But you make an interesting point on deriving Concept-(ions) from Scripture, to the point of removing a personal doubt.
I’m curious why you would except the Trinity concept the Church has hammered out-
but refuse to ignore the very obvious scriptural typology pointing to The Blessed Virgin Mary being the Ark of the Covenant then?
There are multiple scriptural points that align perfectly with the Blessed Virgin as the NEW Ark of the Covenant.
Now I understand you can write that off as literary, scriptural convention… but where does that process end, when interpreting scripture?
How do you choose to accept, or deny,
what is produced by this fundamentally extra-Biblical interpretive process to begin with?
Who decides?
Or do we just invent another Bible Translation?
The problem you all Catholics have is that the concept of the perpetual virginity of Mary, along with the Immaculate Conception, is that neither are even alluded to in any way in Scripture. It is an extra Biblical man inspired fabrication about her that has no bearing on Jesus, His divinity, His atoning death, or our salvation.
Well, speaking solely for this sinful Catholic- yes, I do have a lot of problems. But the Imaculate Concept –ion… or perpetual virginity aint two of them. The issue is that we look at it differently. The idea that Gabriel went looking for a corrupt sinful Jewish girl to have Christ impregnated in her, so he can bring about Salvation to the world is Sunday School stuff. If your need is to accept that then that’s just fine. A deeper theology can’t abide with that simplistic understanding.
Kecharitomene.
A deep dive into the Greek (which I cannot do) which has been done by scholars on this word in Luke, as the Angel addresses The Full of Grace Nature, of the Virgin Mary. Push back all you want, and must, but BEFORE Mary is told she will conceive- she is told she is Full of Grace!- and actually even more – She's being told Who she IS, Her name !
So when did this happen?
At what age did she, as others in the Bible, became full of Grace?
We have to say, we don’t know… and since we don’t know…
we very well can’t say though…
“We don’t know how this happened, but it certainly couldn't have happened upon Mary’s concept- tion.”
That's a guess.
But Not for those who believe she was Given the Grace of God
to protect her from the stain of sin from her beginning.
The root Greek verb used here, charitoo is also used to describe Christ full of Grace in John 1:14- and Stephen in Acts the same way before he is killed.
The commonality of the usage of this verb, in scripture,
is to be “sanctified with Grace”.
So we can know, from the Bible,
Mary has been given the Gift of Grace.
And to be FULL of Grace means that there is no room for sin.
Hopefully you can agree with that-
as that is the same way Christ is described in John 1:14.
Now Luke, he uses the "Kecharitome" word- a one-off word ! - >br>Found NO WHERE ELSE in the Bible-
And ONLY ONCE in the bible as this title being given to Mary-
not as a verb or adjective… but as noun.
(You thought HandMaid of the Lord was something…)
Gabriel addresses Mary in this very specific way...
(And not just Hello Mary !)
HAIL Kecharitomene !
Her title it would seem,
as Gabriel announces, is - “ THE One full of Grace”
She is full of Grace- and was from the beginning of time when Christ chose her to be his Mother.
Why would God choose a corrupt, sinful woman to bring him into this world
- if he didnt have to?
And Mary was no average Jewish girl picked out of a line…
She was prepared from the beginning to be a pure vessel –
give the gift of being Full of Grace from her beginning.
Its all there in Scripture- in the Greek –
and I am saying to you if you can find a way to glean the Trinitarian formula out of scripture-
which you DO believe in- though NOT universally agreed on as shown-
you should try to extend some consistency here as well.
How can anyone deny that God had a special purpose for Mary-
for this one woman-
A woman God promised to keep and protect the Woman,
from the sinful, staining enmity of the Devil-
to have the Prophets speak of her as royalty
and to then still, NOT make for this Holy Virgin- the Purest Mother ever born?
Why, you say because All… “ALL have sinned, and fallen short”?
That's the sum total of a rebuttal...?
Well, ALL would have to include Jesus then- no exceptions...
Well, Jesus didn’t sin, so not All have sinned.
So much for All.
Literal Greek rendering of the announcement by Gabriel.
Luke 1:26–33 (WUESTNT):
“And having come to her, he said, Be rejoicing because you have been encompassed with favor. The Lord is with you.”
No capitalization. No title.
And this for our edification…
Luke 1:28 (TCENB):
“The fact that Gabriel’s greeting was customary: Greetings! (Gr. chaire, or Hail!). Mary was highly favored (Gr. kecharitomene) because God chose to bestow special grace (favor, Gr. charis) on her (cf. Eph. 1:6, the only other New Testament occurrence of kecharitomene).”
“She would be the mother of the Messiah, which was an honor that most Jewish mothers prayed would be theirs. God gave this honor to Mary without any special merit of her own (cf. v. 47). Roman Catholic commentators dispute this point, but competent scholars have refuted their arguments.”
As does EVEryONE who reads Scripture or the Catechism.
There is no way to avoid someone's own personal interpretation of any of it.
Even if you agree with it wholly and accept what others have decreed for you, then you have decided, made a judgment, that they are correct and so adopted it as your own.
I already posted the Greek about the use of the word blessed in regard to Mary and how it is also applied to ALL believers.
Not only that, if Jesus could not have been born of a corrupt, sinful woman, what about Mary? How could, or why would God do that for her but not Jesus? It makes no sense that God could not have done for Jesus what you all claim He did for Mary.
And again, Jesus is not so fragile that He could not have handled being gestated for nine months in a normal, and sinful, human woman.
If your Jesus can't handle that kind of contact, then you all need a stronger Jesus. Your Jesus doesn't amount to much if He cannot handle sin and exposure to it.
Nobody is denying God has a special purpose for Mary. God has a special purpose for each and every one of us.
But we know better than exalting others above measure and becoming respecters of persons, which is a sin.
And the claims made about Mary, her alleged immaculate conception and perpetual virginity, and her alleged sinlessness, are completely baseless and have NO support from Scripture.
Romans 3:21-25 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.
If you take issue with that, talk to the Holy Spirit about it. Tell HIM He screwed up in inspiring Scripture.
Golly! Iffn you are gonna be that way; then I haven't sinned either:
Genesis 3:22And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.