Yes! this is wonderful news!
It would change EVERYTHING if I though her and her husband were ‘doing it’
I am so glad thousands and thousands of pages of articles are spent dicussing Mary’s ‘prepetual virginity’
Beacuse THATS IMPORTANT!
And important to those Christians interested in the truth.
To modern American congregationalists...........not so much.
So does this answer the question;
“Would Joseph hit it?”
(Go ahead. Someone hit report abuse.)
Hey, not having read it all this time through I've forgotten ~ did he include a discussion of the possibility Mary and Joseph actually became spirit beings who drifted a foot off the ground the rest of their days?
Remember, they both had angels visit them in their dreams, so maybe there was a swap.
Wearing long cloaks would have hidden the fact they no longer needed to wear sandles.
(NOTE: Not ridiculing the arguments, just their extent ~ and I'm sure that for some of the debaters on this multi century discussion almost everything that could have been imagined has been imagined).
>>Yes! this is wonderful news!
It would change EVERYTHING if I though her and her husband were ‘doing it’
I am so glad thousands and thousands of pages of articles are spent dicussing Mary’s ‘prepetual virginity’
Beacuse THATS IMPORTANT!<<
I actually started to read this and then scrolled down to see how long it was. Oy vey.
As computer programmer I learned that I had come across the “correct” solution to a problem when It became very simple. If that article was a computer program we would call it “spaghetti code”.
The fact remains that there is not a single place in the bible that even HINTS that she was perpetual virgin, and plenty of places that clearly infer that she had sex with her husband. Further, there is no Christian purpose for her to remain a virgin after Jesus’ birth.
Anything else is just intellectual gymnastics, and the author had demonstrated his ability to swing with the best of ‘em.
Why in the world would that change anything you believe about Christ?
The Early Church Fathers are almost unanimous in the assertion that the birth was painless and had no loss of Mary's virginal integrity during the birth. In other words, her Hymen didn't break. St. Augustine said "Jesus passed through the womb of Mary as a ray of sun passes through glass"....This was confirmed by Pope Paul IV and many others before and after. If Jesus emerged from a sealed tomb, and passed through closed doors, surely he could pass through Mary's womb without breaking her hymen and causing her pain.Excerpted from the article:
Did Mary Have a Bunch of Kids? Mary's perpetual virginity before, during and after Jesus' birthSee also the much longer and heavily footnoted study:
THE VIRGINITY OF OUR LADY IN PARTU: The Painless, Miraculous Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Matthew 1:24-25 Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.
It is very clear from the original greek words, they had normal marital relations, but had children. They weren’t cousins. Words mean things and there’s no reason to use the greek word ‘firstborn’ in the context of Jesus’ birth except to denote the order of birth. If he’s an only child Scripture would say “only” rather than “firstborn”, as “firstborn” would be misleading.
It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change the virgin birth. There’s nothing in the prophecy that the woman who was going to give birth to the Christ would remain a virgin forever. There’s no necessity for it.
Yet the apostle Paul scarcely if ever mentions her name let alone her thousand lofty and deifying titles.
Any idea what the teachings of Calvin, Luther and Zwingli were on the topic? Probably not.