T
Tantum_ergo
Guest
Really? We have proven, conclusively, that:
Any named 'brother of Christ" was not a child of Mary.
There is no mention of any ‘brethren’ when they return from Egypt, or when Jesus,Mary and Joseph ‘went up to Jerusalem’ when Jesus was 12. If Jesus was 12 then, where are all those brothers and sisters? Only Mary and Joseph go back to look for Him. . .
IF Jesus had a brother, Jewish law would require that on His death as the ‘oldest son’, Mary be taken into the house of the next oldest brother. For a person to give custody of the mother to any BUT the next of kin brother would be considered a slap in the face, a breach of law so profound as to require lengthy explanation as to why the brother ‘could not’ provide. Furthermore, if Jesus’s ‘next older’ brother could not do it, it should have gone then to the next, the next, etc. and then to the husbands of the sisters. Considering a lot of people seem to consider Mary the mother of a dozen or so children, it is inconceivable (pun intended) that NONE of these would have been able to take her. . .further, every time Jesus ‘goes against’ established law in Scripture it is carefully explained that His doing so is correct because of X, Y, Z. NO explanation however as to why He tells Mary that St. John is her son. . .
Furthermore, and most cogent and telling, is the fact that this utterly depraved and degrading doctrine does not appear in Christian teaching until the early 17th century. (Even MARTIN LUTHER and JOHN CALVIN and HENRY VIII believed in Mary’s PERPETUAL VIRGINITY). From the time of the apostles, Mary was taught to be a perpetual virgin.
Furthermore, our brethren the Orthodox (who are shamefully and sadly neglected in so many of these “You Catholics are wrong!” posts) have taught the same: Mary’s perpetual virginity. This is not something that was dreamed up by the evil, corrupt ‘Romans’.
Sadly, what appears to have happened is that some well-intentioned but blindly stubborn and insular people happened to be reading their Bibles and saw the word “brethren”. Despite the fact that for nearly 1700 years every single solitary Christian who lived had understood that word as ‘kinsman’, these poor souls immediately got all paranoid with, “brethren! It means brother! Jesus had brothers! This MUST BE ANOTHER CATHOLIC COVERUP” (think about the times that this ‘doctrine of men’ was introduced --at a time when Protestant hatred of the ‘romans’ was at its height–at a time when the two groups actually physically fought each other. Don’t you think that the Protestants were looking for all the ammunition they could get to ‘prove’ that the ‘romans’ were evil? Don’t you think they were trying to justify themselves, and just keep digging themselves in deeper and traveling further away from the truth every time, in order to desperately convince themselves that they were ‘right’ to leave? )
Any named 'brother of Christ" was not a child of Mary.
There is no mention of any ‘brethren’ when they return from Egypt, or when Jesus,Mary and Joseph ‘went up to Jerusalem’ when Jesus was 12. If Jesus was 12 then, where are all those brothers and sisters? Only Mary and Joseph go back to look for Him. . .
IF Jesus had a brother, Jewish law would require that on His death as the ‘oldest son’, Mary be taken into the house of the next oldest brother. For a person to give custody of the mother to any BUT the next of kin brother would be considered a slap in the face, a breach of law so profound as to require lengthy explanation as to why the brother ‘could not’ provide. Furthermore, if Jesus’s ‘next older’ brother could not do it, it should have gone then to the next, the next, etc. and then to the husbands of the sisters. Considering a lot of people seem to consider Mary the mother of a dozen or so children, it is inconceivable (pun intended) that NONE of these would have been able to take her. . .further, every time Jesus ‘goes against’ established law in Scripture it is carefully explained that His doing so is correct because of X, Y, Z. NO explanation however as to why He tells Mary that St. John is her son. . .
Furthermore, and most cogent and telling, is the fact that this utterly depraved and degrading doctrine does not appear in Christian teaching until the early 17th century. (Even MARTIN LUTHER and JOHN CALVIN and HENRY VIII believed in Mary’s PERPETUAL VIRGINITY). From the time of the apostles, Mary was taught to be a perpetual virgin.
Furthermore, our brethren the Orthodox (who are shamefully and sadly neglected in so many of these “You Catholics are wrong!” posts) have taught the same: Mary’s perpetual virginity. This is not something that was dreamed up by the evil, corrupt ‘Romans’.
Sadly, what appears to have happened is that some well-intentioned but blindly stubborn and insular people happened to be reading their Bibles and saw the word “brethren”. Despite the fact that for nearly 1700 years every single solitary Christian who lived had understood that word as ‘kinsman’, these poor souls immediately got all paranoid with, “brethren! It means brother! Jesus had brothers! This MUST BE ANOTHER CATHOLIC COVERUP” (think about the times that this ‘doctrine of men’ was introduced --at a time when Protestant hatred of the ‘romans’ was at its height–at a time when the two groups actually physically fought each other. Don’t you think that the Protestants were looking for all the ammunition they could get to ‘prove’ that the ‘romans’ were evil? Don’t you think they were trying to justify themselves, and just keep digging themselves in deeper and traveling further away from the truth every time, in order to desperately convince themselves that they were ‘right’ to leave? )
