You are seriously misrepresenting Protestantism. Some Protestants believe that. Not very many. Some Protestants share the Catholic view of Mary’s perpetual virginity. Some others – possibly the majority – regard it as a detail of secondary importance that they don’t need to hold a formal doctrine on, one way or the other.
Hegesippus says Clopas was Joseph’s brother, indicating that Clopas’ wife Mary and Joseph’s wife Mary were not sisters but sisters-in-law. The feminine noun adelphé seen in John 19:25 evidently covered that degree of kinship to Hegesippus’ satisfaction.
That is something we have in common then, because neither am I. Fortunately, we don’t have to be. Faithful Greek lexicons and concordances are at our fingertips, which demonstrates “sister” in Greek only has two meanings, and a non-uterine familial relationship is not one of them:
Not a word strictly assigned to it, you are correct, but it can and does use the same word to describe a uterine relationship. But the NT was written in Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic, which is more specific, particularly with “sister” (adelphe), as you can see for yourself from the link to the concordance, which has only TWO meanings, unlike adelphoi for “brother.”
LOL! Protestants have never claimed that “brothers” in Greek can ONLY mean uterine! Of course it has multiple meanings! So if that is your argument, then to be consistent, does that mean James and John were not biological “brothers” then, since the NT uses the same Greek word to describe their relationship? Protestants don’t use only “one” meaning of a Greek word to define all other uses of its use in Scripture. They discern its meaning based on its context, by comparing its use in a verse by not only its Greek meaning, but also cross-referencing other related passages in Scripture as well.
It is true that most ECFs espoused to this dogma. But it also acknowledges that not “all” of them did, particularly the closer you get to the first couple centuries. This inconsistency with a truly “universal” agreement is why Protestants look to Scripture, and exegete the context and cross-reference related passages, utilizing the original Biblical languages to attempt to discern the context of particular passages, including one’s not everyone in antiquity agreed on.
Are you implying that the Biblical canon is NOT closed? If not, then “why” was nothing added to Scripture after Revelation over the past 1900 years???
This is true, particularly Protestants who espouse to traditions which came out of the Reformation, like Lutheranism, etc, which the PVM was not the focus of the Reformation. So, when I said “Protestants” I did not mean to use the term to be inclusive. Just to mean the non-Catholic understanding of why “sisters” in Greek has only two meanings, but not necessarily “all” Protestants. Sorry, for the misunderstanding.
Source, please? There are grounds for believing that Hegesippus, for one, thinks the feminine noun adelphé can cover a wider range of meanings than that.
No, not necessarily.
You didn’t read it carefully enough. Look again at this passage (p.237 in the Loeb edition, link below) and you will see that Hegesippus says nothing at all about any sons and daughters of Mary other than Jesus.
So, just a couple of things, you say in your comment , it is clear and it is a fact that Hegssipus believed. Fact is a strong word. If it is true that Hegissipus said this, and I have my doubts since we are just going by a comment in a comment section on a youtube video so many centuries later, proves absolutely nothing, because it doesn’t mean he continued in that belief. We do not know if being corrected, shown where he was wrong or had better information later, what he may have believed. Being that he is a Catholic saint, (which does not mean perfect), and he fought against heresies, he was obviously faithful to the Church. If he we had the opportunity to speak with him today, again because of his faithfulness to the Church, I am pretty sure he would follow what has been set down as dogma since he apparently believed that it was the Catholic church being led by the Holy Spirit.
I would hope that after nearly 2,000 years of debate on this topic that everyone could agree that:
Except that what debate there was from the beginning of the second century had pretty much been silenced by around the fourth, and then didn’t come up again in any significant amount until after the Reformation in the 16th.
I would also point out that by this time positions on all sides have perhaps become so entrenched that NO document would be universally accepted as conclusively resolving this or many other disputes, regardless of whether they would have done so in a less contentious time.