Obviously this is a classic case for Mary’s perpetual virginity. Is there any validity in the translation for “consummate”? Or is this the typical Protestant way of editing the bible…
In the Greek, the word is ‘know’ (γινώσκω, or, in the form it appears in this verse, ἐγίνωσκεν). It means ‘know’ in the way that we use it, but it also can have the sense of sexual intimacy. In Luke 1, Mary really asks “How can this be, since I do not
know man?” – the word there is also γινώσκω.
The real question, though, isn’t about the word that signifies sexual intercourse – it’s the question of what Matthew’s getting at in this passage. He uses the word ‘until’ (ἕως), and when we look at it from an English-speaker’s perspective, we presume that ‘until’ speaks both to the past (what happened up ‘until’ that time) and the future (what happens ‘after’ that time). If I said that I didn’t eat “until dinnertime”, there’s the certain presumption that I
did eat
after dinnertime. However, that’s not necessarily the case in all languages and their prepositions. The Koine Greek preposition ἕως can speak to what happens
before without the implication of what happens
after. (An example that’s often encountered in this context is 2 Sam 6:23 – in the Greek, talking about David’s wife (and Saul’s daughter) Michal, this verse says that she remained childless until (ἕως) the day that she died. Now, this doesn’t imply that
after this point, she had children!)
So, when we look at what Matthew was trying to do, we notice that he’s trying to demonstrate that Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit and not of Joseph. (After all, a non-believer who was told that Jesus is God would naturally counter, “no, he’s not! He was born of normal relations between Mary and Joseph!”) So, what Matthew’s trying to do here is demonstrate that there’s no way that Jesus is Joseph’s natural son: Mary didn’t have relations with Joseph prior to Jesus’ birth. But, there’s nothing there that demonstrates that Mary
did have relations with Joseph
after the birth of Jesus.
Hope this helps!
G.
