The text mentioned did not mention Logos, or WORD. It just said he was the firstborn. This was my point.
As far as John goes, Jesus can do whatever he would like, agree? Nothing says it was a legal pronouncement.
And as far as Mary's other biological children- of course they are going to be half-brothers. Jesus was fully human though. He was also fully divine. So, his nature was different since He was God manifested in the flesh.
And the "notion" isn't "ridiculous". It's based on an understanding of the plain meaning of the text. Mary's perpetual virginity was a doctrine that came AFTER the canon was complete.
Your are treating Jesus as a Person separate from the Word!
As far as John goes, Jesus can do whatever he would like, agree?
He can but who was there to be the witness? Who among the Jews and the Romans would believe the allegations of a follower of a convicted criminal?
What children (such as +James of all people) would forsake their Mother and hand them to someone unrelated? Be real! There was no one at the foot of the Cross to vouch for that.
It's based on an understanding of the plain meaning of the text. Mary's perpetual virginity was a doctrine that came AFTER the canon was complete
Mary's perpetual virginity was a doctrine that came AFTER the canon was complete
The non-canonical Protoevangelium of James appeared about 150 AD. That is about 150 years before the Christian Canon was "complete" (and even then it wasn't fully complete).
As far as I know, the Church never rejected it outright, although it is not canonical.
If you take the first date, then the formulation of every major Christian doctrine--the divinity of the Son, the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the unity of Christ's Person, the duality of His natures, the need for grace (contra Pelagius), the inadmissibility of the apokatastasis (contra Origen), the perpetual virginity of the Theotokos, the duality of Christ's wills, the duality of Christ's energies, the defense of the reality of the Incarnation by permitting the depiction of Christ in the Holy Icons--are all 'after the canon was complete'. If you take the Orthodox understanding of when the Church fixed the canon, all of those doctines except the first three listed took place 'after' the canon was closed even in the later sense.
Besides the Proto-Evangelium of James, which, while not included in the canon of Scripture was never condemned as fraudulent or heretical by the Church as were the so-called 'Gospels' of the gnostics, there are patristic testimonies to Mary's perpetual virginity before its solemn declaration by the Fifth Ecumenical Council, and before the 'closing' of the canon of Scripture in the other sense--the conciliar decision as to which books constitute Scripture. St. Irenaeus of Lyons in the early third century, and St. Athanasius of Alexandria (whose letters also include the first extant list of the books of the New Testament without omissions or additions), both attest to Mary's perpetual virginity before the action of the Church which closed the canon.
There is a principle of Scriptural exegesis, which I though, was still well-established among protestants, that one ought not intepret one part of Scripture so as to be repugnant to another. Insisting that 'firstborn' implies subsequent births is repugnant to the sense of the Old Covenant law concerning firstborn children: the redeeming of the firstborn, who otherwise belonged to God, was not predicated on subseqent births.
Only if you add to the canon of Scripture the un-Scriptural notion that the Scriptures are a complete account of all that is true concerning Our Lord (do read the end of the Gospel of John), and that anything which cannot be proved by discursive human reason from the surface meaning of their text is false, can you reason validly to your conclusion. Of course, if you take that position, you have to explain how the Church, whose truthfulness and reliability in establishing doctrine you are disputing, managed to correctly collect your complete account. Do you claim the Holy Spirit left the Church between the Fourth and Fifth Ecumenical Councils? (or the Council of Carthage and the Fifth Ecumenical Council, if you like the Latin account of the fixing of the canon better than the Orthodox)? On what evidence?