Yes - through Tradition and not Scripture
If Mary had had more children, that would take nothing away from Christ’s message. Christ’s message is not dependent on Mary’s virginity.
What is meant is that taz believes his interpretation is better, (or, correct) compared to stew’s.
Yes, it would take away from our understanding of Christ.
And just as a point of clarification: we don’t follow Christ because of his “message”.
Thank you for the link. However why should we look on a reasonable discussion as a battle between the winners and the losers?
Sure.
One other thing: remember the Ark of the Covenant in the OT? Remember how sacred it was? Why was that? Because it contained God–the manna, the Word, Aaron’s rod.
Interest Taz that your personal theology is at odds with so many in history and not just on one subject. You are the reformers, reformer. Regarding Mary’s perpectual virginity, all the major reformers disagree with you - and they were the inventors of Sola Scriptura.
.And the point being? It seems the way you interpret Scripture changes continuously depending of what you are trying to get out of it to back up your position. One minute you take an absolute literal view, and the next minute a metaphorical or allegorical view. Its getting hard keeping up with the way you are thinking.I am also beginning to see in some of the things you say, a theology of Jesus in general that I’m not quite sure I agree with either, which adds even more confusion to your defense of your position, at least from where I sit
But just to clarify things, it’s not like I simply take a literal or metaphorical/allegorical position just for the sake of doing so. Discerning whether a passage is meant to be taken literally or figuratively is based on the context of the surrounding passages & other relevant Scripture verses. Some verses take more much more cross-referencing, sometimes dozens of verses, like Matthew 1:25. Others, not as many.That’s fine. I’ll be here. Let me know your specifics, provided they are related to the OP. I am really trying to obey forum rules, which includes not deviating from the OP.
First, not “all” the major Reformers “disagreed with me” on Mary’s perpetual virginity, nor were they the “inventors of sola scriptura.” If you look much further back into Church history, you’ll find quite a few Christians who also believed in it, even if the actual “term” wasn’t used back then. Your quote from Calvin has nothing to do with the PVM itself. He just denies that they were Jesus’ half-brothers. All he says is that Mary didn’t “have had many sons.” But being Protestant doesn’t mean that we adhere to a particular man’s or religious organization’s interpretation of Scripture. Sola scriptura means that Scripture itself, and ONLY Scripture alone is that Authority. The fact that even the Reformers disagreed with each other only proves that even they weren’t completely sola scriptura. Otherwise, obviously, they would agree on every single doctrine. But that’s understandable, because many of them were former Catholics, & the Reformation was still in its infancy. It would take several generations before sola scriptura could be ironed out, just as certain Christian doctrines wouldn’t be “officially” defined until several generations after the NT was completed.
Does majority vote determine truth?
Jesus “honored” His mother by providing for her, by placing her in the care of His believing “brother,” as well as cousin, because His biological brothers had mocked Him & ridiculed Him during His public ministry. I don’t see how Jesus providing for her would violate this Commandment.
Yet all I hear from Catholics on this forum is that it was the norm for extended families to live in the same household, which is the argument against the “brothers” that are in Jesus’ household being His biological brothers, even though Jesus refers to “relatives” instead of “brothers” in Mark 6:3-4.
You just contradicted your previous point.
That’s the whole point. The reason “why” Jesus didn’t place Mary in the care of His younger biological half-brothers was because they mocked Him during His ministry. Even in Jewish culture in the first century, not every Jew respected their older sibling. Look at Jacob. He manipulated his older brother & stole his blessing, as well as deceived his own father. To think that ALL Jewish younger brothers respected their older brothers is an assumption that can’t be supported by Scripture.
Simple mistake. No problem.
That passages in Jonah has to be taken in context. God didn’t “change His mind,” in the sense that He Jonah “convinced” God not to do destroy Ninevah. God was telling Jonah what He would do to Ninevah “if” they wouldn’t repent. It’s no different than Abraham pleading with God not to destroy Sodom & Gomorrah. Abraham didn’t “convince” Him, by God saying “I won’t destroy it if I find 10 righteous men.” God was simply declaring that there were no righteous people in Sodom & Gomorrah. So, when Scripture says “God changed His mind,” it doesn’t mean He was talked into changing it from a human being. It means that His conditions of repentance were met - just like when He doesn’t condemn us to Hell when we repent. No, God doesn’t “change His mind” in the way that that other poster understands it. Why would God change His mind? He’s Omniscient. He doesn’t have to. Otherwise, it would like saying there are some things God doesn’t know until later. That would refute His eternality as well.I have. It’s called a Greek concordance. I would encourage you to examine EVERY ONE of the two dozen verses in Matthew where “heos” is used, & you’ll find that all of them mean that once an event ends, so does the activity. So, no I didn’t ignore your last post. My point was that since Matthew 1:25 is the ONLY one that’s in question, then believing “heos” doesn’t mean that is arguing by exception, & not consistent with the rest of the way Matthew uses “heos” in the other two dozen verses in his Gospel. Plus, there would be no point for Matthew to ADD “until she gave birth to a son.” If Mary remained a perpetual virgin, Matthew would not have needed to “add” these words. It’s unnecessarily redundant. So, I agree with you, “The Scripture only proves she was virgin at the time of Jesus birth” - not after.
In post #91 you ended with “does majority vote determine truth” which you obviously don’t agree with, and here you are using that statement yourself to defend your position that the word "until’ in Matt. 1:25 can only mean one thing because of how it was used before.
That’s pretty much a clincher.
Well, what that means is that SS is untenable. The fact that even the Reformers, who claimed to use the Bible Alone as their authority (something, ironically, not found in a single page of the Bible) cannot agree…as well as modern day Protestants who disagree to the tune of tens of thousands of differing denominations…
This is most definitely ADDING TO Scripture.
Yup! :tiphat:
Right. Scripture doesn’t “prove” anything (with regard to Mary’s virginity) after the birth of Jesus. On this we are agreed.
