The point is that the Temple had given the young Mary to Joseph so as to protect her virginity. (by the way, Joseph was NOT rich, if you read the Protoevangelium, Mary's FATHER was "exceedingly rich" in the very first sentence). Mary was given to Joseph by lot. So who would have had sex with Mary, but an adulterer who was exceedingly wicked, knowing the history of Mary's virginity and being brought up in the Temple, and then given to Joseph to protect.
The scriptures say that Jesus had named brothers, sisters, a named mother, and a father, all within two verses
Without a further extensive re-visitation, Hebrew does not have a word for "cousin". ONLY one person is said to be the child of Mary. The Protoevangelium calls these other children of Joseph BEFORE Mary was given to Joseph by the Temple priests. The Scripture does NOT claim that Joseph and Mary had sex...
How many young women do you suppose expected angels to appear before them announcing a coming birth? Even if Mary was intimately familiar with scriptures she would know this was not an every day occurrence. I find it absolutely incredible that she would have reacted matter-of-factly. You don't appear to accept that the passage says she was afraid. I would have been too!
I have no doubts she was afraid. But really, "how can this be" is not the answer one would give IF someone was intending on having sexual relationships soon...
If the Bible said anywhere that Mary was ever-virgin that would be fine with me
The Bible doesn't make a claim in either direction, so why argue against it? Oh, yea, because Catholics say it was so...
However, I am always interested in learning more examples of when the words of scripture are suppressed in favor of a Traditional position
Suppressed? What verse is suppressed as a result of saying Mary was ever-virgin? The explanation given are perfectly acceptable, ancient, and do not damage the Scriptures. You want something damaging to Scriptures? How about Sola Scriptura? How deep have you tried to twist that one, but yet produced nothing? Not a single bit of evidence...
Regards
I fully agree that Joseph was not rich. That is shown by the sacrifice of the doves after Jesus is born. And the Protoevangelium does indeed say that Mary's family was wealthy. I was alluding to the arguments of some others here that one reason for the marriage was so that Joseph could take care of Mary financially. If anything, the opposite would have been true. BTW, if Joseph was so old, (too old to have sex, apparently ) what was Mary supposed to do to protect her virginity after he died? It doesn't seem like much of a plan to me if he already had one foot in the grave.
What verse is suppressed as a result of saying Mary was ever-virgin? The explanation given are perfectly acceptable, ancient, and do not damage the Scriptures.
The same ones we are talking about in Matt. 13. Those verses are destroyed in their meaning in order to support the Protoevangelium, a work judged unworthy of inclusion in the Bible. The Protoevangelium and the text of the scripture CANNOT both be true, therefore one side must be suppressed. As is always the case, the Bible takes a back seat to Tradition. Not only that, this suppression also throws into potential doubt the authorship of up to two books in the NT, James and Jude. So this is no small matter to protect an extra-scriptural work.