated.
To say that the exclusion of an event up to a certain point implies that it occurred afterward, is pure cavil. In fact, one would find it difficult to believe that the sacred writer, after insisting so strongly on Mary’s anterior virginity in the opening verses of the chapter, could suddenly imply that it ceased later on. If Joseph abstained from the use of the union preceding the angel’s message, who could think that after Mary had brought forth the Son of God, he should feel less reverence for the temple of the Trinity?