Jesus’s Brothers

[Cathoholic]

RaisedCatholic . . .

BTW, using your criteria we should eliminate older step-brothers, since the NT never describes Jude as “the son of Joseph,”

You are chaging (redefining) my premise.

You are engaging in the fallacy of equivocation.

(Bold mine)

This falsifies my point.

My point wasn’t that “brother according to the flesh” “eliminates” anything.

My point is that with “brothers of the flesh” you cannot make the kinds of conclusions YOU are making.

And you can’t draw such conclusions (based upon your information).

Look I think you HAVE TO engage in fallacious argumentation.

Why?

Because logical argumentation just will not take you to where you are attempting to go.

Logical argumentation just will not take you to a denial of the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

And you vocally alleging to attempt to deny that is where you are going is irrelevant.

Why?

Because your actions speak louder than that – if Jesus had uterine siblings as you are pretending, then what conclusion does that force regarding the Blessed Mother RaisedCatholic?

 

[RaisedCatholic]

In all charity it does appear that you are questioning Mary’s perpetual virginity and wanting others to also based on one quote from one person.

Well, you can either believe me, based on my continuous references to Hegessipus and what HE said, or you can continue to falsely accuse me of what I DIDN’T say. But I cannot change your false assumption about me. That is your choice, but unless I come right out & say otherwise, I would appreciate it if you don’t falsely characterize me or my intentions. I am attempting to have a civil discussion, which does not involve challenging doctrine, particularly when I said that is NOT my intention. My comments are about Hegessipus. That is all.

[cont from post 105]:

My point wasn’t that “brother according to the flesh” “eliminates” anything.

using your criteria we should eliminate older step-brothers, since the NT never describes Jude as “the son of Joseph,” nor any of Jesus” other “brothers.”

You took my point out of context. My point was that if you are going to say Mary didn’t have other children after the birth of Jesus BECAUSE they are not referred to as “sons of Mary” in the NT, then using the same logic & to be consistent, we would have to eliminate the “brothers” of Jesus as “sons of Joseph” since the NT also doesn’t refer to Jesus’ brothers that way either.

Again, despite your rant & false accusations of me, I am NOT challenging the PVM. Once again, I am addressing Hegesippus’ use of “according the flesh” in the context of its immediate use after describing Jude as Jesus’ brother. Again, “according to the flesh” would not be necessary, unless Hegesippus was intending to mean Jude was a “brother” of Jesus in terms of biology.

Again, this is in no way a challenge to the PVM, but addressing what Hegesippus thought. Nothing more.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

And I gave Biblical evidence to support my position (unless you think St. Paul’s mom, bore all the Benjaminites and Israelites).

And as I keep saying we have to examine the term in context. It’s like “brother” having more than one meaning, so we cannot attribute only a single meaning in every use of the term. When Paul refers to his “brethren not to live according to the flesh,” obviously the context is not referring to his “brethren” as biological blood brothers. But when he say Jesus was “born of a descendant of David according to the flesh,” Paul is not saying Jesus was merely of the same nationality of David, but that he was a physical biological descendant. Same thing when he said “Abraham was our forefather according to the flesh,” he was not saying they share the same “spiritual” beliefs, but they too are physical descendants. In like manner, when Hegessipus goes out of his way to say Jude was the brother of Jesus “according to the flesh,” Hegessipus too is making the same point Paul did - that Jude is not a mere “brethren” of Jesus in terms of being a fellow Israel. Again, if this was Hegessipus’ purpose, all he would have to say is that Jude was a “brother” of Jesus…period. But he adds “according to the flesh” so there would be no confusion that Hegessipus was further emphasizing he believed Jude was a biological blood brother of Jesus.

Yes I did. Go back and read it.

I explicitly said he would identify his mother.

No, I mean what additional WORD of phrase would Hegesippus would have said when he wrote “Jude a brother of Jesus according to the flesh” to mean he was a blood brother? My saying “he would identify his mother” is changing the entire sentence. I meant what other word IN ADDITION to “brother” would he have used to convey he was uterine? For example, if Hegesippus was alive today, he would have said “Jude a half-brother of Jesus.” He wouldn’t have said “half”-brother back then. So, again, what other word or phrase would Hegesippus have “inserted” back then to make it clear Jude was a biological brother?

I already showed why “brothers according to the flesh” is NOT such a “clarification” but standard Hebrew terminology for a wide swath of people who are merely close relations.

You only “showed” that the phrase “according to the flesh” has more than one meaning, like “brother,” which no one is denying. But you didn’t discern how the same term is used differently in Scripture, as well as how Hegessipus used it.

[cont - refer to post #103]

 

[MagdalenaRita]

Well, you can either believe me, based on my continuous references to Hegessipus and what HE said, or you can continue to falsely accuse me of what I DIDN’T say. But I cannot change your false assumption about me. That is your choice, but unless I come right out & say otherwise, I would appreciate it if you don’t falsely characterize me or my intentions. I am attempting to have a civil discussion, which does not involve challenging doctrine, particularly when I said that is NOT my intention. My comments are about Hegessipus. That is all.

Again in all charity, I am not trying to falsely characterize you and I realize you are explaining the protestant view and are speaking of Hegessipus and what he said but and as others have pointed out, Hegessipus is not the final authority. Is it possible he said, “of the flesh”, yes but we here in our forum so many years later can not speak of what he was thinking at that time. Also as Cathoholic has said we can’t draw such a conclusion based upon your information. We do know that Hegessipus was faithful to the Catholic church and would have followed what the Church declared.

You also said you are not challenging Catholic dogma but if accepting your argument using one sentence from Hegessipus what other conclusion are you trying to draw? If we agree with you regarding Hegessipus’s statement what would come next?

This is why a Christian doesn’t follow Scripture alone but must always put Scripture and Tradition together and take the issue to the Church when there are differences.

It has been declared by the Church infallibly that the Blessed Mother was perpetually a virgin.

St. Augustine:

“This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it. Because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it” (Ezek 44:2).

What means this closed gate in the house of the Lord, except that Mary is to be ever inviolate? What does it mean that ‘no man shall pass through it,’ save that Joseph shall not know her? And what is this:

“The Lord alone enters in and goeth out by it,” except that the Holy Ghost shall impregnate her, and that the Lord of Angels shall be born of her?

And what means this – “It shall be shut for evermore,” but that Mary is a Virgin before His birth, a Virgin in His birth, and a Virgin after His birth.”