Posted on 06/13/2011 3:57:07 PM PDT by HarleyD
Umm, might that be *half* brothers or sisters?
And give us the sola scriptura proof for biblical unitarian universalism...
unitarianism -- where no one's idea of God is better than another's...
Nice... the Unitarians keep la-di-dahing
interesting. We in The Church believe she was a teenagish girl, so she was alive only maybe 14-19 years "before Jesus showed up" as you so quaintly put it (though I'm not a woman, I'm sure any mother will argue that babies don't just "show up") -- that's what we Christians believe that she was a mortal young girl
now if you want to believe what you stated, ok, that's your choice of religion.
Very good questions. I believe the hope for early Christianity was that it would be very antinomian, per Galatians. It did not take long to see that the sinful nature was by no means crushed by the New Covenant, and some rules were necessary.
I would still say that circumcision of the heart is basic and the only needed requirement for salvation, and everything else is the rules of the organization, whether for preaching with authority or for membership.
My basis for that is simplicity of Christ’s own mandate that we must be born again, and the observation that the studious in every church group ignore things about their own denominations routinely.
The Holy Spirit will lead us into truth (in his own sweet time -- Mad Dawg gloss).
I like this.
I am gestating a meditation (as part of my famed Veritas series, soon to me a major motion picture) on Veritas et Fides. The image that I cannot escape is this. Take two tuning forks of the same pitch. Strike one. Soon the other will vibrate as well. The first is Truth (who is a person, not a proposition). The second is faith.
and the gift is (a) exogenous and (b)inexplicable (though not indescribable.) One just discovers a, what, an openness. And, if one is at all smart, one is grateful for it, and them TO Him who gave it.
But (papist tug at the sleeve coming up) that doesn't make one a teacher.
A pleasure to exchange thoughts with you this ridiculously humid day.
Nonsense. When the Bible mentions that Joseph did not "know" his wife, Mary until after such & such a time, it did not mean that they were getting a new introduction and shaking hands. Sorry people, the Virgin Mary was only the Virgin until after Jesus was born. Jesus was Mary's eldest son, but not Joseph's. I'm sure the Bible would have mentioned if Mary was a 2nd or 3rd wife.
It implies that her other children were NOT the eldest son. It was Jesus' position as the eldest in the Jewish home to take care of His mother. Most likely He had John do it because 1) John was a nephew of Mary's 2)Jesus' brothers, who thought Jesus a nut, had scattered to the four winds & did not yet believe in Him as the Christ -- see James and Jude; therefore, Jesus was not going to leave Mary's care to them. We don't know how much younger they were than Jesus, there could have been sisters in between.
You can't. It doesn't exist.
In fact, we know who the father of James and Joses are from Scripture; his name is Alphaeus (Matthew 10:3). We know also that James and Judas (not the Iscariot) were not really blood brothers, but father and son (Acts 1:13).
Those are facts we can actually establish from Scripture. The idea that James was the son of Mary the mother of Jesus, is not.
There were two James--James the brother of Jesus and James, the son of Alpheaus. Father & son, from whence did you get THAT fairytale?
No, it doesn't. It tells us that Jesus did not think them able to care for Mary, their mother. They could have been too young, too rash, too unbelieving. His brothers probably were miles away from the crucifixion. They came to belief late.
Take two tuning forks of the same pitch. Strike one. Soon the other will vibrate as well. The first is Truth (who is a person, not a proposition). The second is faith.
and the gift is (a) exogenous and (b)inexplicable (though not indescribable.) One just discovers a, what, an openness. And, if one is at all smart, one is grateful for it, and them TO Him who gave it.
_________________________________
Amen. That analogy brought tears to my eyes. I am appropriating it for evangelical purposes immediately. Thanks.
Um, I mean, of course, Deo gratias!
This was a traditional one where parents, grandparents etc. lived together and it was the duty of the FAMILY to take care of their widows etc.
Mary was a widow. Jesus Christ was her Son
If the eldest son dies, then the next older son has the responsibility to take care of the mother. If no sons then the next older daughter
But you do not now in Semitic societies nor especially then in Semitic societies give the responsibility to your friend if you have any other blood siblings
That is so against whatever a traditional Jew would have done, it is unthinkable for Christ, a true Jew to have done that.
Whether they were "rash or unbelieving" doesn't matter, they still have their responsibility and the eldest son can't "skip over" them.
They could not have been "too young" because Jesus was 33 and the coming of age was 13, so are you saying Jesus had teenage siblings?
You do realise that your line of thinking ultimately leads to the same false dichtomy as Dan Brown?
If an eldest son dies, the other children HAD to take care of their widowed mother -- check out even traditional societies like India today -- the same thing.
The Eldest Son takes care of the mother, then the next eldest son, etc. then the daughters -- in order. To bypass this is not something Jesus would do. Ergo, he had no other brothers or sister by Mary.
In a traditional society like that of Israel 2000 years ago, like the Semitic world today, the eldest son does not give the custody of the widowed mother to a stranger if there are younger brothers or sisters.
That is not done
Stop looking at things through the prism of today and see how a different culture in a different time did things
John Calvin (Sermon on Matthew)
"There have been certain folk who have wished to suggest from this passage [Matt 1:25] that the Virgin Mary had other children than the Son of God, and that Joseph had then dwelt with her later; but what folly this is! For the gospel writer did not wish to record what happened afterwards; he simply wished to make clear Joseph's obedience and to show also that Joseph had been well and truly assured that it was God who had sent His angel to Mary. He had therefore never dwelt with her nor had he shared her company... And besides this Our Lord Jesus Christ is called the first born. This is not because there was a second or a third, but because the gospel writer is paying regard to precedence. Scripture speaks thus of naming the first-born whether or not there was any question of the second."Now that's one thing I can agree with Calvin about....
Even Spanish is a relatively simplified language, compared to the Greek or Aramaic or Hebrew -- English for instance does not have cases such as Gentive, Nominative, Dative, Locative, Instrumental, Vocative or Accusative and does not have gender assigned to inanimate objects
brother has shades of meaning because Aramaic and other Semitic languages do not differentiate between a blood brother/sister and a cousin or other
For example
The NT was written in Greek, ok -- not all, but let's take your argument for the sake of argument. Remember also that the words of Jesus were mostly Aramaic or Hebrew or maybe even GReek -- we've already shown that in SEmitic languages like Aramaic/hebrew there is no differntiating term between a blood brother and a cousin, let's examine the GReek ouch outos estin o tekton o uios Marias adelphos de Iakobou Iose kai Iouda kai Simonos
If the term is that the adelphoi have the same mother then it would be ho adelphos But that is not used. Without the article adelphos is non-specific and non-exclusive and can mean kinsmen, relatives
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.