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.
When was the turkey baster invented?
Nice try; but the jury has ALREADY SEEN the evidence to rebut your undocumented claim here.
"One indeed is the universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved, in which the priest himself is the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine; the bread (changed) into His body by the divine power of transubstantiation, and the wine into the blood, so that to accomplish the mystery of unity we ourselves receive from His (nature) what He Himself received from ours."
--Pope Innocent III and Lateran Council IV (A.D. 1215)
Therefore, if anyone says that it is not by the institution of Christ the lord himself (that is to say, by divine law) that blessed Peter should have perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole Church; or that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in this primacy: let him be anathema.
--Vatican 1, Ses. 4, Cp. 1
Is LookOverThere! the ONLY game you've mastered?
Baghdad Bob, Jr. really doesn't care at all how much time you are wasting here; for...
Baghdad Bob, Jr. really doesn't care at all how much time you are wasting here; for...
I had thought you guys had given up on this one; as it's been SO long gone.
I think that early Catholics are MUCH more interesting in their accurate theology leanings.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+1-3&version=DRA
Preach it.
Ol' Pete WARNED them; but NO!.....
1 Peter 1:18
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your Early_Church_Fathers;
And yet you Catholics slavishly follow what Rome tells you; instead of listening to the words of our Savior found in the BOOK that Rome assembled.
Strange...
John 6:28-29
Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
MODERN???
Cesarean section has been part of human culture since ancient times and there are tales in both Western and non-Western
cultures of this procedure resulting in live mothers and offspring.
According to Greek mythology Apollo removed Asclepius, founder of the famous cult of religious medicine,
from his mother's abdomen. Numerous references to cesarean section appear in ancient Hindu, Egyptian, Grecian, Roman,
and other European folklore. Ancient Chinese etchings depict the procedure on apparently living women.
The Mischnagoth and Talmud prohibited primogeniture when twins were born by cesarean section and waived
the purification rituals for women delivered by surgery.
Sorry; but evidence has already given give that shows your statement to be incorrect.
Why are today's Catholics STILL so UNEDUCATED and ignorant?
It is MORE than made up for by being so relentless.
Grasp at a straw...
Shouldn't you be asking Luke?
Instead of trying to get a Prot to mindread him?
Sure; Baghdad Bob clone #3.
You are right.
Oh?
Never watched Sex sent me to the ER on cable?
IIRC, disagreeing with the CHURCH in this period could be quite detrimental to one's continued existence during this time.
Another Catholic invention. Pointed out for the sake of clarity.
I am willfully and obstinately disobedient to Rome's teaching on a LOT of things.
How well does THIS sit with the One True Church?
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