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All well and good, except neither deviation from the Biblical account is creditable. The liberal theologian who wants to prove Jesus was married has no foundation in the text of Scripture. Instead, he must build a house of cards out of extra-Biblical speculation then read that back into the text. Likewise, the "perpetual virginist" has made a commitment to an extra-Biblical speculation concerning Mary that the text does not support, and so must attempt to force-fit that back into the text. It is those two who truly share the same modus operandi, not the straightforward reader of the text, who only wishes to find out what it says.

The one who wants to believe Jesus was married is not very different from the one who wants to believe Mary had children after Jesus. They have both rejected the centuries of teaching by the one holy catholic apostolic church and chosen a different version of both Jesus and Mary, all the while regarding it as biblical. They both hold to nonOrthodox theories and theologies.

I for one have no prior commitment to how many children Mary had after Jesus, or whether she and Joseph had a normal sexual relationship after Jesus was born. My expectation would be that God has blessed marriage as one of the supremely good things ever done in all creation, and so I would expect a godly couple to live with all the joys and blessings of married life, including a normal, healthy sexual relationship, leading to children, as it typically does.

You repeat the modern argument for Jesus being married with children, namely the expectation would be that God has blessed marriage as one of the supremely good things ever done in all creation. One could add he was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

But if Scripture had gone against those expectations, and actually taught that Joseph and Mary were celibate after Jesus' birth, I would accept that as truth. Likewise, if Scripture had taught that Jesus had gone full cultural rabbi and married someone, while that would have been very difficult to understand theologically, I would have to accept it as true. God's word is the measure of truth. Not my expectations.

Yet you interpret the scriptures according to yourself. You are are your own pope, as it were.

Happily, Scripture supports neither of those deviations from the plain text. The ordinary sense of "adelphos" is brother, and when Luke the Gentile uses it,

Now that is funny. Where does the scripture say Luke is "the Gentile?"

he is using it because that's the word a native Greek-speaking Gentile would use for "brother," a "physical sibling." As for Jesus being married, the speculation is based on an incomplete representation of rabbinic culture, where one discovers, on closer examination, there are clear examples of respected rabbis who never were married.

Can you name a single rabbi from the scriptures who never was married ? Can you name a single Jewish man in the scriptures, other than someone who was a captive or died an untimely death, who was never married ?

So I am compelled to reject your analysis.

I was not expecting you to publicly embrace a Catholic teaching on FR. It would utterly demoralize your disciples for one thing.

Your effort to equate faithful translation

Are you working on a translation of the Bible ?

to wildly errant liberal speculation is nonsensical. Without discipline in translation, Scripture could be made to say anything, as this thread amply demonstrates. Nevertheless, you are free to believe as you wish. Oh, but I am not; I accept the teaching of the one holy catholic apostolic church. I am not my own pope at all.