I’m not “making” it say anything. Read the account for yourself. I can tell you one thing for sure, you’re not going to find anywhere in the text that the reason she asked the question was because she took a “vow of virginity.” Now that would be making the Bible say something it does not.
Your own fathers believed it. This is documented. Only the neo-Protestants as yourself deny her perpetual virginity.I’m not “making” it say anything. Read the account for yourself. I can tell you one thing for sure, you’re not going to find anywhere in the text that the reason she asked the question was because she took a “vow of virginity.” Now that would be making the Bible say something it does not.
You can’t say it’s “whistling Dixie” when it’s not. Right GF?
Sure…Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans…you get the idea.
If Mary had “intended” to have sexual relations with Joseph after the consummation of their marriage, she would not have asked how this conception of the child could happen. Obviously she would have acknowledged to herself that the child would belong to her and Joseph. Further, Mary did not understand the angel’s promise to be a declaration of Jesus’ ontological deity. The Jews did not expect a “divine” Messiah as the Gospels themselves make clear: Jesus was condemned to death for claiming to be one with God. The Jews expected a Messiah who would only be a man: a Son of man, but greater than Moses, a descendant of David. They did not expect a Son of God. Jesus was rejected for claiming to be divine. (Mary is the Mother of God. The Son of man claimed to have had the power to forgive sins when he cured the paralytic, Apophasis.
) Hence, Mary could not have had a miraculous birth in mind when the angel Gabriel declared that she would conceive and give birth to the “Son of the Most High”. She was perplexed by the prospect of having future sexual relations with her husband in view of her vow of virginity. She must have wondered how God could so easily dismiss the oath she had sworn in the spirit of Judith.
I do not know what led these men to accept the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. I do know from the quotes I provided that they did.
Mary said “I know not a man” which means not any man. She did not say “I know not the man” which means her husband. The sentence contains an indefinite article. So metaphorically speaking, Mary told the angel Gabriel “I don’t smoke”. She did not say “I don’t smoke this brand”.
I agree with you that god made sex, and it is intended to be holy between man and woman. But if a person has made a vow of consecration to God, it is considered a sin to have sex. This is because, in such a vow, one forswears intimacy with persons in favor of intimacy with God. One is considered “espoused” to God, so having relations with a person would be form of adultery or fornication
No, her purity is based upon grace. She made a vow of virginity, which is the fruit of that grace. You are in error, though, that this is a Roman Catholic “assumption”. In fact, this was believed long before the Roman Rite developed. It is equally preserved as Apostolic in the Orthodox Church, which has nothing to do with Rome.
I think one needs to take into consideration the other keepers of Sacred Oral Tradition and Apostolic Succession that are not “Roman”. this will prove that it is not some sort of “Roman” invention,but in fact, an Apostolic Teaching.
This being the case, isn’;t “assuming” she bore other children just as insupportable as “assuming” she did not? Except that “assuming” she had children does not have two millenia of historical support from the Apostolic Succession…
The ways of God may seem like foolishness to men. The Apostolic Teaching shows is that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant, and we know what happens when unconsecrated hands touch THAT ark!
I think you both misunderstand Catholic teaching, and also discount the entire Monastic Tradition of the Church. Apparently you are not well educated in your own family history in this matter. The Teaching does not hold that a person os “more holy” who is a consecrated celibate, except in the sense of “holy” as “set apart”.
I read further up in the thread that this is what is meant by Mary’s inquiry of the angel. If she was planning to have relations, she would never bother to ask the angel “how”. She was not ignorant of how children are produced!
No GF, the metaphor would be “Up to this present moment I’ve never smoked.” It states nothing about the future. She expressed to the angel her present state of virginity and that’s why she asked, “How can this be?” He told her how. And at that moment she understood that she would actually conceive despite her present state of virginity, because, as the angel said, “nothing will be impossible with God..”
Read the account in Luke, GF. Where is it recorded there that Mary says to Gabriel that she swore an oath to God?
What led the early Reformers to their extrabiblical, personal beliefs about Mary was their RC upbringing. The thrust of their writings was on soteriolology, not Marianology. Wesley I don’t know about. But it’s still only a personal belief on his part. He has a right to believe what he wants, but his personal belief is not what “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” is based on.
I know that God made Himself (the fact that He exists) evident within every man. So human intuition plays a part, hence, no self-proclaimed atheist has a leg to stand on. I know that through creation He has made His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, clearly seen.
Do you put your conscientious above all the Catholic and even your own Protestant ones? Never ceases to amaze me.
Please go back and read the second paragraph in #145 and read #143. I believe our debate is over. I have nothing further to say to people who prefer to quibble to evade the truth which is now obvious. You are here to contest the truth, not seek it.
Provide some proof of that and I’ll believe it.
Blindly?
Yes, I agree that Mary the wife of Clopas is identified as the mother of James and Joseph. No problem there. And I agree James and Joseph (Joses) are siblings. However, I do not at all agree that the “Mary, mother of James and Joseph (wife of Clopas)” is identified as Mary’s sister. In Jo. 19:25 it states that standing by the cross were the mother of Jesus, and His mother’s sister. Then two more: Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary of Magdala. The name of Mary’s sister is not given. Mary, wife of Clopas, mother of James and Joseph, is an altogether separate person from “His mother’s sister.”
What Bible are you using?
But I totally disagree with Fr. John Hainsworth’s false presupposition. He writes:"Note that in Matthew the names “James and Joseph” were mentioned before. Indeed, the way Matthew mentions “Mary mother of James and Joseph” in 27:55, 56 presupposes that he has already introduced these “James and Joseph” - as indeed he has. In Matthew 13:55, we read that our Lord’s “brothers” are "James and Joseph and Simon and Judas."The naming of James and Joseph in Matt. 27:56 was to identify who this Mary was. It does not at all presuppose that Matthew already introduced them earlier in Matt. 13:55. In fact, quite the contrary! The James and Joseph in Matt. 13:55 are clearly identified by the whole town of Nazareth as two of the four sons of Joseph the carpenter and his wife Mary, not Mary wife of Clopas. Matt. 13:55 does not say:"Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His mother’s sister (also called Mary), and her sons James and Joseph and Simon and Judas, and their sisters, are they not also with us?"No my friend, that is pure manipulation and distortion of the Scriptures (2 Pet. 2:16). The town of Nazareth does not identify James, Joseph, Simon Judas and their sisters as the sons and daughters of Mary, wife of Clopas. But literally as the children of Joseph the carpenter and his wife Mary. Which would make them half brothers and sisters of Jesus.
The futile attempt to try to identify James and Joseph (sons of Mary wife of Clopas) as the same as those previously listed in Matt. 13:55 (belonging to Joseph and Mary) clearly exposes an ulterior motive by the interpreter. Could it possibly be to preserve the legend of Mary’s perpetual virginity?:yup:
Fr. JH then writes:"It seems beyond reasonable dispute that the Mary at the Cross in St. Matthew and St. Mark is the mother of our Lord’s “brothers,” "James and Joses."To the contrary, when allowing Scripture to speak for itself it is totally unreasonable. The passages themselves tell us who their mothers were. From what’s revealed, Joseph and Mary had four sons, Mary and Clopas had two. Both families had sons named James and Joseph.
Not so unusual. Think about it, there were at least three Marys present at the crucifixion of Christ. “Mary,” “Joseph” and “James” obviously were very popular Jewish names at that time.
**
As we’ve been trying to tell you, it’s not at all clear as you make it once one considers the way adelphos and adelphe are used, along with some verses (which you’ve rejected of course…). Jesus’ brothers and sisters are not called “sons of Mary” in the verse, only Jesus is, and Joseph is nowhere to be found. Also, are you saying that both Mary and Joseph and Mary and Clopas had a son (Joses/Joseph) with the same variant names in two different accounts? Unlikely to me… I wonder what a non-Christian would think…**
Neither has PC been paying attention to the scriptural verses I have provided above in this thread and other Marian threads that show ‘sola scriptura’ is an erroneous principle to embrace and that the Apostolic Church is the only divine authority on earth to inerrantly interpret the scriptures and formulate essential Christian doctrines. The Bible is not a compendium of defined theological concepts. Nor is it a history book: it consists of historical narratives rich and deep in meaning beneath the surface. The Catholic Church forms her doctrines by initially taking the entire Bible into account, discerning symbols and types ( the suffering servant, the near sign of the virgin birth, the gate to be closed, the ark of the covenant, Eve, Judith, etc.) that possess more than one meaning. This is exegesis proper. Our Lord never intended that our doctrines be based strictly on what is explicitly written in the Bible. Christians who argue from the premise of ‘sola scriptura’ naturally arrive at faulty conclusions to the point where they engage in nothing but psuedo-reasoning and attempt to defy logic.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=2737654&postcount=13
Firstly, the Church has never taught that Mary was a ‘temple virgin’. Mary was not part of the Temple in Jerusalem.
what about 2 samuel 6:23?