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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Mary, woman, the physical and sex.
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daisymay:
It must have been more uncomfortable to have the baby, not having had sex which makes the area to get the baby out a bit more "wide-ish".
Speaking for myself, I think sex probably afforded my wife a rather marginal preparation for accommodating a baby's head.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
The best explanation of Mary's perpetual virginity I have found is at http://art-of-attack.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/why-embryo-rescue-is-not-ethically.html (scroll down to get to the bit pertinent to this thread).
I should add that I still don't personally believe in it, but this page helped me understand why those who do, do. It also helped me see that my starting point and the author's are so far apart that there's no real hope of coming to any kind of agreement, so agree to disagree and see who's right when we stand before the Throne, assuming such things are then judged actually still to matter.
Take-home snippet: "The Sanctuary of Mary's Body was consecrated to God and to his Christ. It could not be entered by any other man without sacrilege."
Also be warned that the author is a quite unapologetic Catholic apologist and may not be to everyone's taste ...
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by me:
It seems quite non-biblical to find sex such a necessary part of human life that we can't consider the existence of a healthy person who did not have sex.
quote:
Originally posted by beatmenace:
Me thinks you are finding something there that we are not arguing.
Perhaps, but then neither is the RC or Orthodox church arguing that because they see sex as something negative therefore Mary must have been ever virgin, but that is the motive being ascribed to them on this thread.
I would be very interested in the answers to your other questions about the historical development of the doctrine. I don't know enough to answer though.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
If Protestants began with the assumption that the perpetual virginity of Mary was not true, and then asserted, "You are only claiming that dogma is true because you are a Roman Catholic", we would have a classic case of Bulverism.
But they don't.
They believe it to be untrue because of the lack of any evidence that it is true, and some evidence that it isn't.
The fact that other traditions do believe the dogma is irrelevant and does not require citation.
Well, there is extra-canonical evidence here. And here is the full text.
From the first link, this brief comment on the dating of the document (140AD to 170AD) is interesting.
quote:
The terminus a quo is set by the use of Matthew and Luke. The terminus ad quem is set by a reference from Origen and by the Bodmer papyrus. Within this range, a dating in the middle of the second century is most likely. This dating is suggested by the prevalence of harmonies of Matthew and Luke at this time, as shown from Justin Martyr. The Infancy Gospel of James itself may have been dependent on a harmony of Matthew and Luke, but in any case it stands in the harmonizing spirit of the era before the four canonical gospels were considered to be sacred scripture.
Of course it is not regarded by Protestants as authoritative scripture, and there are good reasons for that. But it is powerful evidence of a some early church beliefs (prior the middle of the second century) about how special Mary was, about Joseph as an old man before they were betrothed, etc.
Belief in Mary as "Theotokos", not just "Christotokos" was certainly a strand in the DNA of the early church.
Most Protestants have never read the Infancy Gospel of James and it is hard to set aside the generally "Christotokian" beliefs of Protestantism. The initial reaction on reading it (mine certainly) is very likely to be "Oh Yeah! Clearly legendary, probably some kind of pious forgery no doubt. No wonder it's not in the Canon". Most of that is a reading back of "our" dogma.
As evidence goes, incredulity may be a reasonable reaction after looking at it seriously. But it is hard to escape the implications of the early dating. It seems clear that many first and second century Christians really did venerate Mary as special. In ways that are foreign to us brought up in the Protestant traditions.
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
When you start gassing about "why would they believe this given that it's not true" and start coming up with bullshit about sex being icky, then you're Bulverizing. Maybe you haven't done that on this thread (yet). But it's done and it's being done right here right now. Perhaps you haven't noticed it? Go back and read the thread again.
So let's get this straight:
Because I corrected your misunderstanding of Lewis, I must think that sex (which I haven't so much as mentioned) is "icky", because you happen to know that that is what I am going to say, even though I haven't said it "yet".
I'm tempted to describe this as surreal, but I think that would be dignifying it.
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
Not quite. Leaping to discussing someone's misguided motives for believing something rather than engaging with the evidence for and against their belief is Bulverism.
Having your own justification for your opposing belief isn't enough to get out of the charge.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It exists, and it's fucked up.
In any sexual encounter, consensual or not, there are at least two points of view. Tender intentions on one party's part do not preclude unpleasant experience on the other party's part.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
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beatmenace
Shipmate
# 16955
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Posted
Barnabus - thats a very interesting document. I'd not heard of it before. I had managed to trace a strong Marian tradition back to Iranaeus (2nd C) who argued by analogy that Mary was a type of Eve in the same way that Jesus is a type of Adam, but yours seems even earlier.
However neither your doc or Iranaeus seem to argue for perpetual virginty after Jesus's birth. (I bet the Ship has an Iranaeus scholar who will beat me up if i'm wrong), but it doesnt convince me that the Church did anything but ignore the evidence from the Gospels when coming up with the dogma of perpetual virginity -
Iranaeus was the first, incidently, to decide there were only four authoritive Gospels, (in reaction to Marcion who thought there was only one). He would have known the gospels well and didnt derive perpetual virginty from them (as far as i know - i stand to be corrected on this), or as far as i can tell from an existing tradition.
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"I'm the village idiot , aspiring to great things." (The Icicle Works)
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Has anyone mentioned yet that both Calvin and John Wesley believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. Weren't they Protestants?
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
I would suggest that the scriptural evidence itself would seem to point away from such a view - but I find it very hard to believe that people would either overlook that or deliberately turn a blind-eye to it for so many centuries.
I don't really have any explanation for that. I'm in a cleft stick. On the one hand I'm sceptical and reluctant to accept that the simple explanation of, 'Oh, well it shows that this is what they believed all along ...' is on the money. It seems too neat.
But at the same time, I find myself repulsed to some extent by the kind of knee-jerk Protestant response one comes across - just as, I have to say, I am repulsed by certain popular RC devotional practices in relation to Mary.
All that said, I am a closet 'Marian' to some extent and have no big problem engaging in the Marian aspects when I visit Orthodox churches ... I wouldn't say that was easy at first, though.
I know that's a very mealy-mouthed Anglican approach but there it is. Part of me thinks, 'Well, there might be something in it if people believed it for so long, they weren't stupid ... and if these same people came up with the doctrines of the Trinity and deity of Christ etc then we should cut them some slack ...'
Perhaps I'm cursed with seeing both sides of the argument ...
I can't speak for the Orthodox, but on the whole, from what I've seen of them they don't seem to have imbibed the kind of 'oh no, sex is dirty, dirty, dirty ...' that has been the hall-mark of some aspects of the Western tradition. I might be wrong, I don't know.
I don't see why it shouldn't be possible to hold a healthy attitude towards sex and reproduction alongside a belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary - although I can see what Pete173 is getting at, most certainly. I would suggest that on a popular level - among the RCs at least - this has been the result of the teaching - at least until recently. I can't speak for the Orthodox on that one, though. Can MT enlighten us?
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I am a protestant non-believer in Mary's perpetual virginity, but if we are going to play the game of discerning motives it seems to me one could ask what does it say about our view of sex that we find it so necessary to believe that Mary was not a virgin.
I don't find it necessary to believe because of my view of sex. I find it more plausible to believe because my Bible appears to think that Mary had quite a few children.
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
We're mostly talking about perpetual virginity rather than immaculate conception, but something struck me a few weeks ago and this thread is the first decent chance I've had to raise it.
So, Mary was immaculately conceived, without original sin, and so a suitable mother for the sinless Jesus. Right?
Who was a suitable mother for MARY, then?
The whole idea that it was somehow necessary for Jesus' mother to be 'special' in this particular way just pushes the whole problem back a generation. If you can't have a perfect child inside an imperfect mother, then you end up requiring the perfect mother to herself have had a perfect mother, to infinity.
It simply doesn't make sense. It makes far more sense that God chose an ordinary human being, on whom his favour rested, just as his favour rested with quite a few people recorded in the Old Testament.
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
beatmenace
I think your comment is fair. However, you will probably see that the ingredients for "ever-virgin" (Mary as special, Joseph as old etc) are there in this early document, if one takes the Infancy Gospel of James as serious supporting evidence of the nature of early apostolic beliefs. The "ever-virgin" doctrine is a development and a reflection on those beliefs.
The "Holy Tradition" mindset is different to the classic Protestant "Holy Scripture" mindset in this respect. The church, not the words of scripture, is the authoritative and authorised guardian of "the faith once given". In the end, it is a matter of which authority is authoritative.
I had a relatively modest aim in introducing this early document. The "ever-virgin" doctrine is not a Catholic invention for purposes of control, it is a development of beliefs which were clearly there, to some extent, from early times.
I don't want to widen the debate too far, but it is possible to trace a similar development in the first four centuries which led to the classic doctrines of the Trinity and the Person of Christ. Doctrines, for which the evidence in the Canon of Scripture alone is not definitive. Just as "Theotokos" is a reflection on traditional apostolic beliefs, so are "Trinity" and Jesus as "fully God, fully Man". The latter two are taken by most protestants as sound doctrine, the former is not. How has that happened? It's a good question!
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes, a good question and one capable of multiple answers ...
There does seem to be a certain selectivity in the Protestant approach, however you cut it.
That said, the same might be argued in reverse against the collective, collegial 'catholic' interpretations of certain passages - such as the one about Christ's brothers etc.
I've read RC and Orthodox explanations online, both of which seem examples of special pleading to me. But hey, I would say the same about certain Protestant interpretations about certain other verses and passages too.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I am a protestant non-believer in Mary's perpetual virginity, but if we are going to play the game of discerning motives it seems to me one could ask what does it say about our view of sex that we find it so necessary to believe that Mary was not a virgin.
I don't find it necessary to believe because of my view of sex. I find it more plausible to believe because my Bible appears to think that Mary had quite a few children.
Which bible says that?
It's been gone over innumerable times in the past, but once again...
The NT was written in Koine Greek, and the words concerned are adelphos/adelphoi (translated as brother/s). The translation is fine, but you need to understand what "brother" meant in first-century Greek. And any Koine Greek lexicon will tell you the word was used for far more than blood brothers. Mine points out that it is also the word used for "near kinsman or relative, one of the same nation or nature, one of equal rank or dignity, an associate", as well as literal brother of course. It was also used subsequently to refer to a member of the Christian community. So your task is to decide which of these meanings is in view. You can't just chuck them all but one out without some external evidence - as B62 points out, that is just reading later POV's back into the original text.
And incidentally, though I am no scholar of semitic languages, I understand that Aramaic - presumably the underlying language of the original exchanges - has no words for close kin such as half-brothers, nephews, cousins... They were all brothers, unless you wanted to refer to one specifically, in which case you would need to use some circumlocution.
So what about other biblical evidence, if evidence from tradition is unconvincing to you? Well, what about John 19: 26-27? quote:
26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
It was the eldest son's responsibility in Jewish custom and practice to take care of their widowed mother. In the event of them being unable to do this the task fell to the next most senior brother and so on. So where are they? Why is Jesus handing over his mother to the care of an unrelated disciple? And this requirement is on you as a person by virtue of your relationship to your parent.
The fact is that the evidence of the scriptures is that Jesus' ministry was conducted amongst a number of close associates, to some of whom he was related. But that he had no direct brothers. To assert that he did requires an understanding based on a strict 21st century usage of the term "brother*", unlike that used in either 1st century Koine Greek or Aramaic, and moreover ignoring the internal import of scripture itself.
None of this is going to help in the quest for meaning and significance of Mary's perpetual virginity of course, but it does mean that the perceived knock-down argument about his brothers and sisters is no such thing.
(* I have flagged up the use of strict English, because of course English, like most modern languages, doesn't observe the strict usage convention either. "Brothers" is used for relationships where there is no consanguinity at all, such as fellow Christians, fellow trade-unionists, etc.)
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Why does the bible say Joseph did not know Mary until after Jesus was born, if he in actual fact never knew Mary in the Biblical sense? Surely the shorter "But knew her not" would have sufficed.
Jengie
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Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068
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Posted
I am glad Honest Ron has quoted John 19:26-27 because this has always seemed to me to be evidence against Jesus having siblings.
Like Gamaliel I tend to see both sides of the argument, but I have not seen anyone give an explanation for these gospel verses if Jesus indeed had siblings. Is there any evidence anywhere that a 1st-century Jewish son (such as James 'the brother of the Lord' is presumed to be) would ever *not* take care of his parent?
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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Not quite. Leaping to discussing someone's misguided motives for believing something rather than engaging with the evidence for and against their belief is Bulverism.
Having your own justification for your opposing belief isn't enough to get out of the charge.
Hang on a mo. The OP was a response to a litany which is supposed to provoke an emotional response in the participant. If the emotional response is along the lines of "good grief, whoever wrote this must think sex is extremely icky" then said response is at the very least worth unpacking. Furthermore, it's a reasonably well known historical fact that the doctrine was promulgated at a time when eminent Christian theologicans, Doctors of the Church and Popes did think that sex was a bit icky. And that's probably worth unpacking as well.
It doesn't, of course, follow from that that the doctrine is false or that everybody who holds it does so because they think that sex is icky. My own view (for the purposes of full disclosure) is one of tactful agnosticism - I no more want to know what our Lady did or didn't do in bed than I want to know what my own parents did or didn't get up to. But I don't think that it's any more dishonest to ask the question as to what extent "sex is icky" is a factor than it is to assume that those asking whether "sex is icky" is a factor are engaged in some sort of intellectual sleight of hand.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I've wondered that too, Jengie Jon. I once read an Orthodox explanation online which suggested that 'until' didn't mean 'until' in the sense that we might understand it ie. 'he didn't have sexual relations with her until after Jesus was born.'
I can't remember the gist of the argument, but the sense was to suggest that he hadn't had relations with her prior to Christ's birth ... with the corollary that it doesn't say anything about afterwards, by which point Tradition takes over ...
I thought it was a case of special pleading but don't know the original Greek nor the semitic languages so can't really comment on whether the verses bear the weight or slant he was putting on them or not.
Presumably it is something that RC and Orthodox exegetes and scholars have had to confront? What have they said?
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
The NT was written in Koine Greek, and the words concerned are adelphos/adelphoi (translated as brother/s). The translation is fine, but you need to understand what "brother" meant in first-century Greek. And any Koine Greek lexicon will tell you the word was used for far more than blood brothers.
Yes, but this is PRECISELY why I pointed at the passage in Luke that I did, and not at one of the passages that lists the names of Jesus' brothers. I pointed at a passage that has Jesus quite deliberately distinguish between the 'brothers' that came with his mother and his spiritual 'brothers'.
If the first set of 'brothers' are not his biological brothers then there is absolutely nothing to contrast them with the second, contrasted set.
I suppose you could argue they were perhaps just his 'kinsman' if you like, but they are most definitely not his 'brothers' in the sense of peers or associates!!
(And whether or not they are full-on brothers or some other kind of near relative, the answer to your rhetorical question from the Gospel of John is: I don't know where they were THEN, but I certainly know where they were a couple of years earlier.)
[ 15. August 2012, 13:45: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
Those of us who hold that Mary was ever-virgin generally do so because of the idea that having Jesus in her womb for 9 months consecrated her in the same way that having the Body and Blood of our Lord on the paten and in the chalice consecrate them. Her womb having been set aside for God's own use, it was no longer free to be used for any other purpose.
That doesn't mean that sex was icky. (The icon of Joachim and Anna, Mary's parents, shows them standing and embracing in front of their marriage bed. You'd hardly have that icon in the church if you thought that sex was icky.)
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Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
Oh, and most of us believe (based on the protoevangelion of James) that Mary chose to be a virgin her entire life while she was still a child, and Joseph was chosen by her guardians to be betrothed to her because he (being an elderly widower) was willing to respect that choice and to be betrothed to her without insisting on a full marriage.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Her womb having been set aside for God's own use, it was no longer free to be used for any other purpose.
Okay, I can understand the concept, in that the notion of things being 'set aside' for God certainly occurs elsewhere in Scripture. It's one of the most common ways that the word 'holiness' is explained.
But why does 'set aside' actually have to mean set aside forever, if God's need for the thing is clearly temporary?
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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The Scrumpmeister
Ship’s Taverner
# 5638
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I've wondered that too, Jengie Jon. I once read an Orthodox explanation online which suggested that 'until' didn't mean 'until' in the sense that we might understand it ie. 'he didn't have sexual relations with her until after Jesus was born.'
I can't remember the gist of the argument, but the sense was to suggest that he hadn't had relations with her prior to Christ's birth ... with the corollary that it doesn't say anything about afterwards, by which point Tradition takes over ...
I thought it was a case of special pleading but don't know the original Greek nor the semitic languages so can't really comment on whether the verses bear the weight or slant he was putting on them or not.
Presumably it is something that RC and Orthodox exegetes and scholars have had to confront? What have they said?
It certainly isn't special pleading. There are other examples of the use of "until" in Scripture, in which the understanding that it implies that there was a change after the referenced point in time doesn't tally with common understanding.
I seem to recall a reference to the raven send out by Noah in Genesis, which was said not to return to him until the waters had dried up. I don't know what the common understanding of that is as it is something that I haven't discussed with anybody in adulthood but in Sunday school, we were simply taught that the raven did not return. The reading was that, from Noah's sending it out and the drying up of the waters, there was no more sign of the raven but that this implied nothing about the movements of the raven afterwards.
A quick google reveals other examples where the word translated in some places as "until", in others as "while", and in others as "before", does seem to indicate a focus on the time before the cited event without saying anything about afterwards. These include the noteworthy case of Michal, the daughter of Saul who, in 2nd Kingdoms (Samuel), verse 23, is said not to have had any children until the day of her death. Following the logic that the use of "until" means that a change occurred after the specific event would mean that Michal had children after her death, which would be ludicrous. That is clearly not the intended use of the word.
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Her womb having been set aside for God's own use, it was no longer free to be used for any other purpose.
Okay, I can understand the concept, in that the notion of things being 'set aside' for God certainly occurs elsewhere in Scripture. It's one of the most common ways that the word 'holiness' is explained.
But why does 'set aside' actually have to mean set aside forever, if God's need for the thing is clearly temporary?
I don't know whether you saw my earlier post in which I touch on this. It might be helpful as well as not but I tried to answer this point.
That's how we understand consecration. That is why Orthodox churches, when they are no longer used as churches, are eiher preserved as they are or razed to the ground, but are generally not put to other uses. There may be exceptions to this because of practical circumstances but I imagine that this would be a concession to necessity rather than something done willingly.
[ 15. August 2012, 14:01: Message edited by: The Scrumpmeister ]
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If Christ is not fully human, humankind is not fully saved. - St John of Saint-Denis
Posts: 14741 | From: Greater Manchester, UK | Registered: Mar 2004
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Anyuta
Shipmate
# 14692
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
This argument is always bass-ackwards. "Mary wasn't really ever-virgin. Yet the Catholic Church says she was. Why did they do that?"
When Protestants discuss this, the first sentence is never brought into question.
How about if we say "Mary wasn't really ever-virgin (see Luke 8:19-21)"?
That's actually the part you missed out. The REASON for saying "Mary wasn't really ever-virgin" is because the Bible appears to say that Jesus had brothers. And in fact implies very strongly that they're biological brothers because Jesus then explicitly distinguishes them from his spiritual brothers.
The assertion that she wasn't virgin doesn't randomly materialise out of thin air.
As Zach said, Occam's Razor applies. It's actually the alternative proposition, that she was indeed ever-virgin, that requires some extremely fancy footwork to get around the likely plain meaning of the Biblical text.
But "biological brother" doesn't mean "same mother". it can, and quite often does, mean "same father, different mother". In fact there is some reason to belive that Mary had no other children (why else would Jesus "hand her over" to John, instead of one of her other children?) There is no reason I can think of not to accept that when Mary wed Joseph, he already had children from a previous marriage. Happens all the time.
Of course, that doesn't mean that IS what happened. We don't know, really, what happened. I personally don't care. To me, as someone else here has stated, it's really completely tangential and irrelevant. "yeah, I guess so" becuase that's what the Chruch has taught, rather than "it MUST be so". I just don't understand why this is a major issue on either side of the debate.
Absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence. just because the bible doesn't explicitly state that Mary was ever-virgin, doesn't PROVE she wasn't. certainly doesn't prove she was, either. One has to conclude either way from extra-biblical sources.
Posts: 764 | From: USA | Registered: Mar 2009
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The Scrumpmeister
Ship’s Taverner
# 5638
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by beatmenace:
quote:
It seems quite non-biblical to find sex such a necessary part of human life that we can't consider the existence of a healthy person who did not have sex.
Me thinks you are finding something there that we are not arguing.
I rather think that was the point.
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If Christ is not fully human, humankind is not fully saved. - St John of Saint-Denis
Posts: 14741 | From: Greater Manchester, UK | Registered: Mar 2004
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
To pick up an earlier point about Jesus commending His mother to the care of His disciple John rather than to one of her sons (or stepsons for that matter), I think it's possible that that might have been because Mary, like John and the other disciples, was a follower of Jesus, while His brothers, from what we can gather in the gospels, were not (James obviously was a believer in Jesus AFTER the resurrection, since he became a leader in the church, but all the references to Jesus' brothers in the Gospels suggest they were not sympathetic to His cause during His lifetime). Jesus had elsewhere established (Mark 3) that the "family" of believers was more important to Him than the literal family of blood relatives, so that He would think it more appropriate to commend Mary to the care of one of His spiritual brothers, John, rather than to one of his physical brothers who were not part of the family of believers.
All this to say that I don't think Jesus' asking John to look after His mother sheds much light one way or the other on whether Jesus had literal, full brothers and thus whether Mary was perpetually virgin or not (FWIW, I don't think she was and I do think they were full brothers, but my point is just that this text doesn't prove much either way).
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Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
I think one danger is to emphasize Mary's virginity as to exclude her other important characteristics that the church honors. Mary is the first disciple of the Christian church, prophesying God's plan of salvation in the Magnificat. According to John, it was her intercession that precipitated the first miracle of Jesus at Cana. She also was present at the crucifixion, a witness to her Son's death and she was there with the other disciples awaiting the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Disciple, prophet, witness, virgin and Mother..All of these describe Our Lady's ministry on earth and, as we celebrate today, her continual ministry in heaven.
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
If the emotional response is along the lines of "good grief, whoever wrote this must think sex is extremely icky" then said response is at the very least worth unpacking. Furthermore, it's a reasonably well known historical fact that the doctrine was promulgated at a time when eminent Christian theologicans, Doctors of the Church and Popes did think that sex was a bit icky. And that's probably worth unpacking as well.
These are all arguments worth making and unpacking. I think they are worth unpacking as arguments, to consider for and against, rather than as spring-boards to canter through all the possible emotional failings of those who think that Mary was ever virgin.
Long time no read, by the way.
[ 15. August 2012, 15:07: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Regarding "until" -- our Lord also says, using the same word (eos), he will be with us until the end of the world. After which, presumably, he won't be?
quote:
Originally posted by Percy B:
The terms describing Our Lady with which I expressed personal discomfort are of course accepted by a great number of Christians. They are in the tradition.
I feel, personally, they do not sit well in the 21st century.
The Trinity doesn't sit will in the 21st Century. Shall we scrap that? All those miracles. Pfft. Out they go. And all that brotherly love stuff? That's so 20th century. Truth doesn't come with a date stamp. If something's true it's true and if it's not it's not, regardless of trends and fashions of thought.
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
We know Jesus had brothers who tried to stop him at the beginning of his ministry. We also the names of four of his brothers: James, Joseph (or Jose), Simon and Judas. Some would argue that these brothers were actually cousins, but the Greek word for brother is adelphios comes from the Greek word adelphys which literally means "of the same womb."
Etymology is not meaning. Abraham says he and Lot are "brothers" in Genesis 13:8, and it is translated into the LXX as ἀδελφοὶ. It is clear they didn't have as many ways to shade the fine distinctions between step brothers, half-brothers, and so on that we have.
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
How about if we say "Mary wasn't really ever-virgin (see Luke 8:19-21)"?
Then we can have a discussion about that verse, and others, and whether they demonstrate that Mary had other children than Jesus. Because you're not attempting to psychoanalyze me/us or attribute my belief to some motive or prejudice.
Re William of Ockham and his famous shaving implement: It cuts both ways. One could say that the default is the historic position of the church, and the razor's slash would leave that intact and cut out the new interpretation.
quote:
Originally posted by beatmenace:
quote:
It seems quite non-biblical to find sex such a necessary part of human life that we can't consider the existence of a healthy person who did not have sex.
Me thinks you are finding something there that we are not arguing.
Bing bing bing! That's exactly how we feel every time somebody trots out the canard about sex being dirty.
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It exists, and it's fucked up.
In any sexual encounter, consensual or not, there are at least two points of view. Tender intentions on one party's part do not preclude unpleasant experience on the other party's part.
You're equating having an "unpleasant experience" with violence and domination. Are you sure you want to go there?
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
On the one hand I'm sceptical and reluctant to accept that the simple explanation of, 'Oh, well it shows that this is what they believed all along ...' is on the money. It seems too neat.
Too neat for what?
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't see why it shouldn't be possible to hold a healthy attitude towards sex and reproduction alongside a belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary - although I can see what Pete173 is getting at, most certainly. I would suggest that on a popular level - among the RCs at least - this has been the result of the teaching - at least until recently. I can't speak for the Orthodox on that one, though. Can MT enlighten us?
Not sure what you're asking.
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
The NT was written in Koine Greek, and the words concerned are adelphos/adelphoi (translated as brother/s). The translation is fine, but you need to understand what "brother" meant in first-century Greek. And any Koine Greek lexicon will tell you the word was used for far more than blood brothers. Mine points out that it is also the word used for "near kinsman or relative, one of the same nation or nature, one of equal rank or dignity, an associate", as well as literal brother of course. It was also used subsequently to refer to a member of the Christian community. So your task is to decide which of these meanings is in view. You can't just chuck them all but one out without some external evidence - as B62 points out, that is just reading later POV's back into the original text.
Serious question: does your lexicon actually provide proof of its assertion of the wider meaning of adelphoi? That is, does it quote texts where the wider meaning is clear and undisputed? Or does it merely assume the wider meaning because that's the meaning some Christians would like it to have?
My question is quite sincere because in my admittedly limited experience of Koine, I have never seen textual evidence given for the wider meaning.
I could ask the same of the wider meaning of the word translated "until" - quote me the texts where "until" clearly means "not before, and also not after".
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
"Until" doesn't need to mean that. It just needs to say nothing about what happens after. One reading is that "until" implies afterwards she wasn't a virgin, the other reading implies that she was a virgin up to a certain point, and may or may not have been after.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
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Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Hmmm ... interesting points.
@MT, what was I asking? Whether there is any evidence of squeamishness about sex in popular Orthodoxy as they is often said to be in popular Roman Catholicism (and certain forms of Protestantism I would add).
I think Josephine has already answered the question to some extent in relation to the icons of Joachim and Anna having a cuddle - but feel free to enlighten us further.
What I was driving at, badly, it appears, was that it doesn't seem to me that believing that Mary was perpetually a virgin necessarily leads to a squeamishness about sex in general.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
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Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by daisymay:
It must have been more uncomfortable to have the baby, not having had sex which makes the area to get the baby out a bit more "wide-ish".
Speaking for myself, I think sex probably afforded my wife a rather marginal preparation for accommodating a baby's head.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
It is big of you to admit it.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
To pick up an earlier point about Jesus commending His mother to the care of His disciple John rather than to one of her sons (or stepsons for that matter), I think it's possible that that might have been because Mary, like John and the other disciples, was a follower of Jesus, while His brothers, from what we can gather in the gospels, were not (James obviously was a believer in Jesus AFTER the resurrection, since he became a leader in the church, but all the references to Jesus' brothers in the Gospels suggest they were not sympathetic to His cause during His lifetime). Jesus had elsewhere established (Mark 3) that the "family" of believers was more important to Him than the literal family of blood relatives, so that He would think it more appropriate to commend Mary to the care of one of His spiritual brothers, John, rather than to one of his physical brothers who were not part of the family of believers.
All this to say that I don't think Jesus' asking John to look after His mother sheds much light one way or the other on whether Jesus had literal, full brothers and thus whether Mary was perpetually virgin or not (FWIW, I don't think she was and I do think they were full brothers, but my point is just that this text doesn't prove much either way).
Trudy - first century Judaism was very varied in what they did or didn't believe, as evidenced in the radically different stances of the pharisees, the sadducess, the essenes... The requirement to care for your widowed mother is irrespective of what you believe.
The point about the "family of believers" is an important one, though, and Orfeo touched on it earlier. The gospels report Jesus stressing the importance of what N.T. Wright refers to as the "fictive kinship group" of all believers. No doubt it is part of the "here and not yet fully here" picture that is more explicit elsewhere. But the passage in Luke that Orfeo refers to is effectively saying something like "Your family are outside" to which Jesus replies "Who is my family? You are my family!" I am paraphrasing of course. I agree that it isn't referring to any of the associate type meanings of "brothers", but it isn't a passage where the type of kinship involved in "brothers" is of importance in the context. It's the fact that his audience is brothers despite their lack of blood kinship.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
QUOTE]Originally posted by daisymay:
It must have been more uncomfortable to have the baby, not having had sex which makes the area to get the baby out a bit more "wide-ish".[/QUOTE]
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
[Speaking for myself, I think sex probably afforded my wife a rather marginal preparation for accommodating a baby's head.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It is big of you to admit it.
Heh heh. I see what you're doing there.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Percy B
Shipmate
# 17238
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Posted
My opening post was one of personal thought and feeling rather than doctrine.
I believe some of the words and images which have come to the church often from the medieval church, about Our Lady - itself a late term, I think- are anachronistic. Note I say some.
I believe we could bring new ones forward, and some exist in popular devotion - mother of the homeless ...
I also feel there is a danger that some areas of the church, especially the male led sections, are shy of talking about sex as something positive. Mary comes across sometimes as a pale wan figure, untouchable, not sexy...
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Mary, a priest??
Posts: 582 | From: Nudrug | Registered: Jul 2012
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Adeodatus wrote quote:
Serious question: does your lexicon actually provide proof of its assertion of the wider meaning of adelphoi? That is, does it quote texts where the wider meaning is clear and undisputed? Or does it merely assume the wider meaning because that's the meaning some Christians would like it to have?
Unfortunately not - I'd love to own one of the etymological ones, but I've never seen one under £100 and I'm too mean. If it's any help, there are several examples of adelphoi in the LXX Greek (and that's Koine) that are clearly not blood brothers but some other relationship. MT just posted one of them. The other affiliative ones look fairly obvious to me and I guess you're not enquiring after them (?)
[ 15. August 2012, 19:23: Message edited by: Honest Ron Bacardi ]
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
Originally posted by Percy B: quote:
I believe we could bring new ones forward, and some exist in popular devotion - mother of the homeless ...
As one of the "great bemused", I'm wondering why (given that Mary is not a goddess (according, as I understand it, to all parties)) this matters?
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
Posts: 889 | From: Surrey Heath (England) | Registered: Jun 2012
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The Scrumpmeister
Ship’s Taverner
# 5638
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
As one of the "great bemused", I'm wondering why (given that Mary is not a goddess (according, as I understand it, to all parties)) this matters?
In one sense, it doesn't. The salvation of nobody depends on this. It's really a small matter of belief and shouldn't be of much significance beyond the truth of it. Yet, (and I genuinely mean no disrespect when I say this but I'm being honest), for reasons I don't think I'm capable of understanding, it is among a number of things, both little and large, that are challenged by some Protestants and which those of us who subscribe to it are regularly asked to justify, often amid distortions of what we actually believe.
So we end up with conversations like this which, while friendly and generally courteous, still sees more of the same. Speaking generally, these objections don't make sense to me and I just don't understand the motivation behind them.
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If Christ is not fully human, humankind is not fully saved. - St John of Saint-Denis
Posts: 14741 | From: Greater Manchester, UK | Registered: Mar 2004
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Adeodatus
The answer is yes, the verse in question is Romans 9:3, where I am pretty sure St Paul is not saying literally "Brothers".
My source is a A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament by G Abbot-Smith which is one of the more technical manuals I happen to have on my shelf. I should really return it to its owner.
Jengie
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Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Percy B
Shipmate
# 17238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
Originally posted by Percy B: quote:
I believe we could bring new ones forward, and some exist in popular devotion - mother of the homeless ...
As one of the "great bemused", I'm wondering why (given that Mary is not a goddess (according, as I understand it, to all parties)) this matters?
It matters, I feel, if the church uses language about Mary, and so by implication, about women which are inappropriate, or rather which. Old do with being balanced.
So, for example the Romanian mother of eight, who struggles with motherhood in a situation of poverty may receive comfort from addressing Our Lady as, say, mother in poverty, rather than immaculate unstained Mary ...
Today, the Assumption, is more helpful to me if I see Mary as an everyday woman who said Yes to God and who is now taken body and soul into heaven. That I pray is the destiny for us. But if we keep harping on about immaculate ever virgin sinless Mary then the Assumption of such a made distant Mary begins to wane in its relationship to women and men today.
Not expressed well, I know, but I hope you get the gist.
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Mary, a priest??
Posts: 582 | From: Nudrug | Registered: Jul 2012
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
Frankly, I just wonder why you bother with Mary?
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
Posts: 889 | From: Surrey Heath (England) | Registered: Jun 2012
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The Scrumpmeister - please don't feel you have to justify ANYTHING and Percy B - NICE, emergent thinking ... respect, my brothers.
Not that you'll have me ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I like the way C.S. Lewis spoke about the issue - do NOT dis a chap's mother.
And I'm as sola scriptura / invincibly ignorant on this as you can get. I just can't see it, Greco-Roman [neo]platonist tradition beyond straight corollaries is truly meaningless to me.
Yet.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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The Scrumpmeister
Ship’s Taverner
# 5638
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
Frankly, I just wonder why you bother with Mary?
We're Christians and she's the Mother of God. As she has received what we hope to receive, and is praying for us, and as God has honoured her, we see it as proper that we, too should honour her and ask her prayers.
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If Christ is not fully human, humankind is not fully saved. - St John of Saint-Denis
Posts: 14741 | From: Greater Manchester, UK | Registered: Mar 2004
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
OK... I'm realising this is a completely different mindset, but: so you honour her. What in the seven hells has her virginity got to do with the price of fish?
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
Posts: 889 | From: Surrey Heath (England) | Registered: Jun 2012
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
I tend to see Mary as the Christian ideal- as the prime example of one who has absolute faith in Jesus Christ. So perhaps her virginity, and Christian celibacy in general, can be seen in light of Matthew 22:30,
quote:
For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
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Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
OK... I'm realising this is a completely different mindset, but: so you honour her. What in the seven hells has her virginity got to do with the price of fish?
Well he answered your first question. This is a different question. I think the answer our RC and Orthodox shipmates often give is simply that it is what the church teaches. It isn't a line of reasoning a) need to honour Mary b) therefore virgin.
Do you mind me asking why the astounded and slightly abrasive line of questioning? Personally I don't believe in Mary's perpetual virginity, but it doesn't seem like a big deal to me. I have no strong feelings either way.
[ 15. August 2012, 20:59: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
Sorry... don't mean it to be abrasive... I just really don't get it...
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
Posts: 889 | From: Surrey Heath (England) | Registered: Jun 2012
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
I tend to see Mary as the Christian ideal- as the prime example of one who has absolute faith in Jesus Christ. So perhaps her virginity, and Christian celibacy in general, can be seen in light of Matthew 22:30,
quote:
For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
That is exactly right.
Though i wish we catholic Christians wouldn't make it so difficult. i have just been to a very prissy high mass, celebrated by three male priests who oppose the ordination of women and probably put Our Lady on some sort of pedestal.
If Mary is a sign to all of us, is a foretaste of what lays ahead of all of us, then she does not belong on a pedestal. She belongs in our hearts and in our lives as she prays for us.
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