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.
For 1,600 years it was the only bible anywhere....there was/is no other bible which counters it....If you are unique, none other, alone, singular....it is plenty hard to disagree with you.
BTW, the Jews might disagree strongly ...
DARN, I was hoping to see Adam and Eve (the only humans without belly buttons), Moses, Noah, David, Solomon, Joshua, Ezekial, Esther, Ruth, when I get to Heaven....now you change the rules and tell me that they won't be there.....Moses and Elias will be very upset because they helped Jesus out at the transfiguration....some thanks!!
That makes more sense!
So, if He had been born in modern times by a C-Section, that wouldn't have counted????
There has been a wide variety of interpretations on Matthew 12:46. I have found a web site with many different commentaries, too many to post all of them. Following are some of them, the entire comments can be found at
https://www.studylight.org/commentary/matthew/12-46.html
Adam Clarke’s Commentary
His mother and his brethren - These are supposed to have been the cousins of our Lord, as the word brother is frequently used among the Hebrews in this sense. But there are others who believe Mary had other children beside our Lord and that these were literally his brothers, who are spoken of here. And, although it be possible that these were the sons of Mary, the wife of Cleopas or Alpheus, his mother’s sister, called his relations, Mark 3:31; yet it is as likely that they were the children of Joseph and Mary, and brethren of our Lord, in the strictest sense of the word. See on Matthew 13:55; (note).
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These files are public domain.
Bibliography
Clarke, Adam. “Commentary on Matthew 12:46”. “The Adam Clarke Commentary”. https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/acc/view.cgi?bk=mt&ch=12. 1832.
Coffman’s Commentaries on the Bible
While he was yet speaking to the multitudes, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, seeking to speak with him.
If the mother of Jesus in this passage was his literal mother, then there is no reason to suppose that his brothers were not his literal brothers. Medieval theology has warped the views of expositors on such Scriptures as this and others like it. See more on this subject under Matthew 13:55. What they desired to discuss is not known.
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James Burton Coffman Commentaries reproduced by permission of Abilene Christian University Press, Abilene, Texas, USA. All other rights reserved.
Bibliography
Coffman, James Burton. “Commentary on Matthew 12:46”. “Coffman Commentaries on the Old and New Testament”. “https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/bcc/view.cgi?bk=mt&ch=12". Abilene Christian University Press, Abilene, Texas, USA. 1983-1999.
Gill’s Exposition of the Whole Bible
While he yet talked to the people,.... Upon these subjects, which so nearly concerned the Scribes and Pharisees, and which could not fail of drawing upon him their resentment and ill will.
Behold his mother and his brethren: by “his mother” is meant Mary; but who are “his brethren”, is not so easy to say: some are of opinion, that Joseph had children by Mary, who are here meant; but it is more generally believed, that these were either the sons of Joseph by a former wife, whose name is said to be Escha; or rather, Mary’s sister’s sons, the wife of Cleophas, the cousin-germans of Christ, it being usual with the Jews to call such kindred brethren; and so they might be James, Joses, Simon, and Judas: these
stood without: for Christ was within doors, not in a synagogue, as Piscator thought, but in an house; see Matthew 13:1 and his mother and brethren stood without doors, either because they could not get in for the throng of the people; or because they would not, it not being proper to make all within acquainted with what they had to say to him:
desiring to speak with him; not with a pure view to interrupt him in his work, or to divert him from it, lest he should overspend himself; nor from a principle of ambition and vain glory, to show that they were related to him, and that he was at their beck and command; but rather, to observe unto him the danger he exposed himself to, by the freedom he took with the Pharisees in his discourses, and probably to acquaint him with some conspiracies formed against him.
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The New John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible Modernised and adapted for the computer by Larry Pierce of Online Bible. All Rightes Reserved, Larry Pierce, Winterbourne, Ontario. A printed copy of this work can be ordered from: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1 Iron Oaks Dr, Paris, AR, 72855
Bibliography
Gill, John. “Commentary on Matthew 12:46”. “The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible”. “https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/geb/view.cgi?bk=mt&ch=12". 1999.
Wesley’s Explanatory Notes
His brethren - His kinsmen: they were the sons of Mary, the wife of Cleopas, or Alpheus, his mother’s sister; and came now seeking to take him, as one beside himself, Mark 3:21 . Mark 3:31 ; Luke 8:19 .
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These files are public domain and are a derivative of an electronic edition that is available on the Christian Classics Ethereal Library Website.
Bibliography
Wesley, John. “Commentary on Matthew 12:46”. “John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible”. “https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/wen/view.cgi?bk=mt&ch=12". 1765.
Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers
(46) His mother and his brethren.Who were these brethren of the Lord? The question is one which we cannot answer with any approximation to certainty. The facts in the Gospel records are scanty. In what we gather from the Fathers we find not so much traditions as conjectures based upon assumptions. The facts, such as they are, are these: (1.) The Greek word translated brother is a word which has just the same latitude as the term in English. Like that, it might be applied (as in the case of Joseph and his brethren) to half-brothers, or brothers by adoption, or used in the wider sense of national or religious brotherhood. There is no adequate evidence that the term was applied to cousins as such. (2.) The names of four brethren are given in Mark 6:3, as James (i.e., Jacob) and Joses and Juda and Simon. Three of these names (James, Juda, Simon) are found in the third group of four in the lists of the twelve Apostles. This has suggested to some the thought that they had been chosen by our Lord to that office, and the fact that a disciple bearing the name of Joses was nearly chosen to fill the place of Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:23, in many MSS.) presents another curious coincidence. This inference is, however, set aside by the fact distinctly stated by St. John (John 7:3), and implied in this narrative and in our Lords reference to a prophet being without honour in his fathers house (Matthew 13:57; Mark 6:4), that up to the time of the Feast of Tabernacles that preceded the Crucifixion, within six months of the close of our Lords ministry, His brethren did not believe in His claims to be the Christ. The names, it must be remembered, were so common that they might be found in any family. (3.) Sisters are mentioned in Mark 6:3, but we know nothing of their number, or names, or after-history, or belief or unbelief. It is clear that these facts do not enable us to decide whether the brothers and sisters were children of Mary and Joseph, or children of Joseph by a former marriageeither an actual marriage on his own account, or what was known as a Levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5), for the sake of raising up seed to a deceased brotheror the children of Marys sister, Mary the wife of Clopas (John 19:25). The fact of the same name being borne by two sisters, as the last theory implies, though strange, is not incredible, as by names might come into play to distinguish between them. Each of these views has been maintained with much elaborate ingenuity, and by some writers these brethren, assumed to be sons of Clopas, have been identified (in spite of the above objection, which is absolutely fatal to the theory) with the sons of Alphæus in the list of Apostles. When the course of Christian thought led to an ever-increasing reverence for the mother of the Lord, and for virginity as the condition of all higher forms of holiness, the belief in her perpetual maidenhood passed into a dogma, and drove men to fall back upon one of the other hypotheses as to the brethren. It is a slight argument in their favour, (1) that it would have been natural had there been other children borne by the mother of the Lord, that the fact should have been recorded by the Evangelists, as in the family narratives of the Old Testament (e.g., Genesis 5, 11; 1 Chronicles 1, 2), and that there is no record of any such birth in either of the two Gospels that give the book of the generations of Jesus; (2) that the tone of the brethren, their unbelief, their attempts to restrain Him, suggest the thought of their being elder brothers in some sense, rather than such as had been trained in reverential love for the first-born of the house; (3) that it is scarcely probable that our Lord should have committed His mother to the care of the disciple whom He loved (John 19:26) had she had children of her own, whose duty it was to protect and cherish her; (4) the absence of any later mention of the sisters at or after the time of the Crucifixion suggests the same conclusion, as falling in with the idea of the sisters and brethren being in some sense a distinct family, with divided interests; (5) lastly, though we enter here on the uncertain region of feeling, if we accept the narratives of the birth and infancy given by St. Matthew and St. Luke, it is at least conceivable that the mysterious awfulness of the work so committed to him may have led Joseph to rest in the task of loving guardianship which thus became at once the duty and the blessedness of the remainder of his life. On the whole, then, I incline to rest in the belief that the so-called brethren were cousins who, through some unrecorded circumstances, had been so far adopted into the household at Nazareth as to be known by the term of nearer relationship.
The motive which led the mother and the brethren to seek to speak to our Lord on this occasion lies on the surface of the narrative. Never before in His Galilean ministry had He stood out in such open antagonism to the scribes and Pharisees of Capernaum and Jerusalem. It became known that they had taken counsel with the followers of the tetrarch against His life. Was He not going too far in thus daring them to the uttermost? Was it not necessary to break in upon the discourse which was so keen and stinging in its reproofs? The tone of protest and, as it were, disclaimer in which He now speaks of this attempt to control and check His work, shows what their purpose was. His brethren, St. John reports, did not believe in Him (John 7:3-5)i.e., they did not receive Him as the Christ, perhaps not even as a prophet of the Lord.
Copyright Statement
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
Bibliography
Ellicott, Charles John. “Commentary on Matthew 12:46”. “Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers”. “https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/ebc/view.cgi?bk=mt&ch=12. 1905.
shamwow! LOL!
They were of age, or married (they married very young in those days) lived in another place, whatever.
I'd love to hear from our catholic friends their response to this question.
I would think it would be a simple yes or no reply.
They don't, some simple read the story and interpret is as written so that early, VERY UNEDUCATED people would understand what had happened, but in very simple terms that they could comprehend.....Nothing changes in that concept, it just describes in very simple terms, what may have been far more time consuming and complex.
And amen!
B. S,
Hexapla
Byzantine vs Alex/Vat/Sin corruptions
burning the Scriptures of Italics & Waldensians, etc. with them.
Take a break. You're tired. Your thinking is kind of fuzzy.
Lol
Uhhh. Mark 3:30 says" that was because they were saying, he has an unclean spirit.".....what does that have to do with anything in this discussion.
The truth is that the dogma of the perpetual virginity and immaculate conception (sinlessness of Mary) as well as her bodily assumption were declared as “divinely revealed” dogmas nearly two thousand years later because of the petitions and insistence of Catholics appealing to the Pope to make it official. Supposed apparitions of Mary as well as testimonies of certain “saints” were cited as the proof. For a Catholic to deny these dogmas would be a denial of “infallibility” and we know they can’t go there. They also cannot allow that such dogmas are optional for non-catholics because that would also be a denial of the necessity of Catholicism being the door by which people are granted salvation. Too much is riding on it.
Just a question....how did Luke know that this scenario happened??
The Holy Spirit's interpretation is clearly pointed out in Catholic teaching....and ONLY in Catholic teaching.
His communication is much more direct. He is a Living God.
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