Definitely the perpetual virginity of Mary is a good example of Tradition augmenting Scripture. But it does not void the Scripture, because the reading of "brethren" as kinsfolk is possible, and as InterestedQuestioner's analysis showed, necessary, unless you want to believe in two blood sisters both called Mary and both naming their children Joseph and James, and all that confusingly named crew is described by the evangelist without a slightest attempt to disambiguate them. But you are correct that there is no clear self-interpreting scripture to indicate her perpetual virginity; it is positivly known from tradition, and declared dogmatic based on that evidence.
I did read [2982] and responded.
My point was to demostrate that my (or InterestedQuestioner's) argument was by logic and reason, not my declaration. That was to counter your claim that the Church merely declares her dogma in contradiction to the scripture. InterestedQuestioner has not been posting for a while, but we stayed in touch. If he does not get back to you, I'll give your questions a try myself; at the time it looked like they were addressed to him, and you did not really have an argument for me.
what word do they use in passages like Matt. 4:18-22?
It is "adelphos", of course. Where the scripture says something about Christ's "brothers" it could be read as direct brothers, if all you do is look at that particular scripture. If you look around for other scripture where these "brothers" are named, you would see that they are most likely cousins and children of Mary Clopas. And if you combine that analysis with the memory of the Church that describes Mary finishing her days under the care of John and Peter, in the company of nuns who she taught chastity, you reach the same conclusion the Church has always taught, that she honored her childhood vows of virginity all her life.
I know of no civilization that put so little importance on the nuclear family, and close blood ties
I believe Kosta replied to that. In addition, even in American culture there are situations when we use "brother" expansively. For example, given the frequency of reconstituted families after a divorce, note how often "brother" means really "half-brother" in modern American usage. Just as the expansive usage of "brother" common in the East seems lacking in recognition of direct brothers to you, the pedantic "This is John my brother, and Jake my half brother from mom's first marriage, and Jim my half brother from dad's first marriage" that you apparently would insist upon in modern America sounds innecessarily offputting to many today.
Note, too, that the Hebrew naming conventions include a form of patronymic, so at least the father is indicated by the full name (e.g. Simon bar-Jonas).
I don't see how [2 Thess 2:14] says I should trust the Church over and above scripture, as you suggest. Paul says to follow everything he taught them both orally and in writing.
What Paul says is that the Tradition as a whole is to be "held fast", whether written or oral. It is not the question of superiority of the tradition, but of its completeness.
Don't you think there would have been a geometric progression into further error without the scripture?
There would be more heresy, yes. But we have the promise of Christ that the Church will prevail and that Christ is with Peter when he teaches others (Matthew 16:18, Luke 22:32). So the Church would prevail even without the scripture, as the scripture itself tells us.
If Mary had taken a childhood vow of virginity for all her life, then why in the universe would she have agreed to become betrothed? As you well know, this was before the angel appeared to her. In fact, as I think about it, if she entered into a betrothal with the full intention of remaining a virgin, then she would have been guilty of the sin of fraud.
For example, given the frequency of reconstituted families after a divorce, note how often "brother" means really "half-brother" in modern American usage. Just as the expansive usage of "brother" common in the East seems lacking in recognition of direct brothers to you, the pedantic "This is John my brother, and Jake my half brother from mom's first marriage, and Jim my half brother from dad's first marriage" that you apparently would insist upon in modern America sounds unnecessarily offputting to many today.
Well, the term "half-brother" is no problem to me because that is exactly the relationship I claim between Jesus and his "siblings". There is still common blood. If I had one, I would think of my half-brother as just "my brother". The interesting relationship in today's world is step-siblings. (I actually expected that to come up as an explanation from someone, but it didn't.) I don't have any step-siblings either, but I would guess that in most cases, the connection would be less than that of a blood relative. It is my impression that blood connections were extremely important in those days, as they are today.
[Re: the world without scripture] There would be more heresy, yes. But we have the promise of Christ that the Church will prevail and that Christ is with Peter when he teaches others (Matthew 16:18, Luke 22:32). So the Church would prevail even without the scripture, as the scripture itself tells us.
There have been comments saying that the Bible was compiled for the reason of thwarting heretical sects such as Gnosticism. How would you define "prevail" without scripture? Today, and if scripture never existed, do you think that global Church membership would be somewhat less, or drastically less? I would guess the latter for any faith that believed in scripture.