Did Mary give birth to children after Jesus?

  • Thread starter Thread starter dave152
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
D

dave152

Guest
A close, baptist friend of mine told me today that Mary (via Joseph) gave birth to children after Jesus was born.

I refuted this with, “no Mary was ever-virgin”, however I struggle with supporting this belief.

Where does he get this information that Mary gave birth to additional children? Does the bible in some way claim this?

Where might I find some information to supportmy Catholic belief? Obviously, any support though the bible would be most convincing to him.

Thanks!
 
Check out the following web site which will quickly and easily give you Bible based explanations for your friend www.Biblechristiansociety.com. In addtition to what you will read here, I heard an explanation on Catholic radio once that stated Jewish law required a woman to give herself to only one man. Since Mary bore God’s child through the Holy Spirit, she was in essence the “spouse” of God much like nuns today are married to Jesus. Joseph would have respected that by choosing chastity over asking her defile her vow to God.
 
40.png
dave152:
A close, baptist friend of mine told me today that Mary (via Joseph) gave birth to children after Jesus was born. I refuted this with, “no Mary was ever-virgin”, however I struggle with supporting this belief. Where does he get this information that Mary gave birth to additional children? Does the bible in some way claim this? Where might I find some information to supportmy Catholic belief? Obviously, any support though the bible would be most convincing to him.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
The quick answer is no, she never had sexual relations with anyone including Joseph. They get this from the mention of “brothers and sisters" of Jesus, it’s in Scripture at least 3 times. These are not children of Mary, and nowhere in Scripture does it say they are. There are several threads on this already. Here was a recent post of mine.
40.png
Tom:
This is from another thread.
I don’t think anything in Scripture is by chance, it all has a purpose. I’m not a quoter, I feel giving exact verses often results in taking things out of context, so I will only site chapter, read it all, it won’t hurt.
I find it interesting that, Mt and Lk approach the annunciation (of the birth of Jesus) from different perspectives. Mt, Chap 1 addresses the annunciation from Joseph’s side, while Lk Chap 1 addresses it from Mary’s. I think this is very significant when viewed from the OT book of Numbers.
We know Mary is a young teenager engaged to be married to Joseph. We know they are both good and pious Jews. We know Mary has knowledge of how children are conceived (I know not man). We know that at that time it was not unusual for engaged couples to have sexual relations, actually being engaged was considered a part of being married. We also know that Mary and Joseph did not yet have sexual relations. The question we must ask ourselves is, did Mary and Joseph intend to have sexual relations after their marriage? Now before you go ballistic, it was not uncommon to dedicate yourself to God, actually if we read Numbers chaps 27-30 we’ll find there were even laws concerning these vows. So the question we need to ask ourselves is, did Mary and Joseph intend to have normal sexual relations after their marriage?
First we’ll take the position of yes, they intended to have sexual relations. When we read the rendering in Lk, the angel greets her, and tells her she is to conceive in her womb and bare a son. Sounds simple enough doesn’t it? Put yourself in Mary’s place. So, I’m engaged to Joseph, we will marry, and have a child, it will be a son. Any question? Shouldn’t be “if” we intended to have sexual relations after marriage. “If” we didn’t intend to have sexual relations after our marriage then we’d ask “how can this be”?
The question “how can this be"? makes absolutely no sense if they intended to have sexual relations, remember she knew “how”. So why did she ask “how can this be”?
Now we’ll take the position of no, they did not intend to have sexual relations, Mary was a consecrated virgin, under a vow of virginity. Read Lk again. The angel greets her, and tells her she is to conceive in her womb and bare a son. Wait a second!!! I’m a dedicated virgin, under a vow of virginity, “how can this be?” This question of her’s only makes sense if she did not intend to have normal sexual relation, if she were under a vow of virginity. Now read Numbers chap 30 about a man taking a woman into his house as his wife who is under a vow. This is the reason Mt talks about Joseph’s side, to insure he knows of the vow, to make sure he knows the true “Father” of the child, to make sure he knows the intimate relationship between Mary and God.
Click to expand...
 
40.png
dave152:
A close, baptist friend of mine told me today that Mary (via Joseph) gave birth to children after Jesus was born.

I refuted this with, “no Mary was ever-virgin”, however I struggle with supporting this belief.

Where does he get this information that Mary gave birth to additional children? Does the bible in some way claim this?

Where might I find some information to supportmy Catholic belief? Obviously, any support though the bible would be most convincing to him.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Your friend probably bases his belief that Mary had other children on the verses that speak of the “brother and sisters” of Jesus. In reality, these verses neither prove nor disprove the Protestant OR Catholic belief.

If one reads scripture ONLY as a 21st century English speaker, which many Protestants tend to do ("it says “brother” so by golly it means “brother”) one would have to draw the Protestant conclusion. However, if one reads it like a 1st century, Aramaic speaking Jew, one could just as surely conclude that Mary had no children because the word for “brother” was used not only for a sibling. It was also used for half and step-siblings, cousins, uncles and other relationships. For example, some translations have Abraham’s relationship to Lot being that of “brother” when we know that Lot was, in fact, Abraham’s nephew. Also, throughout the NT we see the word “brother” used to refer to the disciples and all Christians. So the point can’t be proven either way simply on the use of the word “brother”. We need to look at other scriptures for clues.

Perhaps the most obvious proof can be found in John 19:27. Jesus left his mother in the care of a non-relative. In the culture of the day, any other sons that Mary had would have been obligated to care for her. It wouldn’t even have been an issue. To leave his mother in the care of a non-relative if there were sons to care for her would simply have been unheard of. Are we to believe that Jesus used his dying breath to horribley insult his brothers? I don’t think so.

In Matt 28:10 and John 20:17 we see Jesus telling Mary Magdelene to “go and tell my brothers” that he was going to the Father and to meet him in Galilee. Who does Mary run and tell in Matt 28:16 and John 20:18? The disciples! Why would Mary run to the disciples when Jesus had specifically said “my brothers” if Jesus really had blood brothers? Well, there are three possibilities:
  1. Mary disobeyed. The very first thing she did after seeing her beloved Lord and Savior was alive was to blatently disobey him. No way. Scrap #1.
  2. Mary was so confused after the shock of seeing Jesus alive that she made a mistake. Maybe. However, Jesus didn’t seem particularly surprised to see the disciples instead of his brothers show up. In fact, his disciples certainly seem to be exactly who he was expecting, in fact who he had wanted to be there. Scrap #2.
  3. Jesus didn’t have any blood brothers. Mary understood him to mean “brothers” in the much broader sense in which the word was commonly used in that time and culture. This is the only viable option.
In Acts 2:14 Luke records that gathered together were “Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers”. OK, so Jesus DID have brothers, right? Well, the very next sentence tells us that those brothers numbered 120 persons!! Is that even humanly possible? If it is all I can say is poor Mary!!

Hope that helps!!

In Christ,
Nancy 🙂
 
I’d like to point out one more thing. The Angel appeared to Mary when she was “betrothed” to Joseph. When the angel told her that she would have a son, you’d think she’d say, “Well, DUH!! I’m Joseph’s wife, so we’ll have children the usual way.” But she didn’t. She asked, “How can this be? I’m a virgin?” This would only make sense if she were going to *stay *a virgin. If she and Joseph were planning on having a regular marriage, sex and all, this wouldn’t have made any sense at all.
 
Since the Bible is about Jesus and his teachings the Early Church Fathers, when the codified the Scriptures, only selected books that specifically delt with Jesus. However, from St. James the Apostle we have his writings in the The ProtoEvangelian of St. James . This is the book from which we understand the Mary’s parents were Ann and Joachim, in fact, most main line Protestants can tell you that. Suprise, it isn’t in Scripture! I highly recommend reading it.
It tells about the life and family of Mary and Joseph. This book is where the Eastern Church gets their teaching and understanding of Mary from.

Pani Rose
 
Blessed Mary was ever virgin. The Baptist you mention just pick and choose how they use the words ‘brother’ and ‘sister’. In some places of Scripture they apply this to everyone and when it suits their own opinions they use the modern English meaning of a brother to mean sons of the same parents.

Next time you see these Baptist friends ask them why they call each other brothers and sisters in thier church gatherings but then give Scripture a different meaning when they choose? Also ask them when the first reference to this was ever documented in history and then ask them how two sons of the same parent were described in writting 2,000 years ago. Their claims will be quickly proven without foundation.
 
Paul also calls Timothy his “son” …are these folk prepared to state that Paul is Timothy’s FATHER? 😉

One of the problems with our separated Brethren, is they usually put more stock into MEMORIZING the bible instead of STUDYING it.
 
Although the New Testament talks about Jesus having Brothers and Sisters, the word used to mean “brother” in greek was adelphos which can mean a large number of things include relative cousin and kinsman. Generally when the Bible wants to infer close relations it references the Father. e.g. X son of Y. Jesus is referred to as both the Son of Joseph and the Son of Mary, but no one else is called the Son or Daughter of Joseph.

James is often referred to as the brother of Jesus

One verse that may help your friend come to a conclusion is Mark 15:40, which mentions “Mary mother of James” but it is clear that this is a different Mary to Our Lady, as Mary mother of James is looking on from a distance, whilst Mary Mother of God is standing at the foot of the cross.

The conclusion therefore is that Mary was a virgin before, and after the birth of Christ.

I hope this helps,
Ollie. :cool:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top