Replies

and what if he didn’t? what actual difference would that make? and since we have no way of ever actually knowing, is arguing about it nothing but a pointless waste of time?

But we actually DO have a way of knowing. Scripture says that Jesus:

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:2-4)

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (II Cor. 5:21)

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, (Galatians 4:4)

rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. (Philippians 2:7)

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil-- (Hebrews 2:14)

For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. (Hebrews 2:17)

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

Unlike the imaginings of some church "fathers", Jesus took on normal human flesh, born as a baby is born, and not as some mysterious "light" that passed through Mary's birth canal without causing pain, bleeding or the loss of her "physical" virgin body state. Yes, she did NOT have sexual relations with anyone prior to the birth of Jesus - which fulfills the prophecy of the Messiah, who would be born of a virgin as a SIGN. But, there is no reason for Mary to have to have remained a virgin for the rest of her life. It is useless arguing over something that cannot be proved nor NEEDS to be.