"bible Christians" And The Blessed Virgin Mary

[Akalyte]

so i was hanging out with my neighbors last night and all of the sudden religion came up
and they started saying "the virgin mary had other children! "she didnt remain a virgin"! I I said what verse specifically says she had other children? There are no specifics! just what is imposed upon certain verses by protestants! taken out of context! It's just amazing how bible christians can just throw their own meaning into the scriptures. rather then pulling the correct meaning out.

[mortify]

Being a "bible christian" is like having tunnel vision.

[RandomProddy]

[quote name='Akalyte' post='1672701' date='Oct 8 2008, 06:51 PM']There are no specifics! just what is imposed upon certain verses by protestants! taken out of context! It's just amazing how bible christians can just throw their own meaning into the scriptures. rather then pulling the correct meaning out.[/quote]

Jesus had lots of brothers.

[eagle_eye222001]

[quote name='RandomProddy' post='1672710' date='Oct 8 2008, 01:15 PM']Jesus had lots of brothers.[/quote]

I agree with you although that depends on your definition of 'brothers.' If you mean brothers in a biological sense, I ask for you to present evidence of Jesus having biological brothers. If you mean brothers in a sense of general relatives outside the immediate family, I wholeheartedly agree.

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='eagle_eye222001' post='1672720' date='Oct 8 2008, 01:43 PM']I agree with you although that depends on your definition of 'brothers.' If you mean brothers in a biological sense, I ask for you to present evidence of Jesus having biological brothers. If you mean brothers in a sense of general relatives outside the immediate family, I wholeheartedly agree.[/quote]

Or half brothers - Jospeh's children from a former marriage (it's possible, as he is believed to have been older than Mary).

[Akalyte]

[quote name='RandomProddy' post='1672710' date='Oct 8 2008, 01:15 PM']Jesus had lots of brothers.[/quote]

A.k.a. "Cousins".since there was no word for cousins they used brothers. It does not specifically say "Mary's other sons, jesus' many brothers"

[Akalyte]

1. "I’ve never understood why Catholics claim that Mary was a virgin her entire life. The Bible says that Jesus had brothers. Matthew 13:55 settles the matter for me: ‘Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?’"

In answering any biblical objection to the faith, step number one is putting the other at ease by agreeing that if a teaching contradicts Scripture, the teaching must be wrong.

Next, examine the biblical evidence. In the case of Mary’s perpetual virginity, the key to explaining Matthew 13:55 is understanding the Greek word for "brethren" (adelphoi) and its feminine counterpart (adelphe). If the Greek words used in this passage connote only siblings, then the Catholic dogma of Mary’s perpetual virginity is false.

However, the word adelphoi has a much broader meaning. It may refer to male relatives that one is not a descendant of and that are not descendant from one (such as a blood brother, step-brother, nephew, uncle, cousin, etc.) or non-relatives such as neighbors, fellow workers, co-religionists, and friends.

Because of this broad usage, we can be sure that the 120 "brothers" in Acts 1:15 did not have the same mother. Neither did Lot and his uncle Abraham, who were called "brothers" (Gen. 11:26-28, 29:15).

The reason relatives were called brothers or sisters was because in Hebrew, there was no word for cousin, nephew, or uncle. So the person was referred to as simply a "brother." Linguistically, this was far easier than calling the person the son of a mother’s sister. Since the New Testament was written in a dialect of Greek that was heavily influenced by the Semitic culture, many of the Hebrew idioms (like "brother" having multiple meanings) intrude into the Greek text. So, the fact that Jesus had adelphoi does not mean that Mary had other children.

2. "But there was a Greek word for cousin, anepsios. If the brothers of the Lord were really his cousins, why wasn’t that word used?"

Here is a common misconception to be on the lookout for: "Catholics teach that the brothers were actually cousins." That’s not the Catholic position. In fact, we can’t tell if any of the "brothers" were cousins. All the Church affirms is that they were not children of Mary. They could have been children of Joseph from a prior marriage. But the specific word for cousin (anepsios) probably would not have been used in Matthew 13:55 unless all the "brothers" were cousins. If even one of them was not a cousin, the more general term " adelphoi" covers the situation. Even if all of them were cousins, the term "brother" could still be used by Matthew to appropriately describe them.

These things were taken for granted by the early Christians, who were familiar with the biblical languages and who knew that Mary was a lifelong virgin. In A.D. 380, Helvidius proposed that Mary had other children because of the "brothers" in Matthew 13:55. He was rebutted by Jerome, who was arguably the greatest biblical scholar of the day. The Protestant reformer John Calvin seconded Jerome: "Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages to the brothers of Christ" [quoted by Bernard Leeming, Protestants and Our Lady, 9]. Martin Luther agreed with Calvin that Mary was always a virgin, as did Ulrich Zwingli: "I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary" [E. Stakemeier, De Mariologia et Oecumenismo, K. Balic, ed., 456].

3. "But Matthew 1:25 states that Joseph had no relations with Mary until she bore a son. Wouldn’t that imply that he knew her afterward?"

Before you move on to this objection, notice that the verse in question has changed. You have presented scriptural and historical evidence to support the Church’s interpretation. If the person that you are speaking with leaves Matthew 13:55 to rest, it may be a sign that he sees the incompleteness of the "brethren of the Lord" argument. This is a good sign, so follow his lead—so long as the conversation stays on topic. Zealous Protestants will have any number of objections to the faith, and, if you hope to make any progress, take only one topic at a time.

Now, does Matthew’s use of "until" mean what your friend says it does? Not necessarily. The Greek word for "until" (heos) does not imply that Mary had marital relations after the birth of Christ. In 2 Samuel 6:23, we read that Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child "until" the day of her death. (Rest assured that she didn’t have any children after that day, either.) Hebrews 1:13 and 1 Timothy 4:13 are similar examples.

When we interpret any passage, we must consider what the author was trying to say. Matthew’s intent here is not to explain what happened after the birth of Christ. He is only concerned with the fact that Joseph and Mary had no relations before then. It is the virgin birth, not later siblings, that Matthew is concerned with.

4. "What about Psalm 69:8? It prophesied that Mary would have children when it says in regard to Jesus, ‘I have been a stranger to my brethren, an alien to my mother’s sons.’"

If your friend takes this Psalm to be a literal prophecy of Christ, he runs into bigger problems. Look three verses earlier, "O God, thou knowest my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from thee" (emphasis added). Since Jesus did no wrong and had no follies, it seems clear we shouldn’t take this passage literally.

The prophecy in verse 8 is fulfilled by the fact that Jesus was rejected by his own relatives (Mark 3:21). Besides, if the "brethren" of the Lord were Joseph’s children from a prior marriage, though they were not Mary’s biological children, legally they would be considered her sons.

5. "But how could an unconsummated marriage have been a valid one for Mary and Joseph? It would be so unnatural."

At the end of a wedding, the minister announces that the couple has become man and wife. They exchanged vows, and so they are married—without having consummated the marriage yet. When the marriage is consummated, the marriage—which was already valid—becomes indissoluble. So Joseph and Mary’s marriage was a real marriage, even if it was never consummated.

In regard to it not being natural, the prophet Isaiah said that God’s ways are not like our ways (Is. 55:8–9). When the Second Person of the Trinity is in your wife’s womb, you can expect to have a different marriage than most folks!

6. "But it’s not a sin for a married couple to have marital relations."

True, ordinarily. But even in the Old Testament God asked married couples to refrain from intercourse for various reasons. For example, the priests of the temple had to refrain from intimacy with their wives during the time of their service. Likewise, Moses had the Israelites abstain from intercourse as he ascended Mount Sinai (Ex. 20:15). There is a theme here of refraining from marital rights because of the presence of something very holy.

The Church Fathers knew that there was something greater than the temple in Mary’s womb, comparing it to the Eastern Gate mentioned in Ezekiel 44: "This gate shall remain shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it; for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it shall remain shut." Mary had become the dwelling place of the Almighty, like the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament.

Now, if Uzzah was struck dead for touching the Ark (2 Sam. 6:6–8), should it be surprising that Joseph understood that Mary was a vessel consecrated to God alone? The idea that Joseph assumed normal marital relations with Mary after the birth of Christ was an irreverence that even the Protestant reformers rejected.

Interestingly, according to Jewish law, if a man was betrothed to a woman and she became pregnant from another, he could never have relations with her. The man had to put her away privately or condemn her in public and put her to death. Joseph chose the more merciful option.

Then, the angel told him to lead her into the house as a wife (paralambano gunaika), but the language that describes marital relations is not used here. It was used, however, in Luke 1:35: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." To "overshadow" a woman was a euphemism for having a marital relationship, as was the phrase "to lay one’s power" over a woman. The Holy Spirit had espoused Mary, and she had been consecrated, set apart for God.

Also, it appears that Mary had made a vow of virginity. When the angel said that she would conceive and bear a son, she asked, "How can this be, since I do not know man?" She knew how babies were made, and she was about to be married. "How can this be?" would seem like a pretty silly question unless she had made a prior vow of virginity.

7. "Why is she betrothed to Joseph if she made a vow of virginity?"

Consecrated virginity was not common among first century Jews, but it did exist. According to some early Christian documents, such as the Protoevangelium of James (written around A.D. 120), Mary was a consecrated virgin. As such, when she reached puberty, her monthly cycle would render her ceremonially unclean and thus unable to dwell in the temple without defiling it under the Mosaic Law. At this time, she would be entrusted to a male guardian. However, since it was forbidden for a man to live with a woman he was not married or related to, the virgin would be wed to the guardian, and they would have no marital relations.

[StColette]

[quote name='HisChildForever' post='1672745' date='Oct 8 2008, 02:04 PM']Or half brothers - Jospeh's children from a former marriage (it's possible, as he is believed to have been older than Mary).[/quote]

I believe you mean stepbrothers If these were children of Joseph's from a previous marriage they would be stepbrothers not half brothers. A half brother denotes blood relation.

[Mr.Cat]

In my personal opinion, objectively the only true Christians could be considered faithful Catholics. Only in subjectivity could non-Catholics be considered “Christian”. For to a Christian it is necessary to at least believe and then practice the beliefs taught by our Divine Lord, which includes the Church and the Papacy, moreover the Priesthood and True Presence. Thus in an objective sense a non-Catholic could hardly meet this criteria. This heresy of “[i]sola scriptura[/i]” (by scripture alone) should be rejected by Catholics. In application Catholics should feel free to expose this heresy and publically repudiate it.

Some time back there was responce to this issue in the topic "[url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=74068&view=findpost&p=1409011"]Question, On Mary and Jesus' Brothers[/url]". [url="http://saints.sqpn.com/saintj06.htm"][b]Saint Jerome[/b][/url] very clearly gives the opinion of the Church concerning the virginity and inviolate nature of Our Lady, also of Saint Joseph.[quote][b]The Perpetual Virginity of Mary Against Helvedius[/b] - [url="http://saints.sqpn.com/saintj06.htm"][b]Saint Jerome[/b][/url] (383AD)
"[b]21[/b]. But as we do not deny what is written, so we do reject what is not written. We believe that God was born of the Virgin, because we read it. That Mary was married after she brought forth, we do not believe, because we do not read it. Nor do we say this to condemn marriage, for virginity itself is the fruit of marriage; but because when we are dealing with saints we must not judge rashly. If we adopt possibility as the standard of judgment, we might maintain that Joseph had several wives because Abraham had, and so had Jacob, and that the Lord's brethren were the issue of those wives, an invention which some hold with a rashness which springs from audacity not from piety. You say that Mary did not continue a virgin: [b][u]I claim still more, that Joseph himself on account of Mary was a virgin, so that from a virgin wedlock a virgin son was born[/u][/b]. For if as a holy man he does not come under the imputation of fornication, and it is nowhere written that he had another wife, but was the guardian of Mary whom he was supposed to have to wife rather than her husband, the conclusion is that he who was thought worthy to be called father of the Lord, [u]remained a virgin[/u]."
[url="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3007.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3007.htm[/url][/quote]

Edited October 8, 2008 by Mr.CatholicCat

[White Knight]

If I remember correctly, I believe history Records Joseph to be a widower well advanced in age, He had children in his other marriage. Of course back in that time when the Scriptures were being written in Greek from Aramaic, there was no word for "Cousin" or Step brothers" So you called everyone in your tribe, or group, who was male, brother. not in a biological sense, but in a tribal sense, they are still related because they are apart of that family community or overall extended family.

So I highly doubt Joseph had kids with Mary who was pretty much well advanced in age compared to Mother Mary. Its believe he died long before Jesus even started His ministry.


So The term "brother" was used since no other word existed in that language. which has sub meanings to it, Brother could have ment plenty of other things other than blood brother or blood relative.


[b][url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08504a.htm"]Saint Joseph Life[/url][/b]

[i][b]It will not be without interest to recall here, unreliable though they are, the lengthy stories concerning St. Joseph's marriage contained in the apocryphal writings. When forty years of age, [color="#0000FF"][size=4]Joseph married a woman called Melcha or Escha by some, Salome by others; they lived forty-nine years together and had six children, two daughters and four sons, the youngest of whom was James (the Less, "the Lord's brother"). A year after his wife's death, as the priests announced through Judea that they wished to find in the tribe of Juda a respectable man to espouse Mary, then twelve to fourteen years of age. Joseph, who was at the time ninety years old, went up to Jerusalem among the candidates; a miracle manifested the choice God had made of Joseph, and two years later the Annunciation took place.[/size] [/color]These dreams, as St. Jerome styles them, from which many a Christian artist has drawn his inspiration (see, for instance, Raphael's "Espousals of the Virgin"), are void of authority; they nevertheless acquired in the course of ages some popularity; in them some ecclesiastical writers sought the answer to the well-known difficulty arising from the mention in the Gospel of "the Lord's brothers"; from them also popular credulity has, contrary to all probability, [size=4]as well as to the tradition witnessed by old works of art, retained the belief that St. Joseph was an old man at the time of marriage with the Mother of God.[/size] [/b][/i]

[MichaelF]

The issue(s) that Evangelicals and Reformed Protestants (minus High Church Anglicans and Lutherans) have with The Virgin Mary derive almost entirely from their poor (nonexistant, in some cases) understanding of the difference between [i]dulia[/i] and [i]latria[/i].

In essence, they confuse our (Catholic and/or Orthodox) affection and veneration for Mary with outright worship (which it isn't). Ergo, we get the whole "Mary wasn't xxxxx" tactics that are meant to draw us away from Church Teaching.

To a (slightly) lesser extent, the same circumstances apply to our veneration of, and fellowship with, the Saints.

Understand that, for most Protestants (and particularly American Evangelicals), their knowledge of Catholicism is limited to what they get taught by their pastors (almost guaranteed to be 100% whole cloth) and scenes from movies (at best, [i]the Exorcist[/i], at worst, [i]The Order[/i]).

[thessalonian]

The primary reason that protestants have so much trouble with the Bible is they do not have the traditions that were passsed down. The scriptures were written to someone, i.e. the Church. It's like a son writing to his family from Iraq. Sure, everybody else could get some good out of it but it would make far and away the most sense to his family.

[StColette]

[quote name='White Knight' post='1673223' date='Oct 9 2008, 02:48 AM']If I remember correctly, I believe history Records Joseph to be a widower well advanced in age, He had children in his other marriage.[/quote]

There are two strong traditions surrounding Joseph. A) He was a widower and had children from his other marriage and B) that Joseph was a young man, older than Mary, but a virgin as well

[tinytherese]

[quote name='StColette' post='1676320' date='Oct 13 2008, 04:51 PM']There are two strong traditions surrounding Joseph. A) He was a widower and had children from his other marriage and B) that Joseph was a young man, older than Mary, but a virgin as well[/quote]

Wouldn't the second tradition be more likely though? People of that timeperiod got married as teenagers typically and that first tradition cited that he married his first wife at age forty. Also, people usually died at what we in our age would consider very young, in their fifties and sixties so St. Joseph even being alive at ninty would be pretty unusual. Not to mention if St. James is the stepbrother of Jesus, then he might be significantly older than Our Lord and that's where the age issue comes in again. Depending on when he was born. Being the youngest really doesn't tell us much. He could have been born twenty years before Our Lord for all we know. Provided that I make it into heaven I'll ask St. Joseph himself to find out what really happened. If I'm wrong, well that wouldn't be the first time.

I was wondering about St. Joseph's age because someone asked about it in RCIA and I'm supposed to answer it.

Edited October 14, 2008 by tinytherese

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='Mr.CatholicCat' post='1672777' date='Oct 8 2008, 04:15 PM']In my personal opinion, objectively the only true Christians could be considered faithful Catholics. Only in subjectivity could non-Catholics be considered “Christian”. For to a Christian it is necessary to at least believe and then practice the beliefs taught by our Divine Lord, which includes the Church and the Papacy, moreover the Priesthood and True Presence. Thus in an objective sense a non-Catholic could hardly meet this criteria.[/quote]

Of course, in obedience to the Church and Papacy, one must also recognize that Protestants are Christians... hmm.

[quote name='MichaelF' post='1673228' date='Oct 9 2008, 04:16 AM']Understand that, for most Protestants (and particularly American Evangelicals), their knowledge of Catholicism is limited to what they get taught by their pastors (almost guaranteed to be 100% whole cloth) and scenes from movies (at best, [i]the Exorcist[/i], at worst, [i]The Order[/i]).[/quote]

That may largely depend on how strong of a Catholic influence there is in your area of the country. In places where the influence is strong, many (if not most) Protestants have plenty of firsthand experience with Catholicism, either from being raised in Catholic schools, raised in the Church, or having friends and relatives who are Catholic. It would be just about impossible to find anyone in my area whose experience with Catholicism is limited to pop culture. Seems most of the people I meet were raised Catholic, or at least in Catholic schools.

[quote name='tinytherese' post='1676609' date='Oct 13 2008, 10:33 PM']Wouldn't the second tradition be more likely though? People of that timeperiod got married as teenagers typically and that first tradition cited that he married his first wife at age forty.[/quote]

I've never heard a specific age given for St. Joseph's possible first marriage. Seeing as women married at age 14 or 15, I can't imagine his first marriage was at age 40.

Edited October 14, 2008 by LouisvilleFan