Sisters of God

If you're going to criticize something, at least do so from a factual basis. Have you studied early church history to see where the term came from and why? The Roman Catholic doctrines of Mary can be justly criticized, but what you have written here is based on a false assumption.

 

Maybe it's because the Mother of God is the ever virgin Mary, to whom Evangelicals wrongly ascribe the motherhood of other children on account of their flawed understanding of scripture.

 

And you have just posted the other extreme based not on scripture but on vain traditions of men, myth, and fable.

 

Au contraire! It is your own tradition, not the Bible, that causes you to believe Mary had any other children. This is an idea that got started long after the Reformation. It is not more than 300 years old at most. The reformers, Luther, Calvin, Wesley and Zwingli, all believed Mary was a perpetual virgin. So did everyone before them. Here is why:

Mary had no other children after Jesus was born. She remained a virgin her entire life. I came to this conclusion in the 7th decade of my life after a careful search of the Scriptures. However, I was unable to reach this conclusion until I opened my mind to the possibility and actually looked at the overwhelming evidence of the perpetual virginity of Mary. Here are some of the things I found.

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.

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 language 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 reasonable.

4. 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).

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

6. 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. In fact, it was when I really thought about this event that I decided Mary did not have any other children.

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 is 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.

 

You are quite wrong; the scriptures and scholarship agree with me and refute you, as I shall now prove,and this proof is incontrovertible:

The holy Scripture written by Luke was penned in Greek, which has two different words for blood-sibling (adelphos) vs. cousin-sibling (neepsios). When Luke refers to Christ's Mother & brethren in one of Jesus' sermons, he uses the word for blood-brothers: Adelphoi. This is as conclusive as it can get.

At any rate, Mary was a Hebrew woman who was married during the Old Covenant. It would've been a sin for her not to have provided as many children for Joseph as possible.

Tertullian took the "brothers" literally, making no mention of cousins in his 7th chapter of "On the Flesh of Christ":

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.v.vii.vii.html

Interestingly, Tertullian says that His mother and brethren sinned by coming to try to stop Christ from preaching that day.

We must all believe that Mary of Nazareth was a Virgin when the Holy Ghost conceived the LORD in her womb, and that she was the highly-favored one, kecharitoméne. There is nothing in any of the prophecies or in the teaching of the LORD Jesus that indicates the necessity of her carrying virginity into death. Only the bizarre disdain of sexuality that emerged since Origen can be blamed for this odd refusal to believe that Mary was a normal, godly Christian.

If the expert-in-Greek St. Dr. Luke says Adelphoi, and not Neepsioi, I am prone to believe the Holy Spirit, and not Calvin or Zwingli. Anyway, we are not Luther-ans, but Christ-ians, and His Word breathed & confirmed by His Spirit is the measure. This is the glory of the Scriptures.

By the way, why is virginity equal to purity? This is tied up with Original Sin, no doubt, but we cannot be anti-marriage, anti-sexuality Manichaeans. There is simply no prophecy pointing to an ever-virgin, and the fulfillment of all things spoke of blood-brothers. There's no way around this.

For those who are not interested in debating Medieval traditions and fears about sex, but only the words of Holy Scripture, here is Luke 8:19-21 in three languages, with "brothers" in bold:

19 Παρεγένετο δὲ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἡ μήτηρ καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ αὐτοῦ, καὶ οὐκ ἠδύναντο συντυχεῖν αὐτῷ διὰ τὸν ὄχλον. 20 ἀπηγγέλη δὲ αὐτῷ ἡ μήτηρ σου καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοί σου ἑστήκασιν ἔξω ἰδεῖν θέλοντές σε. 21 ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς: μήτηρ μου καὶ ἀδελφοί μου οὗτοί εἰσιν οἱ τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ ἀκούοντες καὶ ποιοῦντες.

19 Venerunt autem ad illum mater et fratres ejus, et non poterant adire eum præ turba. 20 Et nuntiatum est illi : Mater tua et fratres tui stant foris, volentes te videre. 21 Qui respondens, dixit ad eos : Mater mea et fratres mei hi sunt, qui verbum Dei audiunt et faciunt.

19 Then came to him his mother and his brethren, and could not come at him for the press. 20 And it was told him by certain which said, Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to see thee. 21 And he answered and said unto them, My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God, and do it.

Seeing that the original Greek Scripture uses the word for a brother of the same womb, there is no debate on this subject: St. Mary the blessed Virgin had children with St. Joseph, her lawful spouse, after the LORD Christ was born.

I find it interesting that the first recourse any Catholic has (in disputes of doctrine) is the Fathers & Councils, but not the Scriptures. Where the Scripture is silent, only then do we look to the Fathers & the Church for an answer. The Scripture is loud & clear on this issue, however, so we have no reason to cite from the Fathers.

If any one teaching of the Church contradicts the holy Scripture, that teaching must be utterly banished from the minds of Christians. Why is it so important to follow the mere opinions of men when the surest teaching of the Holy Ghost has made it plain that the LORD Jesus was humble enough to share the womb with younger brethren to come after Him? He is not jealous, envious, or terrible - but meek, and humble of heart.

According to the Most Holy Spirit of God, in His inspiration of the Divine Word through St. Luke, Christ's brothers & sisters were adelphoi (womb-siblings), not anepsioi (wider, extended family).

Scripture clearly and undeniably refutes the perpetual virginity of Mary. Case closed.

That is sufficient, but further consider this: Does any intelligent and logical person really believe that Mary remained married to Joseph all their lives and never -- NEVER -- had sexual relations with him? There are no words to adequately describe such absurdity.

This superstition about Mary came about for three reasons: The desire to have a Christian "goddess"; a faulty view of original sin; and a fear of sex and a view that sex is somehow impure or dirty.

The fact is that Jesus had biological siblings. The scriptures prove it; that settles it.

 

I participate on Catholic boards as well as this one. Catholic boards will not allow either pro-Catholic or anti-Catholic commentors to simply post links to apologetic sites that they feel support their postions. I thought this board did not allow that either.

 

Uh, you might want to read my post which gives irrefutable evidence that utterly destroys the Catholic superstition of the perpetual virginity of Mary. Scripture is crystal clear in the original language, and that settles the question once and for all.

 

The comparison is absolutely stupid.

 

As I have shown conclusively and irrefutably from scripture, the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity is nothing more than a contrivance and vain tradition of men, a mere fable, a myth, a concoction based on a desire for a goddess and a fear of sex as something impure.

Jesus had blood siblings; scripture proves that beyond doubt. Thus, the case is closed.

 

To establish doctrine, it is important to get it from the Bible, and that in context and based on the original languages. When that is done, man-made vain traditions and superstitions fall away.