Does this say that Mary is ever virgin?

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Read this:
Gal. 1:19 - But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lords brother."

Mathew 13;55 “Is not this the carpenters son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?”

John 2:12 “After this He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother, and His brothers, and His disciples; and there they stayed a few days.”
 
aarontassin said:
I’ve been trying to defend the belief that the mother of Jesus is an ever virgin. For some reason unknown to me, many people insist on believing that the Ark of the New and Everlasting Covenant, aka Jesus Christ, is a defiled and imperfect being. If the first Ark of the Covenant was so holy that if you touched it you died, why would the new ark be any different?
Luke 11:27 states that the womb that bore Jesus Christ IS blessed.
Blessed by definition means higly favored and fortunate as by divine grace. That being said, wouldn’t a blessed womb remained undefiled. Kind of like once saved always saved? Scripture does say is, not was.
However, I’d like to get the common anti-Mary stuff out there. I’m not sure what the original Greek or Hebrew says about that verse. I’m sure somebody will want to say that the original Hebrew actually says something about the word womb meaning something totally different or the word blessed isn’t in there at all. A very common misinterperetation of scripture. The words of the Gospel are spirit so the language shouldn’t mean anything at all. It is the feeling that is important and that scripture gives me the feeling that the Blessed Mother was truely and divinely graced. Something about emnity between the devil and the woman is somewhere in Genesis.
In verse 28 Jesus does reply to the statement mentioned in verse 28 with, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” Some people like to use that to discredit Mary but we must not forget that the spirit is more important than the body. A womb is still flesh, but a spirit that hears the word of God and keeps it is much more blessed than the most virgin of fleshy wombs.
What are some other opinions on the issue?
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Might consider reviewing the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Mary by Jerome… Google it, should be able to locate easy enough.
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zapaleda said:
Read this:
Gal. 1:19 - But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lords brother."

Mathew 13;55 “Is not this the carpenters son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?”

John 2:12 “After this He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother, and His brothers, and His disciples; and there they stayed a few days.”
Click to expand...
DId you even read my post?
Where do you think I got the names?
 
yankee_drifter said:
The Bible tells us Jesus had siblings. However, nowhere does it mention that Joseph was married before and had children by his previous spouse. We cannot make an argument out of silence. Where the Scripture is silent, we too must be silent.
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Not quite. The Bible tells us that Jesus had adelphoi not “siblings”. Two very different words.

The word adelphoi has a much broader meaning. It may refer to male relatives that one is not a descendant of and that are not descendant from one (such as a blood brother, step-brother, nephew, uncle, cousin, etc.) or non-relatives such as neighbors, fellow workers, co-religionists, and friends.

Because of this broad usage, we can be sure that the 120 “brothers” in Acts 1:15 did not have the same mother. Neither did Lot and his uncle Abraham, who were called “brothers” (Gen. 11:26-28, 29:15).

The reason relatives were called brothers or sisters was because in Hebrew, there was no word for cousin, nephew, or uncle. So the person was referred to as simply a “brother.” Linguistically, this was far easier than calling the person the son of a mother’s sister. Since the New Testament was written in a dialect of Greek that was heavily influenced by the Semitic culture, many of the Hebrew idioms (like “brother” having multiple meanings) intrude into the Greek text. So, the fact that Jesus had adelphoi does not mean that Mary had other children.
 
Rexpi said:
We can find in the bible this… Lets start in Genesis 4:1

And Adam KNEW Eve his wife, and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.

Now check Genesis 4:17

And Cain KNEW his wife; and she conceived and bare Enoch…

Now check Genesis 4:25

And Adam KNEW his wife AGAIN, and she bare a son, and called his name Seth…

So… what the word KNEW is talking about? It is for sure sexual relationships

Now please check Matthew 1: 18-25 (just so you can see the context, but main one would be 25)

And KNEW her not TILL she had brought forth her firstborn son and he called his name Jesus.

Can you see it?
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The issue is not about “knew”; we all “know” what that means. the question hinges on the word “till” or “until”. This is where your assumption falls apart. You assume that Joseph did not “know” her before the birth of Christ and that he “knew” her after. Why?

The word *until *here just says what happened up to the time of Christ’s birth. It doesn’t imply anything about what happened after that, although our modern use of the word until seems to imply that. For an example of this, look at 2 Samuel 6:23, which says, “Michal the daughter of Saul had no children till the day of her death.” We’re obviously not supposed to assume that she had children after she died.

Other Examples of “Until” That Do Not Require Cessation of Action

Genesis 8:7
The raven “did not return TILL the waters were dried up…” Did the raven ever return?

Deuteronomy 34:6 (Knox)
No one knew the location of his grave “until this present day” But we know that no one has known it since that day either.
 
zapaleda said:
Read this:
Gal. 1:19 - But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lords brother."

Mathew 13;55 “Is not this the carpenters son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?”

John 2:12 “After this He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother, and His brothers, and His disciples; and there they stayed a few days.”
Click to expand...
Read this:

Brothers of Jesus, Not Sons of Mary

Many non-Catholics deny the Perpetual Virginity of Mary by referring to passages of scripture that mention the “brothers” of Jesus. A rigorous analysis of scripture, however, proves their position is false. Consider the following:

1. Jesus had a “brother” named James.
"Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?”(Matthew 13:55)
2. James, the Lord’s “brother”, is an apostle.
“Then, after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord’s brother. (Galatians 1:18-19)

3. There are two apostles named James.
“When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.”(Luke 6:13-16)
4. One James (the brother of John) is not the uterine brother of Jesus; his father is Zebedee.
“James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder)” (Mark 3:17)
5**. The other apostle named James is not the uterine brother of Jesus; his father is Alpheus.**
“And when it was day, he called his disciples, and chose from them twelve, whom he called apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter and Andrew his brother, and James and John and Philip and Bartholomew, and Matthew and James the son of Alpheus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.” (Luke 6:13-16)

6. Therefore, neither apostle named James was a uterine brother of Jesus.

7. The man named Joseph (or Joses) is not the uterine brother of Jesus; his mother is Mary and his brother is James. Therefore, this Mary is the wife of Alphaeus.
“Many women were there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.” (Matthew 27:55-56)

8. Judas is not a uterine brother of Jesus because he is the son of James.
“When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James.” (Acts 1:13)

**9. While Matthew 15:35 declares James, Joseph and Judas to be the “brothers” of Jesus, it has been demonstrated from scripture that they are NOT uterine brothers of the Lord. From this, it is apparent that scripture must be using the term “brothers” to mean relatives other than sons of Mary.

**
 
Randy_Carson said:
The issue is not about “knew”; we all “know” what that means. the question hinges on the word “till” or “until”. This is where your assumption falls apart. You assume that Joseph did not “know” her before the birth of Christ and that he “knew” her after. Why?

The word *until *here just says what happened up to the time of Christ’s birth. It doesn’t imply anything about what happened after that, although our modern use of the word until seems to imply that. For an example of this, look at 2 Samuel 6:23, which says, “Michal the daughter of Saul had no children till the day of her death.” We’re obviously not supposed to assume that she had children after she died.

Other Examples of “Until” That Do Not Require Cessation of Action

Genesis 8:7
The raven “did not return TILL the waters were dried up…” Did the raven ever return?

Deuteronomy 34:6 (Knox)
No one knew the location of his grave “until this present day” But we know that no one has known it since that day either.
Click to expand...
The expression ‘until’ is used frequently in the Bible: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool’ (Ps 110)
Do we conclude from this that Christ will not sit at God’s right hand after his enemies have been vanquished?
When a mother says to her children, “Be good until I get back” does she mean “When I get back I want you to misbehave”?
 
aarontassin said:
I’ve been trying to defend the belief that the mother of Jesus is an ever virgin. For some reason unknown to me, many people insist on believing that the Ark of the New and Everlasting Covenant, aka Jesus Christ, is a defiled and imperfect being. If the first Ark of the Covenant was so holy that if you touched it you died, why would the new ark be any different?
Luke 11:27 states that the womb that bore Jesus Christ IS blessed.
Blessed by definition means higly favored and fortunate as by divine grace. That being said, wouldn’t a blessed womb remained undefiled. Kind of like once saved always saved? Scripture does say is, not was.
However, I’d like to get the common anti-Mary stuff out there. I’m not sure what the original Greek or Hebrew says about that verse. I’m sure somebody will want to say that the original Hebrew actually says something about the word womb meaning something totally different or the word blessed isn’t in there at all. A very common misinterperetation of scripture. The words of the Gospel are spirit so the language shouldn’t mean anything at all. It is the feeling that is important and that scripture gives me the feeling that the Blessed Mother was truely and divinely graced. Something about emnity between the devil and the woman is somewhere in Genesis.
In verse 28 Jesus does reply to the statement mentioned in verse 28 with, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” Some people like to use that to discredit Mary but we must not forget that the spirit is more important than the body. A womb is still flesh, but a spirit that hears the word of God and keeps it is much more blessed than the most virgin of fleshy wombs.
What are some other opinions on the issue?
Click to expand...
You’d ‘like to get the common anti-Mary stuff out there’?
The concept of Mary’s virginity has been objected to by both Catholic and Protestant.
Some think ‘virginity’ refers to morality and spirituality not to biology. There are stories in some of the apocryphal texts referring to Mary’s biological virginity, which suggests it is fictional and symbolic rather than factual.
Christianity is an inclusive movement: The author’s of the Gospels (of Matthew and Luke) may have used the literary device of Mary’s virginity to express an intellectual concept of the incarnate Word - there are Greek, eastern (Buddha was born from the side of his mother) and Egyptian (Isis the beneficent goddess of chaste, maternal love) possibilities for cultural adoption.

Interesting book: The Virgin, Mary’s cult and the re-emergence of the Goddess,Ashe, G.,Arkana Paperbacks, U.S.A. 1988. ISBN 1-85063-100-X
 
aarontassin said:
I’ve been trying to defend the belief that the mother of Jesus is an ever virgin. For some reason unknown to me, many people insist on believing that the Ark of the New and Everlasting Covenant, aka Jesus Christ, is a defiled and imperfect being. If the first Ark of the Covenant was so holy that if you touched it you died, why would the new ark be any different?
Luke 11:27 states that the womb that bore Jesus Christ IS blessed.
Blessed by definition means higly favored and fortunate as by divine grace. That being said, wouldn’t a blessed womb remained undefiled. Kind of like once saved always saved? Scripture does say is, not was.
However, I’d like to get the common anti-Mary stuff out there. I’m not sure what the original Greek or Hebrew says about that verse. I’m sure somebody will want to say that the original Hebrew actually says something about the word womb meaning something totally different or the word blessed isn’t in there at all. A very common misinterperetation of scripture. The words of the Gospel are spirit so the language shouldn’t mean anything at all. It is the feeling that is important and that scripture gives me the feeling that the Blessed Mother was truely and divinely graced. Something about emnity between the devil and the woman is somewhere in Genesis.
In verse 28 Jesus does reply to the statement mentioned in verse 28 with, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” Some people like to use that to discredit Mary but we must not forget that the spirit is more important than the body. A womb is still flesh, but a spirit that hears the word of God and keeps it is much more blessed than the most virgin of fleshy wombs.
What are some other opinions on the issue?
Click to expand...
What did Christ say to that woman who said this to him, “Blessed are the breast that you suckled and blesssed is the womb that bore you!”

?
 
Zundrah said:
What did Christ say to that woman who said this to him, “Blessed are the breast that you suckled and blesssed is the womb that bore you!”

?
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Jesus taught her that it is even more blessed to be part of His spiritual family.

In this, Mary is doubly blessed, because she is Christ’s biological mother and one of His disciples.
 
Zundrah said:
What did Christ say to that woman who said this to him, “Blessed are the breast that you suckled and blesssed is the womb that bore you!”

?
Click to expand...
For a Catholic, the interpretation of the Bible has been entrusted to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church (the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.)

Each part of the Bible must be understood within the content and unity of the whole Bible, within the living Tradition of the Church, and in coherence with the truths of the faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation (*Cf.Catechism of the Catholic *Church, *112-4,*1997)
The Catechism explains that, according to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between 2 senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual (Cf.Catechism of the Catholic Church, 115-8, 1997)The spiritual can be subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses.
 
AmbroseSJ said:
Therefore, Mary may have taken a vow of perpetual virginity before being betrothed, and simply trusted to God to work out the details.
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Exactly, Mary had to keep her womb clean even after she had Jesus, so she never had sex with her husband. This is clearly stated in scripture. Also, when the people spoke about Jesus brothers and sisters, they actually meant cousins and half brothers, since the bible clearly shows that Joseph was married before and had other children. it says “Joseph was old and had other children with his first wife”.

Also as has been pointed out, marriage in those days did not always involve sex, that is more a modern thing, it would have been quite normal for a virgin to vow never to have sex with her husband. Such vows were honoured by all concerned (especially a man like Joseph who was godly and too old to have intercourse with his wife).
 
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Cashue:
the bible clearly shows that Joseph was married before and had other children. it says “Joseph was old and had other children with his first wife”.
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Where did you find that?
 
Cashue said:
Exactly, Mary had to keep her womb clean even after she had Jesus, so she never had sex with her husband. This is clearly stated in scripture. Also, when the people spoke about Jesus brothers and sisters, they actually meant cousins and half brothers, since the bible clearly shows that Joseph was married before and had other children. it says “Joseph was old and had other children with his first wife”.

Also as has been pointed out, marriage in those days did not always involve sex, that is more a modern thing, it would have been quite normal for a virgin to vow never to have sex with her husband. Such vows were honoured by all concerned (especially a man like Joseph who was godly and too old to have intercourse with his wife).
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This must be sarcasm… Hopefully… Or else I am missing some LARGE parts of the bible.

Libera nos a malo.

FSC
 
I accept Mary’s Perpetual Virginity, but is it vital to our salvation? Thanks for your thoughts on this.
 
nmc1a0 said:
I accept Mary’s Perpetual Virginity, but is it vital to our salvation? Thanks for your thoughts on this.
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No - I think I made that point earlier in this thread, but it might have been some parallel discussion.

The Virgin Birth is an essential part of our salvation. Mary’s Perpetual Virginity is fitting but had she gone on to have other children it would not have changed God’s plan. Which is why it is so interesting that it is a huge touchpoint issue in the Protestant schism. It is really all about the authority of the Church and the role of Scripture.
 
Cashue said:
Exactly, Mary had to keep her womb clean even after she had Jesus, so she never had sex with her husband. This is clearly stated in scripture. Also, when the people spoke about Jesus brothers and sisters, they actually meant cousins and half brothers, since the bible clearly shows that Joseph was married before and had other children. it says “Joseph was old and had other children with his first wife”.

Also as has been pointed out, marriage in those days did not always involve sex, that is more a modern thing, it would have been quite normal for a virgin to vow never to have sex with her husband. Such vows were honoured by all concerned (especially a man like Joseph who was godly and too old to have intercourse with his wife).
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Are you Catholic at all? Probably not…
…you sound as though you are quoting from a different bible?

But never the less, everything you have just said I have actually heard before. So you are not the only one who believes this.
 
I wasn’t aware that Scripture stated “Joseph was old and had other children with his first wife.” I assumed that was taught through Tradition. If that is in Scripture (not that it has to be there to be valid), it seems that would further support that Mary did not have additional children in the flesh.
 
nmc1a0 said:
I wasn’t aware that Scripture stated “Joseph was old and had other children with his first wife.” I assumed that was taught through Tradition. If that is in Scripture (not that it has to be there to be valid), it seems that would further support that Mary did not have additional children in the flesh.
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It is not actually written in scriptures, but rather it is assumed by some people.
 
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