Posted on 03/12/2016 9:36:07 AM PST by Salvation
Perpetual virginity
3/9/2016
Question: I am a lifelong and devout Catholic and have always considered Mary to be ever virgin. But recently, I read in my Bible that Joseph had no relations with Mary “before” she bore a son (Mt 1:25). Now, I wonder if our belief does not contradict the Bible.— Eugene DeClue, Festus, Missouri
Answer: The Greek word “heos,” which your citation renders “before,” is more accurately translated “until,” which can be ambiguous without a wider context of time. It is true, in English, the usual sense of “until” is that I am doing or not doing something now “until” something changes, and then I start doing or not doing it. However, this is not always the case, even in Scripture.
If I say to you, “God bless you until we meet again.” I do not mean that after we meet again God’s blessing will cease or turn to curses. In this case, “until” is merely being used to refer to an indefinite period of time which may or may not ever occur. Surely, I hope we meet again, but it is possible we will not, so go with God’s blessings, whatever the case.
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In Scripture, too, we encounter “until” being used merely to indicate an indefinite period whose conditions may or may not be met. Thus, we read, “And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child until the day of her death” (2 Sam 6:23). Of course, this should not be taken to mean that she started having children after she died. If I say to you in English that Christ “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Cor 15:25), I do not mean his everlasting kingdom will actually end thereafter.
While “until” often suggests a future change of state, it does not necessarily mean that the change happens — or even can happen. Context is important. It is the same in Greek, where heos, or heos hou, require context to more fully understand what is being affirmed.
The teaching of the perpetual virginity of Mary does not rise or fall on one word, rather, a body of evidence from other sources such as: Mary’s question to the angel as to how a betrothed virgin would conceive; Jesus entrusting Mary to the care of a non-blood relative at this death; and also the long witness of ancient Tradition.
So you believe it is necessary to believe in Sola Scriptura to be saved. Where do you find that doctrine in ...
the scriptures ?
“God created women to want sex, too, despite rumors to the contrary.
“I can just imagine how it would blow certain minds to think that Mary........”
Although I firmly believe from Scripture that Jesus had siblings, it’s fact that women have sex all the time with no child to show for it.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NASB)
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
2 Peter 3:14-18 (NASB)
Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless,
and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you,
as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness,
but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
So now that I have answered you, will answer why the topic of this thread is necessary for salvation?
There is a very important biological reason why Mary was identified as a Virgin before the conceiving in her womb. So long as confusion can be spread like peanut butter, the notion that God used a sex cell (gamete) from Mary to make Jesus can be sustained in catholic myth mongering. Actual human conceptiuon usually takes place in the fallopian tube and rarely in the uterus since the geography does not lend itself to the male and female gametes actually find one another. The fallopian tube is a restricted passage ...
Further, the Bible says that, [Matt1:20 After he had thought about it, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” he said, “don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he is the one who will save his people from their sins.”] what is conceived in Mary's womb is of the Holy Spirit, not sired by the Holy Spirit, as if a God sex cell was united to a Mary sex cell, but that the being, His entire being, is of the Holy Spirit.
But wait, there's more!
You didn’t answer the question for all your verbosity.
And Isaiah 7:14 has NOTHING to do with the PERPETUAL virginity of Mary.
However, except in ONE case, having children proves that the woman had sex.
Those scriptures, while true, neither indicate the table of contents for Sola Scriptura, nor that truth was only passed on in writing rather than verbally. Indeed the scriptures that we have reference other scriptures that we do not have.
I already acknowledge that the scriptures came from God, and He gave the ECFs the wisdom to recognize them.
So will you answer, or just continue to play semantic games?
Check your first century telephone book. Marvin Vincent has done that, and in his "Word Studies" comments on Galatians 1:19, as follows:
The Lord's brother
"Added in order to distinguish him from James the son of
Zebedee (Mt. 4:21; Mt. 10:2; Mk. 10:35), who was still
living, and from James the son of Alphaeus (Mat. 10:3). The
Lord's brother means that James was a son of Joseph and
Mary. This view is known as the Helvidian theory, from
Helvidius, a layman of Rome, who wrote, about 380, a book
against mariolatry and ascetic celibacy. The explanations
which differ from that of Helvidius have grown, largely,
out of the desire to maintain the perpetual virginity of
Mary. Jerome has given his name to a theory known as the
Hieronymian put forth in reply to Helvidius, about 383,
according to which the brethren of the Lord were the sons
of his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Alphaeus or
Clopas, and therefore Jesus' cousins. A third view bears
the name of Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus (ob.
404), and is that the Lord's brothers were sons of Joseph
by a former wife."
Look, pal, I may not always be quite right, but I am never, ever wrong. James is NOT the son of Zebedee, the brother of Beloved John. Neither was James (another Jacob in the Greek) the son of Alphaeus. James was the brother of Jesus, gestated in Mary's womb of Joseph's seed.
You are dead wrong. And why would I spend valuable time to ruin my reputation, as you seem to want to do for your own? Again, I'm not going to be your pet whipping post on this thread, either. Maybe it's OK for others, but your theories will not be calling the tune to which I dance.
But wait, there's still more!
It is necessary that one not deny divinely revealed truth. The one holy catholic apostolic church declared as dogma (a fundamental of the faith) the Unity and Trinity of God. If someone who is a baptized Christian publicly denies the Holy Trinity, such a one has departed from the faith and is a heretic. These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly: But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us: If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself. Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some. Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work. Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes. And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
First Timothy, Catholic chapter three, Protestant verses fourteen to fifteen,
Second Timothy, Catholic chapter two, Protestant verses eleven to twenty six,
as authorized, but not authored, by King James
I truly believe, though I have no means to show it in scritpture directly, that Mary gestated Jesus and at the end of nine months God brought Jesus from her body in such a way that she was still a virgin for her HUSBAND Joseph. Jesus left the tomb without rolli8ng away the stone, He could leave Mary's womb without passing along the birth canal. I personally believe this because Mary was betrothed to Joseph and if God used Her birth canal she would no longer be virginal for her husband, having had the biological 'seal' broken. God would not cheat Joseph!
Whoa..... Wait a minute.
How'd you get from not answering a question about the alleged perpetual virginity of Mary to denying the Trinity?
Why'd you change the topic? How about answering the question instead?
Does Catholicism teach that one has to believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary to be saved?
Yes? Or No?
LOL ... we’ve been ‘told’ that denying the fabrications of the catholiciism religion damns us to hell, in so many left out blue words of course, because it is af vet larnin us.
Seems to me, the biological criteria is a faulty criteria for determining virginity.
A woman can biologically not be a virgin for a number of reasons, and still have never had sex.
IMO, never having had sex should be the criteria for determining virginity rather than the integrity of her physical body.
And where was the perpetual virginity and immaculate conception Divinely revealed? And how does this deny Christ?
I do not deny Jesus Christ, nay, I affirm Him as the sole Mediator of my salvation, who paid for my sins in whole with His blood on the cross, crying “IT IS FINISHED!”, who rose again after three days. He is the Name above all names, the Alpha and the Omega, the One born of a virgin, Who sits at the right hand of the Father for now and forever.
Praise be to God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. And to the Holy Spirit, who indwells the elect of God. Amen.
Meant to include you in the ping to this string of shamwow posts on the conception and birth of Jesus.
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