Featured What is the hold?

The OT canon was around already established a ttime of Christ, and the books of the NT were already pretty much agreed upon and in use by end of the first century! And even Jerome refised to accept the other than the 66 books as being canon when he did Vulgate, but was ordered by the church to make it so!

 

Jesus would know that, as he wrote the OT, and His Apostles were all inspired by him!
The OT authors saw this is same way also....

 

Fact check: none of the NT had been written in Jesus's time. So your contention is demonstrably false.

 

They were ALL written before end of first century, and All were inspired by Him!

 

Right, so Jesus in His lifetime would not have known all the Scriptures as they hadn't all been written by then.

And how by the way do you know which writings are inspired Scripture....other the the table of contents of your Bible?

 

The father Joseph could have been an older man, so the sexual tension would have been lower. But really, there are things in life we do for the glory of God and our physical wants and desires could be put aside for Him. Didn't St. Paul remain celibate for his earthly mission? Not to mention that the Apostles themselves left their families to do God's work.

The fact is, Joseph was to be the earthy father of God Incarnate, and having been entrusted with that responsibility would have been more than enough to compensate for mere sexual relations. But in the end, who really knows? Orthodoxy ( Both Eastern and Western traditions) say one thing, you Evangelicals/Baptists/Etc. claim another.

 

What's your proof that Mary was even impregnated by the Holy Spirit? Even though our intellect says this is an impossibility, we believe it on the basis of faith.

As for proof, my proof is the same as yours as you believe that the Holy Spirit is the impregnator of Mary - it is called faith. Here in my case it is faith in the correct teaching of God's Holy Church.

 

And it took until the 4th century to put them altogether, to weed out all the other written "books" that claimed to be inspired.

 

Indeed, no one knows. What we do know is that Jesus had brothers and sisters. We also know none of them were God incarnate. We also know that Jesus rebuked his mom at least twice, which means she had her flaws.
The conclusion I come to is that Mary was a typical mom with one atypical son and a bunch of other kids that were a handful. The Roman church position just doesn't have much of a leg to stand on.

 

Not really. It took until then for the church to not be persecuted by pagans so the church could breath a sigh of relief.

 

You do not know all the intricacies of every day life back then. You are supposing this, or supposing that, so your conclusion is just your own personal conclusion.

As for Mother Mary, of course she had her flaws, that is something humans can't get away from. I think the Catholic Church makes a good argument that she is the New Ark of the Covenant, and as such her whole life's work was the bearing and raising of God Incarnated. I know such a thing could be an alien concept to you, but she and her earthly husband are but two of many who have given their lives wholly and completely to God.

 

Much of the mythical stories told by the Roman church is foreign to me. Your new ark of the covenant one is certainly coming from the sand man.
Why do you give any credence to such fables?

 

Wrong! See Matthew 1:18.

 

Different issue altogether. The first complete NT Canon as we know it today was in Athanasius' letter of 367. Earlier canons has been in circulation prior to the Edict of Milan but they were either incomplete or contained works we don't consider Scripture today eg: The Shepherd of Hermas

 

We do not know what Jesus did or did not know when He walked this earth. Yes, He was fully God but He was also fully Man, with the limitations this imposed, having kenotically emptied Himself to share in our humanity (per Phil 2:6-11), and there were certain things He did not know eg: "no-one knows the date and time, not even the Son of Man". I don't expect He was fully conversant with particle physics either, for that matter. So it is unlikely that He knew future Scriptures.

 

Being fully God, do you think he would use the term "particle physics" to describe how his creation functions?

 

It is totally superfluous if a Catholic who becomes Born Again and trusts entirely in Jesus alone for salvation does not leave the Catholic Church. They can attend Saturday Vigil Mass and then on Sunday mornings go to a Baptist Church or some other Evangelical Protestant Church. That is exactly what I do.

 

Mary had no other children after Jesus was born and the scriptural evidence of this is overwhelming.

1. Scripture never says that Mary had other children. We can only infer this on account of Scriptural references to brothers and sisters of the Lord. But nowhere were they referred to as children of Mary.

2. Reference to brothers and sisters would certainly include the possibility that these people were "half siblings", i.e., children of Joseph by an earlier marriage. In fact, this belief prevailed in the early church until the time of Jerome (d. 420). Jerome concluded that these brothers and sisters were in fact cousins. In Hebrew and Aramaic there was no word for "cousin" and the relationship was either designated "brother" or it was shown by circumlocution, such as "son of my father's brother", etc. For example, Genesis 14:14 (KJV) refers to Lot as Abram's brother; in Genesis 29:15 (KJV) Laban calls Jacob his brother; in 2 Kings 10:13-14 (KJV) the 42 captives of Jehu call themselves brothers of Ahaziah. Indeed it is possible that some of the "brothers" of Jesus were half-brothers and others were cousins.

3. When the angel announced the coming birth of the King of Israel, Mary's response was, "How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" The implication here is that Mary had already committed herself to remain a virgin. The angel did not say when this birth was to take place and Mary was espoused to Joseph at that time. If she had planned on having sexual relations, she would be doing so shortly and it would not be a mystery how the birth was to occur. However, if she planned on remaining a virgin all her life, her question to the angel was perfectly understandable.

4. In the episode where the parents of Jesus found Him in the temple at age twelve, there is no mention of other children and if there had been other younger children they likely would have been mentioned.

5. None of the early church fathers advocated that Mary had other children. On the other hand, many of them advocated her perpetual virginity. Of particular note among this group were Jerome, Ambrose of Milan (d. 397) and Augustine (d. 430).

6. The early reformers, including Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Wesley all advocated the perpetual virginity of Mary.

7. The strongest indicator that Mary had no other children is contained in John 19:26-27, where Jesus places the care of his mother with John. If Mary had other children, this would have been unthinkable at every level imaginable. Some say Jesus entrusted his mother to John because His “brothers” were not believers at the time. However, this really is an attack on the prescience of Christ. Being the Son of God, He would have known that these brothers would become believers shortly after His death.

The only difficult Scripture for those who advocate the perpetual virginity of Mary is Matthew 1:25 ("but [Joseph] kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son"). The implication may seem to be that Joseph had sexual relations with his wife after the birth of Jesus. But the language of the Bible does not bear this out. For example, consider 1 Corinthians 15:25, "For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet." Should we infer that He ceases to reign after He has put all His enemies under His feet? Likewise, we need not infer that Joseph had sexual relations with his wife after the birth of Jesus.

 

Again, the early church pretty much agreed on all but 4 as being inspired and from God, by end of the first century, so the RCC did NOT give to us the Bible, as the church way before the 4 Century had agreed on the 66 Canon books of sacred scripture!