Marian Dogmas and the Bible

[bengal_fan]

Hahn is doing exactly the kind of reading into the text wiht the lenses of later traditions that I am talkign about. The basic catholic apologetic of Mary’s sinlessness and continued virginity lies on two items:The forst is anunderstanding of kexaritomena as “Full of Grace”. It is a fairly common word in koine and means favored one, and is often used in a way that we would understand as “lucky” The koine phrase for “full of grace” is actually plara karitos and is used twice, once in reference to Jesus and once to Stephen, and so even the concept of full of grace meaning free from sin has no basis in the biblical text.

The Second is the assertation that Jesus’ siblings, at least six of whom are mentioned in the NT, were not Mary’s kids. Beyond the fact that there is no need for this stretch unless you come to the text with a preconception (hah!) of Mary’s Virginity, there is no evidence at all for it. They are seen treating Mary as their mother, which would be unusual (shockingly so) for stepchildren to do after their father had died, and there is no evidence from the Lukan Narrative regarding other childen or previous marriage.

Also, Matt 1:25 absolutely implies that they had intercourse after Jesus was born.

You say look to other tradition, older than your own. If you read what those fathers complained about and fought for in the forst few centuries after Christ, you will see that they kept having to fight people who invented stuff about Jesus or God in order to change the message fo the Gospel. When you look to extra biblical sources of theat time period, that is what you are going to run into.

i posted this in apologetics as well. just wanted to get your take on this. i had encouraged this person to read “Hail, Holy Queen” by Scott Hahn and this was their response. what do you think?

 

[mercygate]

i posted this in apologetics as well. just wanted to get your take on this. i had encouraged this person to read “Hail, Holy Queen” by Scott Hahn and this was their response. what do you think?

I would start with kecharitomene. If I were responding to this, I would challenge the whole notion presented here. I highly doubt that Scott Hahn is messin’ with his Greek. Kecharitomene is used only once in the NT, if I recall correctly.

The point about Jesus siblings, I believe, is an easy take-down. Again, do your homework: I believe the named brothers are only 4 and all of their parentage is known.

I find the ususal Catholic argument about the word “until” to be a bit thin. Not that it is WRONG, but it stretches the question and leaves a big hole. You could pose the standard argument to your interlocutor but I would frame the whole matter in terms of a theological concept rather than a biology test.

Don’t emphasize Joseph. Start with noting that the theology is that Mary is a virgin **during **the birth. Now, clearly, this indicates something other than a merely technical definition of virginity. It doesn’t take anything away from virginity after the birth but it casts a different focus on the question – which is KEY.

 

[bengal_fan]

I would start with kecharitomene. If I were responding to this, I would challenge the whole notion presented here. I highly doubt that Scott Hahn is messin’ with his Greek. Kecharitomene is used only once in the NT, if I recall correctly.

The point about Jesus siblings, I believe, is an easy take-down. Again, do your homework: I believe the named brothers are only 4 and all of their parentage is known.

I find the ususal Catholic argument about the word “until” to be a bit thin. Not that it is WRONG, but it stretches the question and leaves a big hole. You could pose the standard argument to your interlocutor but I would frame the whole matter in terms of a theological concept rather than a biology test.

Don’t emphasize Joseph. Start with noting that the theology is that Mary is a virgin **during **the birth. Now, clearly, this indicates something other than a merely technical definition of virginity. It doesn’t take anything away from virginity after the birth but it casts a different focus on the question – which is KEY.

thanks for the response but maybe i didn’t make my intention clear…

how would you respond to this. give me citings from the early church fathers. show me in the greek text. this is not my accusation but one i read and wanted to see how catholics would respond to.

 

[mercygate]

thanks for the response but maybe i didn’t make my intention clear…

how would you respond to this. give me citings from the early church fathers. show me in the greek text. this is not my accusation but one i read and wanted to see how catholics would respond to.

Sorry to disappoint.

I just lost a fairly careful response to this . Check the CA Library for “kecharitomene” and for Jesus’ brothers. The citations there will include ECFs.

As for “pleros xaritos” versus “kecharitomene” the case will be made from grammar. Any good discussion should help you. A quick search turned this up but I am sure an hour’s research will pull down anything you need.