Did Mary and Joseph Have other Children?

[DHK]

Originally posted by thessalonian:
"In other words, we cannot trust what Matthew wrote; the Greek words "unto," "until" etc. are irrelevant, and their translations are meaningless without Oral Tradition (which you mentioned later in the same post). You put Oral Tradition as having greater authority than the Scriptures. You said straight out that these prepositions I DOUBT ...THAT THIS IS WHAT MATTHEW WROTE Like the Serpent in the Garden of Eden putting doubt in Eve's mind, and then plainly denying God's Word, you have come to the place where you have plainly denied God's Word, saying it can't be translated."

DHK,

You have a flair for twisting and exagerating that speaks to 1 Peter 3:16 quite well. First of all Matt did not write unto and until. He wrote words in greek that are imperfectly or should I say incompletely translated in to English.

#1. You deny what you wrote.
#2. You deny that what Matthew wrote can be properly translated into English even though dozens of translations say the same thing, and we have adequate lexicons to verify it.

#3. When you can't win an argument or debate, you wrap yourself up in a state of denial and resort to name calling and inuendos. Throw in the towel Thessalonian. Admit that Joseph and Mary had other children by virtue of a proper exegesis of Mat.13:55,56 and Mat.1:25. The evidence has been soundly presented. There is no need to deny it any further.
DHK

 

[Todd]

Again, DHK continues to refute all Catholic claims of perpetual virginity with obvious success. But, for the sake of hopefully reaching the Catholics who post here with the genuine Gospel of our Lord Jesus, I will answer Carson's (hollow) claims once again.

That is the aim of a rebuttal.

No, the aim of your rebuttals is to claim victory in spite of the biblical evidence that destroys your extra-biblical arguments.

I have shown you how - in logic - Mary's response to Gabriel is a non sequitur since in her mind, sex is imminent, and the how has already been presented to her. She is betrothed to Joseph, and her betrothal is so strong that it would take a bill of divorce to be separated from him. If she is planning on having sex with Joseph and raising a family, then Gabriel's announcement that her future son will be the King of Israel should not evoke the response of "How can this be, for I know not man?"

This interpretation is not my own, nor is it novel. It was used by St. Jerome against Helvidius in the fourth century.

Quite frankly, I wouldn't care if John Paul II himself used the argument - it holds no water! You say that the angel had already revealed to Mary how her conception would take place before Lk. 1:34, but that is clearly wrong. It was in v.35ff that the angel revealed this: "And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God...for with God nothing shall be impossible." It was only after Mary realized that God was going to accomplish the impossible through her life that she responded with praise, having fully understood the plan of God. So, as you can CLEARLY see, Mary's response was not non sequitur in v.34 because the angel had not yet told her that she would conceive and bear a son by the Holy Spirit - in v.31 he had only told her that she would conceive, not how she would conceive. This my friend is SOUND EXEGESIS.

no Catholic on this string has been able to respond to the exegetical evidence ... that the Greek term adelphos must be interpreted as brother

You are incorrect. I have shown how this premise is false on page 6 of this thread, and, as of yet, you have not responded to it:

So, by your response are you asserting that men were the authors of Scripture and not the Holy Spirit of God? Notwithstanding the nuances of Hebrew and Aramaic language as compared to the Greek, could the Holy Spirit of God not have caused the writers of Scripture to have included the Greek term for cousin if that was the genuine nature of the relationship? Your argument proves nothing, except that maybe you think men authored the Scriptures and not the Holy Spirit. If that's the way you feel, that more than explains you adherance to such an unbiblical position. IF THE HOLY SPIRIT WOULD HAVE WANTED US TO UNDERSTAND THE RELATIONSHIP OF CHRIST TO HIS FAMILY AS COUSINS, HE COULD'VE CLEARLY INSPIRED THE NT WRITERS TO HAVE DONE SO - BUT HE DIDN'T! What He did inspire them to write was the word "adelphos(oi)," which we have already proven is translated brother(s) 346 times in the NT of the KJV.

The fact that the Old Testament was originally authored in Hebrew and was later translated into Greek is the foundation of the argument for the Perpetual Virginity of Mary because the translators of the Septuagint favored adelphos, even for true cousins. This demonstrates that adelphos was used for cousins as well as full blood brothers equally among Jews well before the time of Jesus.

This is the argument that you have not assimilated nor responded to. And how can you when it successfully demonstrates that adelphos cannot be equated with full blood brothers? There is no response that you can provide, even if you wanted to provide one.

We have already clearly demonstrated that the LXX can't be used to substantiate the true meaning of inspired Greek terms, but for the sake of silencing this rebuttal, consider this. Could it have been at least slightly possible that the LXX translators understood the grammatical problems associated with the translation of Hebrew into Greek, and as a result decided to translate "cousins, nephews, etc." as adelphos , honoring the customs of the Hebrew language? If this is a possibility, which it clearly is, then your argument once again proves nothing except that you must turn to a source other than the Greek NT to try and substantiate your claim that adelphos could be translated as something other than "brother(s)" in the Greek NT - it just won't work! If that's all you've "got," then you're truly grasping at straws! But of course, we all knew you were doing that to begin with.

Alright Todd!! Now you're actually providing arguments.. and responding for once... way to go!

I "actually provided arguments" for you the first time, to which you turned your head. I felt it would be a lost cause to continue further, but for your sake I have reconsidered.

You are using a narrow, modern meaning of "until," instead of the meaning it had when the Bible was written.

In the Bible, it means only that some action did not happen up to a certain point; it does not imply that the action did happen later, which is the modern sense of the term. In fact, if the modern sense is forced on the Bible, some ridiculous meanings result.

As DHK pointed out, you don't even take the context of the examples you mentioned into the equation. Word meaning, in and of itself, is not all that must be used in order to provide a sound hermeneutic. As I was once told, a text taken out of context is nothing more than a pretext. The clear context of Mt. 1:25 is that Joseph knew not his wife until she bore Christ, but then after that they pursued a normal conjugal relationship. Could it be that you don't want to understand the use of "until" that way because you are trying to defend a dead-end dogma - I think so. And by using the argument of ancient vs. modern understandings of until, you have only stated your opinion for you provided no research to back up your claim that the word was understood any differently back then than it is now.

It would have been nothing short of sin for Mary to have married Joseph if she had already taken a vow of virginity

You need to substantiate this claim.

How about 1 Cor. 7:5, or did you miss that in my last post? You may say that doesn't apply because it is NT, so how about Gen. 2:24? I wasn't shocked that you started quoting the early church fathers at the end of your post - again you run out of biblical arguments, so you turn to the heretical teachings of the fathers. Sorry, but that won't cut it here.

 

[Harley4Him]

Will this cut it?

[On Matt 1:25:] The inference he Helvidius drew from it was, that Mary remained a virgin no longer than till her first birth, and that afterwards she had other children by her husband . . . No just and well-grounded inference can be drawn from these words . . . as to what took place after the birth of Christ. He is called 'first-born'; but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that he was born of a virgin . . . What took place afterwards the historian does not inform us . . . No man will obstinately keep up the argument, except from an extreme fondness for disputation.


Under the word 'brethren' the Hebrews include all cousins and other relations, whatever may be the degree of affinity.

 

[DHK]

Originally posted by Harley4Him:

Under the word 'brethren' the Hebrews include all cousins and other relations, whatever may be the degree of affinity.

[/QUOTE]
On this point alone your arguments fall apart, simply because it is not true. It is a remote definition. It is like having ten definitions of a word and the one that you just gave is the tenth. One doesn't use the secondary definition of a word when the primary definition (brother) fits the context. We don't redefine the context by choosing secondary definitions just to satisfy our own pre-cnceived ideas. "Brother" is the primary definition of the word, not "relations" or family members. This argument holds no weight, especially in the light that there are other words that Matthew could have used to describe kinsmen, cousins, family, relatives, etc. But, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he used the word adelphos, meaning brother. He used it for a purpose. It means brother.
DHK

 

[thessalonian]

#1. You deny what you wrote.

You twist what I wrote and say I deny it. You don't understand what I wrote and are trying to tell me what I believe and the context of what I wrote. I suspect I know better than you. Of course you will not even be able to admit that.

#2. You deny that what Matthew wrote can be properly translated into English even though dozens of translations say the same thing, and we have adequate lexicons to verify it.

I believe we have the best translations possible. I do not believe they are in error.
I see brother used for people who obviously were not brothers (such as lot) and I know that there is not a one to one correspondence between English and Hebrew. Yes for that instance there are verses which show the relationship. But I cannot say that is the case every time out of the 400 or so that brother is used in scripture. I look at the multiple translations of 2 Thes 2:15 and see the clear bias of Protestant translators who abhor the word tradition and so insert teaching instead, even though the word paradosis is tradition (it is when Mark 7 uses it and there you like the word tradition). Now I would not say that "teaching" which most Protestant Bibles use is an error but it does not capture all that the word tradition does and I do not know for sure that the word tradition captures all that paradosis is. I could go on and on. But why bother. Your are much too grandios for your cat.

#3. When you can't win an argument or debate, you wrap yourself up in a state of denial and resort to name calling and inuendos.

What name did I call you DHK? Inuendo? No, I merely properly applied scripture to what you are doing. Sorry if it hurts.

"Throw in the towel Thessalonian."

I will stop casting pearls.

"Admit that Joseph and Mary had other children by virtue of a proper exegesis of Mat.13:55,56 and Mat.1:25."

Your God is extracted from a one dimensional book (or at least that is the way you see it.) by the minds of men who think much too much of themselves.


"The evidence has been soundly presented. There is no need to deny it any further."

 

[xTom]

I would like to interject an anecdote about the modern usages of until: At school, Indian graduate students all speak fluent English--with a British flavour and an Indian accent. They don't use "until" they way I formerly thought enveryone did.

One student says to me, "I have not had lunch until now," and then tells me how hungry he is. I do a few double-takes before I figure out that his "until now" does not include the parenthetical "but then I did" which I would have meant if I had said his sentence. I've found that all the Indian students use "until" in this fashion--My American usage probably throws him for that same kind of loop.

Tom

 

[Harley4Him]

Originally posted by DHK:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Harley4Him:

Under the word 'brethren' the Hebrews include all cousins and other relations, whatever may be the degree of affinity.

</font>[/QUOTE]On this point alone your arguments fall apart, simply because it is not true.[/QUOTE]

I should have said in my previous post that the quote was from John Calvin. Personally, I think his level of biblical knowledge far, far surpasses mine and I am not competent to understand the original languages.

Is it generally accepted that we have a better understanding of Hebrew now that Calvin did 500 years ago? This is certainly possible. It's also possible that he was overly influenced by a tradition that believed in perpetual virginity. On the other hand it's also possible that we're overly influenced by a tradition that rejects it.

 

[Harley4Him]

Originally posted by DHK:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Harley4Him:

Under the word 'brethren' the Hebrews include all cousins and other relations, whatever may be the degree of affinity.

</font>[/QUOTE]On this point alone your arguments fall apart, simply because it is not true.[/QUOTE]

I should have said in my previous post that the quote was from John Calvin. Personally, I think his level of biblical knowledge far, far surpasses mine and I am not competent to understand the original languages.

Is it generally accepted that we have a better understanding of Hebrew now that Calvin did 500 years ago? This is certainly possible. It's also possible that he was overly influenced by a tradition that believed in perpetual virginity. On the other hand it's also possible that we're overly influenced by a tradition that rejects it.

 

[Todd]

Harley, no that won't cut it because for starters you didn't even supply us with your source (though I'm pretty sure it must be Calvin). Further, there is no Scripture to back it up - only inferences cast upon the text by the heretical teachings of some of the early church fathers. So, in a word, your cut and paste won't cut it.

 

[Todd]

Harley, no that won't cut it because for starters you didn't even supply us with your source (though I'm pretty sure it must be Calvin). Further, there is no Scripture to back it up - only inferences cast upon the text by the heretical teachings of some of the early church fathers. So, in a word, your cut and paste won't cut it.

 

[Born Again Catholic]

Now its 21 pages of responses and not one Bible verse that says "mary had other natural children", I still find it ironic that in order to believe that Mary had other children the posters here have to abandon the heretical belief in sola scriptura and rely on their authoritative personal opinions to make their infallible pronouncements.

I will admit that I believe Mary does have many offspring, that is “those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”

Revelation 11-12

19Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple.(the ark of the old covenant) There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.Rev 12:1 And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars(the ark of the new covenant)......5She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations…….. with a rod of iron,.....17Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

 

[Born Again Catholic]

Now its 21 pages of responses and not one Bible verse that says "mary had other natural children", I still find it ironic that in order to believe that Mary had other children the posters here have to abandon the heretical belief in sola scriptura and rely on their non-authoritative personal opinions to make their infallible pronouncements.

I will admit that I believe Mary does have many offspring, that is “those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”

Revelation 11-12

19Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple.(the ark of the old covenant) There were flashes of lightning, rumblings,[4] peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.

1And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars(the ark of the new covenant)…….…5She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations…….. with a rod of iron ……17Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

 

[DHK]

Originally posted by thessalonian:
#1. You deny what you wrote.

You twist what I wrote and say I deny it. You don't understand what I wrote and are trying to tell me what I believe and the context of what I wrote. I suspect I know better than you. Of course you will not even be able to admit that.

You said straight out that these prepositions "I DOUBT ...THAT THIS IS WHAT MATTHEW WROTE"

AND
Originally posted by thessalonian:

Personally I doudt that unto, until, till, to or any of the other common translatsions of what the Greek word is were what Matthew wrote.

The above is what you wrote. I quoted you. I have not twisted your words. I understand exactly what you are saying. You have not only stated the above; you have attempted to deny what you have stated.

#2. You deny that what Matthew wrote can be properly translated into English even though dozens of translations say the same thing, and we have adequate lexicons to verify it.

I believe we have the best translations possible. I do not believe they are in error.

See your above quotes. You don't believe that Matthew can be accurately translated. This is what you have stated.
The contradiction or denial: "I believe we have the best translations possible."
So your belief is either we do have the Word of God or we don't. And if in the English, we don't have the Word of God, you give us the impression that we can't even trust the Greek language which the translation came from. For we have given you the definitions of adelphos and ews and other Greek words as well. You don't accept the Greek neither the English.

I see brother used for people who obviously were not brothers (such as lot) and I know that there is not a one to one correspondence between English and Hebrew. Yes for that instance there are verses which show the relationship. But I cannot say that is the case every time out of the 400 or so that brother is used in scripture.

#1. The subject is the Greek word "adelphos" not the Hebrew word for "brother." There is a difference.
#2. Be that as it man, the reference in Genesis 14, where Lot is referred to as brother, does not necessarily mean nephew. As pointed out before, He rescued his brother (as brother in the Lord) Lot. There is just as much evidence if not more to take the literal meaning of the word brother and interpret it in such a common address that we use every day. If Moses had intended to show us the relationship to Abraham there are plenty of Hebrew words that he could have chosen. There is a word in Hebrew word for Nephew, but the Lord chose not to use that word for a reason. Perhaps he was trying to show us a different relationship.

I look at the multiple translations of 2 Thes 2:15 and see the clear bias of Protestant translators who abhor the word tradition and so insert teaching instead, even though the word paradosis is tradition (it is when Mark 7 uses it and there you like the word tradition). Now I would not say that "teaching" which most Protestant Bibles use is an error but it does not capture all that the word tradition does and I do not know for sure that the word tradition captures all that paradosis is. I could go on and on. But why bother. Your are much too grandios for your cat.

The word means, and should be translated, tradition, as you say. The trouble here lies in your definition in of tradition, as I once looked up in a Catholic encyclopedia. It was knowledge, either written or oral, passed on throughout centuries. Christ died in 29 B.C. These two epistles (I and II Thes.) were two of the earliest epistles that Paul wrote, written ca. 52-53 A.D.
Between 29 and 53 there is only 24 years, hardly enough time for "centuries" of "tradition" to develop. The definition that you give to "tradition" goes totally contrary to the context of this verse. There was no such tradition to formulate between the death of Christ and 53 A.D. This is a ridiculous assumption to make. How does one fit centuries of Oral Tradtion into just 24 years? It is your definition and interpretation that most of us object to. Thus the meaning of the word tradition is not the "traditional" Catholic meaning. Paul is merely referring to the teaching that He has taught them from the Word of God, and nothing more.

#3. When you can't win an argument or debate, you wrap yourself up in a state of denial and resort to name calling and inuendos.

What name did I call you DHK? Inuendo? No, I merely properly applied scripture to what you are doing. Sorry if it hurts.

you have except in the grandios recesses of your mind where you believe that you are a legendary bible exegete

But why bother. Your are much too grandios for your cat.

You are just so complimentary.

"Admit that Joseph and Mary had other children by virtue of a proper exegesis of Mat.13:55,56 and Mat.1:25."

Your God is extracted from a one dimensional book (or at least that is the way you see it.) by the minds of men who think much too much of themselves.

You know, you actually got part of this right, except for the derogatory remark at the end. My God is the God of the Bible. The Bible is my final authority in all matters of faith and practice. I don't need any group of sinful men such as a magesterium of a sinful man such as a pope to tell me what to believe. The Bible is my guide. Jesus Christ is not only my Saviour, He is my Great High Priest, and I am a priest that can go straight before Him and offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. I am an heir of God and a joint heir with Jesus Christ. The Spirit that dwells within me bears witness with my spirit that indeed I am His child. I am absolutely sure that if I should die at this moment I would go straight to Heaven. I know that beyond any shadow of any doubt. My salvation is secured by the blood of Christ, and nothing that I have ever done, nor ever will do. I rest entirely upon the grace of God and His precious gift of love demonstrated in His death on the cross for me, and evidenced by His resurrection. I am a child of the King, a servant of Jesus Christ, my Lord.

It is to Christ that I am accountable not to a priest, bishop, or pope, or magesterium.
It is to Christ that I confess my sins, not to a priest or a church.
It is Christ, and the Holy Spirit that tells me what to believe and how to understand the Word of God, not the priest nor any church.
I am accountable to Him and Him alone.
It was Christ, not the church that said:

John 8:36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
--from one who is no longer in bondage to the RCC
DHK

 

[Harley4Him]

Originally posted by DHK:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Harley4Him:

Under the word 'brethren' the Hebrews include all cousins and other relations, whatever may be the degree of affinity.

</font>[/QUOTE]On this point alone your arguments fall apart, simply because it is not true. It is a remote definition.[/QUOTE]

Sorry, I should have said that the quote was Calvin's, not mine.

 

[GraceSaves]

Umm...yeah.

Either DHK got really mad, or there is a serious problem with the BB right now. First a lot of double posts, now two+ pages of the same thing?

 

[Bro. Curtis]

Hi Grant.

There does seem to be issues with the board. Last nite I tried to answer your question about 6 times, then gave up.

I agree with Gina. It's not really recorded in the Bible, so God, in his infinite wisdom, has decided it's not important for us to know.

Please don't take this as disrespect. But I feel God's favorite thing to do in the whole world is extend mercy. Forgive. Sometimes I do feel that you worship a God who is chomping at the bit to send folks to hell for not living up to his expectations.

And please correct me if I am wrong, but would a parents refusal to baptize their baby in the manner prescribed by the RCC mean that baby isn't saved ? Why would God punish the baby for the parent's neglect ? Also, what about babies who die at or before birth, or aborted babies ?

If it's allready been answered, please forgive. I really don't have time right now to go back through this thread.

 

[Bro. Curtis]

Because of the system glitch, the above post is in the wrong thread. Sorry.

(Actually, it's my fault, I panicked when my posts weren't showing, & thought I had been kicked off the board. But it's so much easier to blame the host, ain't it. Saved by the glitch.)

 

[DHK]

GraceSaves said:
"Either DHK got really mad, or there is a serious problem with the BB right now. First a lot of double posts, now two+ pages of the same thing?"

A bit of both. My finger got "really mad" (more like a bit frustrated) at the "add reply" button when it wouldnt "add the reply." So it kept on pushing it, all to no avail. When I got up this morning and I saw--almost two pages later--Whoops! I noticed now that the 23 pages has been cut back to 21 pages were it not for Curtis's two errant posts.
But after looking around a few other threads, I don't feel so bad now. Some of them look quite humorous.
DHK

 

[Todd]

Well, it seems that all arguments in favor of the perpetual virginity of Mary have been silenced (as we all knew they would be). I hope it will teach us all the necessity of sticking with God's Word and not extra-biblical traditions.

 

[thessalonian]

Originally posted by thessalonian:
#1. You deny what you wrote.

You twist what I wrote and say I deny it. You don't understand what I wrote and are trying to tell me what I believe and the context of what I wrote. I suspect I know better than you. Of course you will not even be able to admit that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You said straight out that these prepositions "I DOUBT ...THAT THIS IS WHAT MATTHEW WROTE"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Well dhk, I know you are more intelligent than this (though I wonder how much at this point) so I will once again defer to 1 Pet 3:16 and stop casting pearls. You twist anything we say so I don't see how you can avoid it with the Bible. The context of what I said was that Music4 was speaking of Matt writing until and unto. Do you really think that Matt wrote the word's "until" and "unto" DHK. I thought it was in greek? You guys are so good at taking snippets out of a text and trying to make us look stupid. God bless you.