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LittleSoldier
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I second this request.All historians you have read?
How many is that? Could you please cite all their names and online resources so we can verify that all of them claim that Mary had other children?
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Anna_Scott
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Anna_Scott
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LittleSoldier
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Darn. And another one bites the dust! I’m sorry about that but he (she?) helped me in a way because now I know about Fr. Meier - a Catholic priest (a monsignor actually) and I want to find out if what the poster said about Meier is true. I’ve also found some other names (Pelikan is the one that sticks in my mind - I bet he got beat up a lot when he was growing up!) that were never mentioned by the poster. Just Meier and statements about how there were others. Others.
Is a Catholic priest, who is so well-known that a google search turned up many references, teaching that Jesus had actual physical full siblings? Is the teaching of Jesus NOT having siblings Catholic doctrine or dogma?
These are things I need to know. I know it can get complicated because in reality we are all brothers and sisters of Jesus and we’re also His lambs (hence my signature) and God is our Father and Mary is the mother of us all and so is Eve. And Adam is the father of us all. We’re so intertwined.
What Meier wrote is in several volumes. So I’m not even going to attempt to read what he wrote right now.
As for Mary being the Ark of the Covenant and ever-virgin - of that I am absolutely positive.
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adrift
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It is a dogma that Mary was ever Virgin.
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stewstew03
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Yes, what Rigger1 said about John Meier is true. However, scholars like Meier and Brown (both are Catholic and both are beloved by Rigger1) write from a historical-critical perspective. This method (see explanation here) ultimately leads to an entirely different view of the bible and of Jesus (i.e., the Jesus of history is much different than the Jesus of our faith). As an example, Meier writes that a historical analysis of the birth of Jesus reveals that it was all made up, because, well… there is no historical evidence that an angel appeared to Mary to announce that she would give birth to the Son of God. Does that mean that Meier, as a Catholic, does not believe the Gospel of Luke? Not necessarily - it just means that from a historical-critical perspective, there is no evidence that Luke’s infancy narrative is historically accurate.
The danger of being enamored with the likes of Meier and Brown is that people like Rigger1 tend to discount (1) Tradition, and (2) patristic evidence (i.e., the ECFs). And if you notice, in his posts Rigger1 completely dismissed patristic evidence from Ireneaus, Clement, and others.
Here is a quote from PBXVI on the historical-critical method:
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LittleSoldier
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LittleSoldier
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Yes. He said there were others but never mentioned the names.
Thank you for posting the quote. It’s a bit difficult for me to understand when I’m on heavy medication but I think I understand the basics. What I thought of, though, is that truth cannot contradict truth. If it is dogma that Mary remained ever-virgin then I would think that a Catholic priest would be required to accept this as fact, whether it is supported historically or not.
I know one thing for sure. I am not reading volumes of Meier’s writings. I have so many books on Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism already and one of them is the Bible, which I have not read from cover to cover. I need to do that. So I’m going to put this on the back burner for now.
But I am going to learn more about the ECFs. My knowledge of them is very limited but I know they were a lot smarter than I am and I’m sure they have much to teach me.
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Anna_Scott
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Wise choice, LittleSoldier.
Several years ago, when I started studying and reading one book after another—I read the Bible cover to cover. The most shocking thing I read was the Bible. When it is read as a whole, things look differently; and many Protestant teachings crumble—which is ironic, given the Bible Alone stance claimed by so many. That was my experience anyway.
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DTrent
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…completely disregarding Tradition.
Therein lies the reason why you feel Jesus did not have any 1/2 bros & sisters.
Catholic tradition (any religious tradition) and Bible teachings are 2 different things.
What true Christians do is accept Bible teaching & remove religious traditions from their lives if it doesn’t coincide with Bible teaching. It is not easy for some. But it can be done.
What the Bible teaches is true. A lot of traditions are not.
Yes, Jesus had 1/2 bros & sisters and there is scriptural proof of that.
Therein lies the reason why you feel Jesus did not have any 1/2 bros & sisters.
Catholic tradition (any religious tradition) and Bible teachings are 2 different things.
What true Christians do is accept Bible teaching & remove religious traditions from their lives if it doesn’t coincide with Bible teaching. It is not easy for some. But it can be done.
What the Bible teaches is true. A lot of traditions are not.
Yes, Jesus had 1/2 bros & sisters and there is scriptural proof of that.
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PRmerger
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No, the reason we don’t believe that Jesus had womb brothers is manifold.
One big one is because the Bible never says that.
You can search from Genesis to Revelation and you will find no verse that declares that Mary had any other child.
Another is because Mary’s womb was set aside for something so Divine, something that the World Could Not Contain, that having her womb filled with other human creatures would diminish Christ’s divinity.
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Porknpie
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Trent - how do you know that your biblical understanding is true? There is no scriptural proof for Jesus having having any brothers or sisters. I copy my text below from a recent post that I made.
"The Catholics, Orthodox, all Three Major Reformers all “clearly” understood Mary to be a perpetual virgin. Even Luther said that Christ’s words alone on the cross in giving Mary to John was enough to prove this point. If Jesus had brothers, it would have been against both Jewish custom and the law for Jesus to give his mother to John. There is no word for brother, sister or cousin in the hebrew or aramaic and the use of the Greek “adelphos” is not restricted to full brother or half-brother. As an example of the use of “brother” here’s Acts 1:12-15. Do you believe that Jesus had 120 “brothers”? I hope not. This is a “clear” example of the word brother being used in the meaning of “kinsman” from the hebrew.
13 When they entered the city they went to the upper room where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James.
14 All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
The Choice of Judas’s Successor.
15 During those days Peter stood up in the midst of the brothers (there was a group of about one hundred and twenty persons in the one place). He said,
16 “My brothers, the scripture had to be fulfilled which the holy Spirit spoke beforehand through the mouth of David, concerning Judas, who was the guide for those who arrested Jesus.
And Paul uses brethren and kinsman interchangably as in Romans 9:3
3*For I could [a]wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh,
Below is how Adelphos can have varying meanings, from An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words:Adelphos(the Greek word for brother in the New Testament): denotes a brother, or near kinsman; in the plural, a community based on identity or origin of life. It is used for:
- male children of the same parents
- male descendants of the same parents, Acts 7:23, 26; Hebrews 7:5
- people of the same nationality, Acts 3:17, 22; Romans 9:3
- any man, a neighbor, Luke 10:29; Matthew 5:22, 7:3
- persons united by a common interest, Matthew 5:47
- persons united by a common calling, Revelation 22:9
- mankind, Matthew 25:40; Hebrews 2:17
- the disciples, and so, by implication, all believers, Matthew 28:10, John 20:17
- believers, apart from sex, Matthew 23:8; Acts 1:15; Romans 1:13; 1 Thessalonians 1:4; - Revelation 19:10 (the wordsistersis used of believers, only in 1 Timothy 5:2)
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tabycat
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ConstantineTG
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I agree that even the Church Fathers themselves cannot fully agree if the brothers and sisters of our Lord are his cousins, or the children of Joseph from his previous marriage. But one thing that everyone agrees on is that they are NOT Mary’s children.Darn. And another one bites the dust! I’m sorry about that but he (she?) helped me in a way because now I know about Fr. Meier - a Catholic priest (a monsignor actually) and I want to find out if what the poster said about Meier is true. I’ve also found some other names (Pelikan is the one that sticks in my mind - I bet he got beat up a lot when he was growing up!) that were never mentioned by the poster. Just Meier and statements about how there were others. Others.
Is a Catholic priest, who is so well-known that a google search turned up many references, teaching that Jesus had actual physical full siblings? Is the teaching of Jesus NOT having siblings Catholic doctrine or dogma?
These are things I need to know. I know it can get complicated because in reality we are all brothers and sisters of Jesus and we’re also His lambs (hence my signature) and God is our Father and Mary is the mother of us all and so is Eve. And Adam is the father of us all. We’re so intertwined.
What Meier wrote is in several volumes. So I’m not even going to attempt to read what he wrote right now.
As for Mary being the Ark of the Covenant and ever-virgin - of that I am absolutely positive.
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stevekehl
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What wold change if you found out Mary did have other children? Does this diminish her in your view?
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PRmerger
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It would change our understanding of Jesus’ divinity.
All teachings on Mary only serve to enhance, highlight and reinforce our understanding of Jesus.
IOW: an impoverished understanding of Mary can only lead to an impoverished understanding of Jesus.
In fact, you are at a great disadvantage when in dialogue with Muslims who deny the deity of Christ, if you proclaim that Mary’s womb held other children. The Muslim will rightly ask you: *how can you claim that this man is Divine, when the womb that contained him–the Creator of the World!–later contained sinful, stained creatures! That would be like the Ark of the Covenant in your OT also housing some pretty desert pebbles, after containing God Himself. No, that person who shared a womb with sinful creatures could not be God. *
However, Muslims cannot offer that argument to Catholics. They consider, “Hmmm…they don’t believe that Mary had any other children. That must mean that that which her womb contained must have truly been Divine!”
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stevekehl
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I don’t see the connection. The Ark was built by men, stained, sinful creatures. It was the content that made it special. Jesus divinity is no dependent on any human action. He was crucified as a criminal, a shameful death to the world but a beautiful sacrifice to those who are saved. Likewise, what do we care how the world views Mary. She is significant because she bore and raised Jesus. Having other children doesn’t negate that significance.
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PRmerger
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I don’t believe that any Catholic here has proclaimed anything to the contrary.
However, when you are in dialogue with others who find Christ’s Divinity a difficult concept to embrace, which position do you think will be more persuasive: a womb that was set apart for Him Whom The World Could Not Contain? Or a womb that wasn’t any different than any other womb, and in fact, it was so jejune, what she initially carried, that she carried more (likely) like him–just another human creature?
Amen! A nonsequitur, to be sure, but a beautiful one, nonetheless!
Because an impoverished understanding of Mary leads to an impoverished understand of Christ.
It certainly does. How special could this Jesus-guy be if the womb that contained Divinity Itself, contained other stained, sinful creatures?
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Tantum_ergo
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ah. Your problem is that you ‘assume’ that Mary’s only significance was that of ‘bearing and raising Jesus’ and that anything ELSE she did in her life, including having ‘more’ children, meant ‘nothing’ in so far as how that related TO Jesus and who He is.
But you don’t give us any Scriptural or indeed any Christian teaching that predates the 16th century that bears out your belief. Even the first Protestants such as Luther believed in Mary’s perpetual Virginity as an INDICATION of who CHRIST IS --so obviously THEY thought that her having other children would be QUITE significant in its negation of who Jesus is. Furthermore, these Protestants were reading the same Scriptural passages such as the ‘knew him not until’. . .and even so, they STILL had no problem believing Mary was a perpetual virgin.
Kind of makes you wonder just ‘where’ the idea of Mary’s supposed ‘lots of kids’ came from. It didn’t come from the Bible and it didn’t even come from the first people protesting the Catholic --and Orthodox- teaching. It didn’t come from the apostles or the Early Church fathers or the then 1600 YEARS of teaching.
I seem to recall Scripture taking a VERY DIM VIEW of people who ‘taught another gospel’ than the one of the apostles. It isn’t the Catholics–or the Orthodox–or even the very early Protestants like Martin Luther–who are going against the apostles. . .
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Nicea325
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Originally Posted by stevekehl
But it goes further than the fact sinful men built it. Did God sanctify the Ark of the Covenant? Yes or No? Did any ordinary person have the empowerment to touch it? Yes or No?
Exactly! Just like the womb of Mary-right? Who was she conceiving? So why God sanctify an Ark and not a female human who conceived the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity?
What makes the Incarnation all the more beautiful-right? God did not have to Incarnate,but He chose to dwell amongst us.
Redemption,not a guaranteed salvation. Prescisely why He founded His Church here on earth for the continuing conversion of humanity from sin to grace.
Jesus did-so why can’t Protestants?
Carnal premise. She conceived the SON of God…it is more than just “bore” and “raised” Jesus.
Show me one verse stating Mary absolutely gave birth to other children and I’ll convert to Protestanism.
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