But ‘until’ does not imply an action follows.
Micah, the wife of David, remained childless until her death.
Did she have kids after she died? no.
Jesus will reign until all His enemies are under His feet.
Will He then STOP reigning? No.
Matthew’s gospel was targeted not to Gentiles or 21st century literalists, but to the contemporary Jewish people.
The passage 'knew her not until" the birth is specifically couched in these terms so that all Jewish people listening knew that Jesus was not the Son of Joseph. (even though Jesus had a specific legal standing as the putative son of Joseph).
And let me tell you, there were a lot of people who knew Jesus and His family, many of whom would have been alive and well in AD 50 or so. You mean to tell me that there is absolutely no whisper of, “Yeah, we knew Mary’s “Oldest” was special, but her other kids, wow did they go wrong” or "Of course James and Joses never measured up to “perfect Jesus’, they were always complaining to us and our kids about the special treatment. Like he was god or something”.
Not.One.Word.
Not one word ever about that “James, Joses, Jesus’ sisters’.
They didn’t come forth to care for Mary.
They didn’t come forth (could you imagine how compelling their testimony would be if they were ‘for’ Jesus? His own family? Or, conversely, how eagerly the Pharisees and Romans would have looked for 'negative testimony?” “We have the words of Jesus’ own brothers and sisters that he was always a nutcase. He was no god” etc.)
Nope, for centuries and centuries we not only have written and oral words about Mary’s perpetual virginity, but people read the gospels and never once–not ONCE!- until the arrogant "look at me I’m literate’ disaffected “I’ll interpret for MYSELF” legends in their own minds start to say, “EGAD! This passage implies that Mary was not a virgin ‘after’ Jesus was born! EGAD! These passages speak of Jesus’ brothers! EGAD! All those centuries ‘the Church’ lied! EGAD!” (like over 1600 years various priests, bishops, princes, nuns, etc. weren’t reading the same gospel passages, but having the sense to say, "Well, of COURSE ‘until’ doesn’t imply that something ‘has to change’, look at other scripture passages, look at the context. Don’t cherrypick.’ “Gosh, Father, don’t you worry that people might someday look at this passage and NOT think about the context? That they might actually think that until implies a change?” “Well, of course some people might be fools, but we’ll just pray they’ll have the sense God gave little green apples and if they can read this passage, that they have the intellectual HONESTY to consider context.”
