The Virginity of Mary - Protestant positions

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Despite all the arguments (my own included), the fact remains that the issue of Mary’s perpetual virginity is a matter of belief, not of fact. We have sources that point in both directions, yet neither can be proven or disproven conclusively. At one time everyone believed the earth was flat, and was the center of the universe- this was FACT until it wasn’t. That billions of people believed this before it was proven false doesn’t validate their belief as being the truth.

And so we have the question of Mary’s virginity- her being ‘intact’ all boils down to belief, but neither our belief nor disbelief makes it a fact either way.
 
This is my last post. I am going to mute so as not to be tempted to answer again

Despite all the arguments (my own included), the fact remains that the issue of Mary’s perpetual virginity is a matter of belief, not of fact. We have sources that point in both directions, yet neither can be proven or disproven conclusively. At one time everyone believed the earth was flat, and was the center of the universe- this was FACT until it wasn’t. That billions of people believed this before it was proven false doesn’t validate their belief as being the truth.
And so we have the question of Mary’s virginity- her being ‘intact’ all boils down to belief, but neither our belief nor disbelief makes it a fact either way.

The definition of a fact is by definition: something that has actual existence, actual occurrence, or a piece of information presented as having objective reality. What you believe or don’t believe does not effect a fact. Your example that people once believed doesn’t effect that they didn’t belief in a fact. Mary being ever virgin is a fact. Faith enters into it but that doesn’t change if it is a fact. I don’t know what source you think points in the opposite direction but usually those sources ignore facts. It all boils down to Mary being ever Virgin is a fact. What you are confusing is being able to prove a fact. Yes to reasonable people. Can it be proven?.Is it also a matter of Faith? Yes. Interesting you present a statement as if it were fact. Billions of people? Really? Is that based on faith or fact? EVEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES, PEOPLE DIDN’T THINK THE EARTH WAS FLAT
 
Your assert that Mary being a virgin in perpetuity is a FACT. If it is a FACT then the burden of proof is on the one who asserts the claim. I don’t say Mary was or wasn’t a virgin, or perpetual virgin, or anything about Mary as being a FACT. My point is that despite your belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity, belief alone does not make it a FACT and absent any concrete evidence to support the claim, all one has in this case is belief.

As for the belief that the earth is flat, I did not specify the Middle Ages- it wasn’t until Pythagoras in the 6th century BC that the round earth model showed up, and even then many of Socrates’ school held to the flat earth model. As for more modern times, think about this: much of China held to the flat earth model until the 17th century!
 
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She wasn’t with child by the Holy Spirit, sir. She was with her first-born Son, who was of the Holy Spirit.
 
And her ‘first-born’ was her ‘only-born’.
Read the Gospels. Luke cites the finding in the temple when Jesus was 12. Absolutely no mention made of any other children.
There is no mention in Scripture of any ‘child of Mary’ except for Jesus.
Use of the terms translated as ‘brothers’ (and sisters) were also used of relatives such as uncle, nephew, step brother, or cousin, or a relative by adoption.

Let’s have an example.

John and Jane Doe marry. Jane’s first child is a boy, hers and John’s ‘first born’, son. Jane and John never have any further children.

What is that child called? That child is her first born son. He isn’t her ‘second’ born. He is the first child she bears, her first born. . .and he remains her first born whether she bears a second child, or not.

And according to the Jews, a ‘first born son’ was always redeemed by the parents (c.f. Exodus). “The male who opens the womb must be redeemed”. Jesus had a ‘legal status’ because he was the "male who opened the womb’, a ‘first born son’, and He retained that status even though He was an ONLY Son.
 
“First born” does not negate a second born. “First born” does not mean “only born”.

“Brother and sister” (adelphos) does not negate an actual sibling. The Greek language was not so crude and rudimentary that it could not distinguish kinfolk ( brother, sister, cousin, half brother, aunt and uncle etc.).

Jesus opening Mary’s womb is contrary to the concept of remaing a virgin. Virgin is just not obstaining from "another man " but remaing intact. It is also contrary to so called James account of birth of Jesus, where Jesus came out of Mary supernaturally, not a normal birth, leaving Mary “intact”. So according to James tradition not sure anything “opened up”, though He did occupy the womb.

The bible doesn’t specifically state her ever virginity. It only specifically states a virgin conception and a birth still not knowing Joseph. In Jewish tradition then, the presumption would be that Mary would go on to have other children. In Jewish tradition Mary would be no more graced by remaing virgin, but on the contrary, by having more children. Jesus would not be hampered in his mission either way, being an only child or first born of a quiver full.
 
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But He would not be the Jesus (nor Mary the Mary) of the Bible.
The Bible is not simply the New Testament. The Old Testament isn’t just quaint stories about people in the old days. Talk about the Ark isn’t just about some object that the Jewish people had which was lost, and the stories about people dying for touching it weren’t just stories to show how ‘wrathful’ God could get.

If Mary isn’t the Ark and doesn’t possess the traits of the Ark, then Jesus isn’t the Holy of Holies.

There is nothing wrong with an ordinary woman and an ordinary man having ordinary relations.

There is a great deal wrong with the idea of God being a kind of ‘super Zeus’ who impregnates the HUMAN wife of a HUMAN man (Joseph) to have a ‘god-son’, and then lets the human woman and man go on to have other children. That idea treats Mary like some kind of incubator, used, discarded, let her get on with ‘real life’.
 
It doesn’t realty matter how you spin it. Matthew’s gospel tells us that Jesus was the first to be born of Mary. Accept the divine rerecord.
 
tgGodsway said:
You missed the point. Matthew’s gospel says He was the first to be born of Mary.
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Agreed. He was Mary’s firstborn, which is a technical term about heredity which implies nothing about later children.
 
EZweber said:
Agreed. He was Mary’s firstborn, which is a technical term about heredity which implies nothing about later children.
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Implies nothing about later children unless of course she had other children, which then implies double meaning (First born as legal term and first born as opposed to second and third born etc…)
 
stpurl said:
There is nothing wrong with an ordinary woman and an ordinary man having ordinary relations.
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Just as there is nothing wrong with the Holy Spirit causing conception in a normal Jewish maiden virgin with Jesus Christ.

Why do you have to not super Zeus God but super Zeus Mary?

Why do you refer to normal conception as one who incubates, being “used” and “discarded” ? I mean God himself walked on earth, slept in a bed, wore clothes, sat in a chair etc…Are you saying we should be careful and not step on the ground where he stepped, or sleep in the bed he slept in , or sit in the chair he sat in, etc.?

You rightly speak OT, but why do you continue in its ways of seperation, of sinful man and a holy God? Christ came to touch , cleanse the and even inhabit sinful, fallen flesh. Christ touched people . He came to obliterate that separation. Why do you then seperate Mary from the rest of humanity, put her on the shelf and say no more births? Your plea only makes sense if Jesus was not fully man, but he was fully man and fully God ( who is a spirit). If Jesus was only fully God, then indeed Joseph should treat Mary like the holy of holies. But Joseph ( and subsequent siblings)only went where man ( Jesus the man ) already was, if they had other children…your plea is like saying that Noah and all his family, and all the animals should not enter nor even touch the sacred, sanctified holy ark!

Jesus is the ark, not Mary. At best Mary is the last plank, the last mortar, of the ark that delivered salvation thru Christ. She was the last in lineage, the last child birther fulfilling the original promise made to Eve.

The ark contained fallen man saved by grace.
 
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Salvation requires faith! Faith requires that things can not be proven. Private revolution is that when Joseph learned that Mary was to be the mother of God all thought of intercourse was unthinkable and he only wished to be a servant! Mary in the new testament is Ark of the Covenant. Which was so sacred few could enter into it’s presents and no one could touch!
The brothers and sisters were most probable cousins. Why else would Jesus have to leave the care of His mother to John.
 
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mcq72 said:
Your plea only makes sense if Jesus was not fully man, but he was fully man and fully God ( who is a spirit).
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Jumping right in the middle, because I find the discussion interesting : could you clarify what you mean ? Do you mean Jesus was not both fully human and fully divine, or am I missing something ?

(Sorry if I’m being dense, it’s getting late here and it’s been a long day.)
 
The gospel never tells us who was the ‘second’ or ‘third’ child of Mary. It doesn’t matter how you spin it, there is no record either written or oral which speaks of any child of Mary other than Jesus, and no Christian tradition of Mary being anything but a perpetual virgin until your ‘protestant brothers’ came along in the 16th century. Some of the oldest writings and prayers to Mary (yes, ‘prayer’ is something offered to beings, not simply God alone) mention her perpetual virginity.

Who are you to preach a different gospel than the ones all Christians preached for 1500 plus years?
(Ask the Orthodox Christians if Mary 'had other children than Jesus")
 
EZweber said:
Agreed. He was Mary’s firstborn, which is a technical term about heredity which implies nothing about later children.
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Not really. The Greek word employed in Matthew’s gospel is the same Greek word employed in Col. 1:18 for instance. “And He is the head of the body, the Church; who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.”

Paul simply said, "He was the first born to rise from the dead, … we too follow Him from the dead, only because He has preeminence over death. But the word taken at face value means one who is born first, with the inference others will follow. This idea is actually in many other places in the N.T. such as Ro. 8:29 where it says Christ is the firstborn among many brethren, (born into the kingdom.)

In each of these cases the fact that He is FIRST to which others follow, applies to the Matthew 1 passage as well. Why won’t you accept the face value and simplicity of Matthew’s statement?
 
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EZweber said:
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tgGodsway:
You missed the point. Matthew’s gospel says He was the first to be born of Mary.
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Agreed. He was Mary’s firstborn, which is a technical term about heredity which implies nothing about later children.
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Correct.
Now this refutes also the false interpretation which some have drawn from the words of Matthew, where he says, “Before they came together she was found to be with child.” They interpret this as though the evangelist meant to say, “Later she came together with Joseph like any other wife and lay with him, but before this occurred she was with child apart from Joseph,” etc. Again, when he says, “And Joseph knew her not until she brought forth her first-born son” [Matt. 1:25], they interpret it as though the evangelist meant to say that he knew her, but not before she had brought forth her first-born son. This was the view of Helvidius which was refuted by Jerome. Such carnal interpretations miss the meaning and purpose of the evangelist.
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Therefore, one cannot from these words [Matt. 1:18, 25] conclude that Mary, after the birth of Christ, became a wife in the usual sense; it is therefore neither to be asserted nor believed. All the words are merely indicative of the marvelous fact that she was with child and gave birth before she had lain with a man. The form of expression used by Matthew is the common idiom, as if I were to say, “Pharaoh believed not Moses, until he was drowned in the Red Sea.” Here it does not follow that Pharaoh believed later, after he had drowned; on the contrary, it means that he never did believe. Similarly when Matthew [1:25] says that Joseph did not know Mary carnally until she had brought forth her son, it does not follow that he knew her subsequently; on the contrary, it means that he never did know her. Again, the Red Sea overwhelmed Pharaoh before he got across. Here too it does not follow that Pharaoh got across later, after the Red Sea had overwhelmed him, but rather that he did not get across at all. In like manner, when Matthew [1:18] says, “She was found to be with child before they came together,” it does not follow that Mary subsequently lay with Joseph, but rather that she did not lie with him. Elsewhere in Scripture the same manner of speech is employed. Psalm 110[:1] reads, “God says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’” Here it does not follow that Christ does not continue to sit there after his enemies are placed beneath his feet. Again, in Genesis 28[:15], “I will not leave you until I have done all that of which I have spoken to you.” Here God did not leave him after the fulfilment had taken place. Again, in Isaiah 42[:4], “He shall not be sad, nor troublesome, till he has established justice in the earth.” There are many more similar expressions, so that this babble of Helvidius is without justification; in addition, he has neither noticed nor paid any attention to either Scripture or the common idiom. -Luther (“That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew,” pp. 211-13)
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OddBird said:
Do you mean Jesus was not both fully human and fully divine, or am I missing something ?
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Jesus is fully man and fully God. My thought is something akin to our nature of body, soul and spirit. I don’t t think our body is spirit , but our spirits abode in the body.
So God took on human flesh…same kind of flesh as Mary or Joseph…that is made up of carbon atoms etc…dust so to speak… …like his body is the ark containing His spirit, being second person of trinity.

My point was flesh was in Mary’s womb with Christ, just as flesh would be in Mary’s womb if she had other children with their spirits ( however “fallen”).

Mary’s womb was sanctified to bring forth the incarnated, fleshly God. I just add that all life is from God, and all births come from a sanctified womb of a woman. Mary, Jesus, salvation, their glorification , is not diminished by her womb continuing to be sanctified in life giving child birth.
 
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