You know, the reasons people think that Catholics think sex between man and wife is somehow dirty, is because of this very kind of rationalization about Mary conceiving and her relationship with Joseph.
Mary was a married woman at the time of the annunciation. She was puzzled about how she could be pregnant or become pregnant without having sex. Very simple, easy to explain, and easy to understand. Nothing read into it at all, nothing *interpreted* to mean something different.
It is NO indicator that she NEVER intended to have sex with Joseph, just that she hadn’t and probably didn’t plan to until they got married, like they were supposed to wait for.
Scripture clearly says that Joseph was told to take Mary as his WIFE. That comes with all the responsibilities and privileges marriage comes with.
The idea that God let Mary become betrothed and then told Joseph to marry her but don’t touch, forces Joseph into a sexless marriage that he clearly wasn’t anticipating, else he would not have divorced her, thinking that she had cheated on him. That would be God Himself defrauding Joseph.
There is not one reason in the world for Mary to have remained a virgin after the birth of Christ when the prophecy that a virgin shall bear a son, was fulfilled.
What makes virginity so special and married sex so objectionable that Catholics flip over the thought that she had sex with her husband?
And then Catholics can’t figure out why they’re perceived as thinking sex between a husband and wife is wrong.
Y’all set yourselves up for it with absolutely ZERO basis from Scripture. It’s all rationalization, speculation, and extrapolation.
And phrases like, *a borrowed concubine*, *Joseph a cuckold*, God being a *divine rapist*, don’t help y’all either. Nobody every suggested those things. Those are CATHOLIC concepts thrown in accusation against non-Catholics, and they never entered the minds of ANY non-Catholics I ever met.
Not at all. At Luke 1 v. 34 (the "perplexity" verse) she doesn't yet know that it's "without having sex". She doesn't yet know she's going to be overshadowed by the power of the Most High. Why would she think it would be "without having sex" if she fully expected to have sex with Joseph?
Why wouldn't she assume she'd be like Sarah, Hannah, Samson's mother, etc. and have a marvelous baby with her husband? That's the part that's NOT clear or even explicable. That is, her perplexity is explicable only if she knew she was going to remain a virgin.
The Angel Gabriel did NOT say her pregnancy was going to happen right away: he left this in the undefined future. For all she knew, she could be long-married to Joseph, like Sarah was long-married to Abraham, when they'd have this angel-announced baby together. She'd expect that she'd have the baby with Joseph. This absolutely makes sense. But she didn't expect that. Isn't that odd? And why not?
"The idea that God let Mary become betrothed and then told Joseph to marry her but don’t touch, forces Joseph into a sexless marriage that he clearly wasn’t anticipating."
Nobody's forcing Joseph to do anything here.
The more likely explanation is that Joseph knew he was to safeguard Mary's virginity because it was a vowed thing. It was vowed before they were betrothed: he knew she was vowed to God. It's "more likely" because otherwise, the solution to the "problem" would be simple: he would have just promptly taken the newly-pregnant Mary into his home, and let people assume the baby was his.
"There is not one reason in the world for Mary to have remained a virgin after the birth of Christ when the prophecy that a virgin shall bear a son, was fulfilled."
Well, yes there is, if God's choosing Mary had something to do with a Covenant --- a permanent Covenant of love-- and not just using her instrumentally, using her like the slave Hagar, a borrowed reproductive unit.
You really think that's OK? That's the part I don't get. It only contradicts every love, spousal, fidelity, covenant thing that's taught, sung, or celebrated in the entire Bible. That's all.
For a moment, suspend your modern POV and look at it in the framework of the historic Judeo-Christian culture. The Covenant theme was central to their understanding of the whole of Scripture. This is why nobody, for a millennium-and-a-half, neither Catholic nor Orthodox nor even Protestant up to and including Luther, would have countenanced the idea that God would do Mary that way. That He would make Mary the mother of His Son without a personal, exclusive, and permanent covenant. That He would dishonor His Beloved, Blessed-among-women, by treating her like a borrowed breeder-utility, a rented wench.
I think if you throw out the idea of a permanent covenant, involving Mary's permanent fidelity to God the Father of her Child, belonging to Him only, you're throwing out the every single spousal image, type, and prophecy in the Old Covenant. You're writing her out of the "covenant" framework entirely. It makes all that love-fidelity-talk in Hosea, Isaiah and Ezekiel irrelevant. She might as well be Hagar.
T'ain't fittin, metmom. Just t'ain't fittin.
This whole chapter of Salvation History is not about the base usage of a concubine but about God's magnificent gifts of love and fidelity.
This is why Mary remained a virgin. Not because sex is dirty, but because fidelity is holy. And Mary's reserving herself from any man's embrace was based n Mary's realization that she, blessed among women, was that Beloved, that Blessed one, that Highly-favored one, that Daughter Zion. She didn't merit it, but He chose her. He did great things for her, unprecedented things, matchless things, ineffable things --- and she knew she belonged to God alone.