Posted on 10/06/2010 7:56:37 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Overall, Catholics liked the movie "The Nativity" but had several problems with it. For one thing they changed Scripture during the closing of the movie. On the screen they flashed the Bible passage from Luke 1:46-54. But they left out the words "for me" from middle of the sentence "The Lord has done great things for me, and Holy is his name." I don't think they should have taken that out of the Word of God, without using any elypses to show they skipped it. Another issue with the movie is they showed Mary screaming and pushing in pain as she gave birth to Jesus.
The Early Church Fathers are almost unanimous in the assertion that the birth was painless and had no loss of Mary's virginal integrity during the birth. In other words, her Hymen didn't break. St. Augustine said "Jesus passed through the womb of Mary as a ray of sun passes through glass." Pope Martin in 649 AD defined the doctrine that Mary:
I do not think that anyone says that Jesus's sinlessness was hereditary or that God "could not" (though when one discusses a once in all of history event, it's hard to distinguish between what God COULD have done and what He DID do) have produced His incarnate Son from a fallen woman -- or out of clay.
This is by no means authoritative, but my impression is that the language used is "fitting." If one believes it, (as I do, leaving the whole hymen issue out of it) then it is just plain "nice" that the 9 month long "ark" which bore the Word was as morally and spiritually beautiful as the ark which bore the Torah was physically and sensibly beautiful.
I don't think "need" really enters into it.
BTW, bless you for your gentle inquiries. I hope my replies are half as gentle.
The only possible sense I can make of this is that it suggests that the notion of Mary's sinlessness is older than we thought and that the problem presented itself to the proto-scholastic mind: If the pain of childbirth is part of the curse on Adam and Eve, then might not Mary be spared the pain?
But I bow out of the conversation when it gets to the plumbing.
Ah.
You see, we Catholics do not thing that words are EITHER Scripture OR 'words of men.' We take from the letter written after the conference in Jerusalem and from other NT writings that God cares for His Church enough to keep it from totally messing up. It comes pretty close, as Peter himself did, even after Pentecost, but while it rocks back and forth it never quite goes off the rails and over the cliff, in our view.
Consequently we believe that the Church has the authority to teach teachings like this one.
That's one reason I do not argue so much FOR this teaching (and others like it) but content myself with dealing with some of the challenges to it -- because I know most non-Catholics do not agree with us about the authority of the Church.
Can't she? There seem to me to be parts of labor which are not painful but are still 'work' (= travail).
I think it's those things if we envision God the way the Greeks envision Zeus, and assume that there was some analogue of sexual intercourse involved.
But if God just, so to speak, "starts up" an ovum and supplies it with the necessary genes to make up the full count, no intercourse is necessary. We're not saying that God has sperm or that it reached the ovum in the usual way.
It's hard to imagine how common sense would apply when we are talking about a once in the history of the Universe event.
While sex is a created good (fer shur!) it also involves lots of neediness, I think, most of the time. Here is a person who had great faith, evidently -- or why else would she be described as 'full of grace' -- who is in the most intimate possible contact with God the Son of God for 9 months.
If merely touching the fringe of His tunic could heal, if cloths touched to the apostles could heal, can we really imagine that so long, so intimate, and so faithful a contact would not change Mary -- at least enough to take her beyond the expectations of "common sense"?
Clearly my mother OD’d on Aristotle when she was carrying me.
;-)
I was not thinking of “efficient” cause, of how sin is transmitted.
I was thinking more of what man (and man’s nature) is. The best I can do is that man was not made a sinner, but since the Fall we have not seen man in his uncorrupted nature. It’s a kind of counter-empirical view. We see men, but the true nature of man, which we never see embodied anymore, is not what we see. We see men who are defective.
If the space critters from the planet No’rf infected us with a virus which corrupted the genome so that, ever after humans were born with one leg two inches longer than the other, every man we say would limp, but the limp would not be ‘natural’ to man. Sort of kind of a little maybe like that.
LOL.
BECAUSE, DEAR BRO . . .
you’re one of the few voices of sanity amongst the RC’s hereon . . .
and this thread desperately NEEDS
all the sanity in the RC camp it can beg, borrow or steal!
Things are tough all around. You drew the short straw.
I’d be happy if you just responded to my post about the ossaury of James, the blood brother of Jesus.
Seems to me the experts dealt with such considerations effectively enough.
Thanks for your kind reply.
The Bible specifically states and names the brothers of Jesus, and mentions, but doesn’t name, sisters as well.
INDEED.
INDEED.
And the nonsense about . . . as though through the closed door . . .
is such an absurd groping . . .
talk about sky scrapers on toothpick slivers for a foundation. Sheesh.
What a bunch of nonsense.
Scripture clearly says the carpenter’s son, whose mother is Mary.
What’s with the Catholic obsession that Mary had to be perpetually a virgin? Why was it necessary?
Once the Scripture was fulfilled that a virgin would conceive and bear a son, there was no need for her to remain a virgin.
WHY is it so important to Catholic to teach and believe that Mary was always virgin? How does that affect Jesus ministry here on earth? How does that affect the plan of redemption and salvation through faith in Christ alone?
Mary’s continued virginity, or lack thereof, is totally irrelevant to what Jesus came to earth to do, and that is purchase forgiveness through the shedding of His blood and His death on the cross.
What does Mary and Joseph’s sex life have to do with that?
Answer—sociologically . . . politically—it was a very clever plot hatched in hell
to draw the masses ever more tightly under the control of the magicsterical bureaucratic power-mongers and their dogma generating monopoloy on the souls, hearts and minds of the sheeple.
So you think that Mary's permanent virginity makes for a nice story, regardless of what scripture says...And then you guys push this fairy tale as 'truth'...
Thanks for this thread, Alex.
They who bow down to idols become like them.
All due respect. For crying out loud. History is silent on these nephews and nieces. It seems to me that they would have been celebrated as being so close as to an uncle Jesus. This does not really wash. How could all these offspring be lost to history.
They would have been priests and bishops(elders) according to them being married believers with even more famous offspring. A huge Holy Brood. All over on record written about.
IMHO = It does not sound right. Just Saying my Brother. There are many avenues to go down with this assumption( He had Brothers). It was accepted(No natural Brothers) from the beginning on record with the early church fathers letters. The Article is not clear cut with all the equations of history. Sometimes I have seen things propped up on both sides of this issue by catholics and protestants. Also sometimes good points on both sides. In this case I do not buy it. I do not mean you but the writer of the article. Praise Jesus!
Translating the inscription was the easy part. Tying the ossuary to Jesus of Nazareth was much more difficult. Scientists at the Geological Institute of Israel examined the box, which is made of Jerusalem limestone, and judged it to be about 2,000 years old. The inscription is written in Aramaic, in a form that further narrows the possible time frame.
“The script is very important for the date because the Aramaic script changed over time in ways we could measure,” said P. Kyle McCarter, a paleographer at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. “It’s the most important criterion for dating this object, and the script is consistent with a date in the middle of the first century A.D.”
The fact that the box is very plain, apart from the beautiful script, is not surprising, according to experts. “Highly decorated boxes are the ones that are unusual,”said McCarter. Andre Lemaire asserted that extensive study of several hundred ossuaries found in Jerusalem has shown no connection whatsoever between the ornateness of the design and the importance of the person whose bones they contained.
The lack of knowledge about where the ossuary came from is worrisome but not unusual, the experts say. “It means there will always be doubts about the thing,” said McCarter. “They’ve applied every possible test to it to determine its character and authenticity, but there will always be a cloud over it and there will always be those who doubt because it wasn’t recovered in a legitimate archaeological dig.” He added, “But this is not an unusual situation. We get this a lot.”
Whether Jesus was the son of God is a theological problem, said Lemaire. But historians don’t doubt the existence of either James or Jesus; both are mentioned frequently in early historical accounts.
Following the death of Jesus in 29 A.D., James assumed leadership of the Christian church in Jerusalem until he himself was martyred in 62 A.D. According to biblical accounts, he was one of the first apostles to see Jesus after his resurrection.
He is referred to as the brother of Jesus in both the Bible and in contemporary historical accounts. In Matthew 13:55-56, for instance, Jesus is said to have four brothers and two sisters. But the exact nature of these relationships -- whether they were full siblings by blood, half siblings, or cousins -- has been open to interpretation.
“If you're Catholic, you think they’re cousins because the perpetual virginity of Mary is official church doctrine,’ said Witherington. ‘But there are a lot of problems in the historical record with that.
When James is referred to as the ‘brother of our lord’ in the New Testament, the word used means ‘blood brother. It would have to be qualified in context to mean something different.”
b> Declared Witherington, “The ossuary gives us another piece of evidence outside the Bible that these are blood brothers and sisters of Jesus.” He points out that Aramaic word used for “brother” on the ossuary, akhui, certainly means “brother,” and not a more distant relative. The language confirms that James was a blood relation to both Jesus and Joseph. It is not commenting on Jesus’ relationship with Joseph but on James’relationship to both Joseph and Jesus. James in the Bible
Was James a half-brother of Jesus? We read the clear evidence in the gospel of Matthew: “When He had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers, James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us?”
(Matt.13:54-56).
The apostle Paul points out that after His resurrection, Christ was seen by Peter, then by the twelve apostles, followed by 500 brethren at once, and then James, his brother
(I Cor.15:1-8).
James is mentioned as one of the chief “pillars” of the Church at Jerusalem – the headquarters Church – during the first century. Paul says that when he himself was converted, he went up to Jerusalem “to see Peter, and remained with him fifteen days.
But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord’s brother” (Gal.1:18).
Later, when a great controversy arose in the Church regarding circumcision, Paul again went up to Jerusalem to present his case before the leadership there. He relates, “And when James, Cephas (Peter), and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcision” (Gal.2:9). Note that 8
James is mentioned first in the passage, indicating that he was most likely the chief apostle or “first among equals.” James’ vital role in the Jerusalem church is revealed in Acts 15, where we read of the church council debate over the question of circumcision. Certain Pharisees presented their claim that Gentile believers had to be circumcised to enter the church, and Paul presented his case that circumcision was not necessary. After hearing both sides of the question, the apostles and elders heard Peter confirm that the Holy Spirit had been given to Gentiles without the need of circumcision when God used him to open the gospel to the Gentiles. Then James made the final decision, saying, “Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those who from among the Gentiles are turning to God” (Acts 15:1-19). He was evidently the head of the Jerusalem church at that time.
When Paul returned to visit Jerusalem in about 58 A.D., Luke his biographer mentions, “And when we had come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. On the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present” (Acts 21:17-18). It is clear from the context that James was the leading figure in the Jerusalem church at the time. James’ apostleship is also attested to by the epistle he wrote “to the twelve tribes scattered abroad” (James 1:1). Early church history tells us more about James. James in Church History Josephus in Antiquity of the Jews tells us about James, a very important figure in the early church. He relates how a young and bad-tempered Ananus took the high priesthood, being a Sadducee. He assembled the Sanhedrin of the judges, and “brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others [or some of his companions] and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa] desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified” (bk.20, chap.9, 1).
Agrippa removed him from being high priest after only three months – but by then the damage was done. The date for the death of James, is dated by Josephus to 62 A.D., when the high priest Ananus briefly held office.
The early church historian Eusebius tells us more of the story of James’ death.
Quoting Hegesippus, who lived in the generation after the apostles, he writes that after the death of Peter and Paul:
“[Administration of] the church passed to James, the brother of the Lord, along with the apostles. He was called ‘the Just’ by everyone from the Lord’s time to ours, since there were many Jameses, but this one was consecrated from his mother’s womb. He drank no wine or liquor and ate no meat. No razor came near his head . . . . He used to enter the temple alone and was often found kneeling and imploring forgiveness for the people, so that his knees became hard like a camel’s from his continual kneeling in worship of God and in prayer for the people. Because of his superior righteousness he was called the Just and Oblias – meaning, in Greek, ‘Bulwark of the People’ and ‘Righteousness’ – as the prophets Declare regarding him.
“Representatives of the seven sects among the [Jewish] people, which I previously described (in the Memoirs), asked him what ‘the door of Jesus’ meant, and he replied that he was the Savior. Because of this, some believed that Jesus was the Christ. The sects mentioned above did not believe in a resurrection or in One who is coming to reward each according to his deeds, but those who did believe did so because of James. Now, since many even of the rulers believed, there was an uproar among the Jews, scribes, and Pharisees saying that the whole populace was in danger of expecting Jesus as the Christ. So they assembled and said to James:
‘We call on you to restrain the people, since they have gone astray after Jesus, believing him to be the Christ. We call on you to persuade all who come for the Passover concerning Jesus, since all of us trust you. We and the entire population can vouch for the fact that you are righteous and take no one at face value. . .
“So the scribes and Pharisees made James stand on the temple parapet, and they shouted to him, ‘O righteous one, whom we all ought to believe, since the people are going astray after Jesus who was crucified, tell us, what does ‘the door of Jesus’ mean?’ He replied with a loud voice, ‘Why do you ask me about the Son of Man? He is sitting in heaven at the right hand of the Great Power, and he will come on the clouds of heaven.’ Many were convinced and rejoiced at James’ testimony, crying, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David.’ Then the scribes and Pharisees said to each other, ‘We made a bad mistake in providing such testimony to Jesus, but let us go up and throw him down so that they will be afraid and not believe him.’ And they cried out, ‘Oh, oh, even the just one has gone astray!’ This fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘Let us remove the just man, for he is unprofitable to us. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their works.’
“So they went up and threw down the righteous one. Then they said to each other, ‘Let us stone James the Just,’ and they began to stone him, since the fall had not killed him. But he turned and knelt down, saying, ‘I implore you, O Lord, God and Father, forgive them: they do not know what they are doing.’ While they were pelting him with stones, one of the priests among the sons of the Rechabites, to whom the prophet Jeremiah bore witness, cried out, ‘Stop! What are you doing? The righteous one is praying for you.’ Then one of them, a laundryman, took the club that he used to beat out clothes and hit the Just on the head. Such was his martyrdom. They buried him on the spot by the temple, and his gravestone is still there by the temple. He became a true witness to both Jews and Gentiles that Jesus is the Christ” (Eusebius, The Church History: A New Translation with Commentary, p.82-83).
Eusebius declared, “Just after this Vespacian began to besiege them.”
Eusebius points out that this account by Hegesippus is in full agreement with that of Clement, and that so extraordinary was James the Just that “even the more intelligent of the Jews thought that this was why the siege of Jerusalem immediately followed his martyrdom” (page 83). Josephus, the first century Jewish historian and a general in the Jewish army in the war of 70 A.D., likewise wrote: “These things happened to the Jews as retribution for James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus who was called Christ, for the Jews killed him despite his great righteousness” (ibid.). This quotation is not found in an extant copy of Josephus, but is cited by Origen, showing Eusebius did not fraudulently manufacture the story out of thin cloth.
So What?
Non-believers may ho hum and yawn, and question the amazing discover of the bone box of James, the brother of Jesus, son of Joseph, with a “ho hum” attitude, and exclaim, “What difference does it make? So what?” “Who cares?”
The significance of this discovery, however, goes far to establish the historicity of the New Testament record, its authenticity, and reliability. No longer can critics and skeptics ridicule, ignore, and easily dismiss the New Testament account of the life of Christ and the history of the early Church.
The discovery is without parallel. It is truly the “biggest” archaeological discovery of the century – perhaps in all Biblical archaeology! Once again the faith of believers in the Holy Scriptures stands confirmed, as founded on truth. So isn’t it about time we brush off our Bibles, and study them with rekindled, renewed interest, fervor, and enthusiasm – with renewed zeal and dedication? This same Jesus, whose very existence is attested to by the inscription on the burial box of His brother James, is soon going to come again! We will all have to give account to Him when He comes!
Quixicated emphases.
Perhaps you won’t buy the one just above . . .
either
That will have to be . . . between you . . . and the Lord at some point.
I believe His Spirit can enlighten where there’s an openness for HIM to do so.
Only if church heirarchy were awarded according to bloodline, and not according to faithfulness, creed, and witness.
Only if church heirarchy were awarded according to bloodline, and not according to faithfulness, creed, and witness.
INDEED.
Though that’s more of a NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH REALITY perspective
. . .
than that of the very conditioned perspective of a tyrannical bureaucratic led clique of self-serving power-mongers that tends to fantasize that reality is only that which is seen through the weave of their white hankys.
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