Catholic Apologetics Guidebook

Dialogue on the Perpetual Virginity of Mary – Page 1

The following is a dialogue between myself and several Protestant Christians, conducted on a public message board.  My words are in black Verdana font, and their words are in Courier New font in various other colors (with the same color always corresponding to the same person).  I have made some minor changes such as spelling corrections, formatting, deletion of off-topic sentences or paragraphs, and explanatory notes [in brackets].  But I have not made any substantive changes in the original dialogue.

I also want to address this "mary as perpetual virgin" doctrine of the Catholic church.

Matthew 1:24-25

"Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS."

knew: Strong's greek #1097: ginosko:

to know, come to know, recognize, understand; to have sexual relations.

Please don't tell me that Joseph didn't know, recognize or understand his wife. Guess what that leaves? Sexual relations, which is the only meaning of the word that makes sense in the context of this passage. This verse *clearly* says that Joseph had sexual relations with Mary after she gave birth to Jesus. Which would explain the gospels mentioning Jesus' brothers and sisters.. which is another thing that Catholicism tries to explain away.

The problem here is with the word which is usually translated as till or until in this passage. When we hear until in English, it often (but not always) implies some change in condition after the specified time. So when this passage says that Joseph did not know Mary until she gave birth to a son, the implication seems to be that they did have relations after she gave birth to a son. However, it doesn't actually come right out and say that this; it's only implied.

But it's much more instructive to look at the meaning of this word in Greek, the language in which Matthew's gospel was originally written (unless there was a Hebrew or Aramaic original which has been lost, as some have conjectured -- but that is beside the point). Anyway, while I'm not an expert in Greek, my understanding is that the original Greek word that is used here does not carry this same connotation of a change in condition after the specified time, the way that the word until often does in English. Therefore, the passage that you quoted really says nothing one way or the other regarding whether Joseph and Mary had relations after Jesus was born; it is instead concerned with emphasizing the more important point that Jesus was born of a virgin.

And if you still think that this passage tells us that Joseph and Mary had relations after Jesus's birth, then I would ask you to look at the use of the word until in the following passages:

None of these verses imply a change in status after the time referenced by until -- for example, I don't think that Timothy was supposed to quit reading the Scripture, preaching, and teaching, after Paul arrived.

I agree, let's look [at the meaning of this word in Greek]:

For Matthew 1:25, the word 'till'

Strongs greek #2193: heos: up to, until.

That's pretty obvious to me.

The other references you give do not change the meaning of this verse. Some of them are using different greek words for till. Further, the rest of the verses indicate something that is already presently happening. Matthew 1:25 shows Joseph *not* doing something until after an event.

Besides the fact that verse that says Joseph knew Mary, which always means sexual relations, we have numerous verses stating Jesus had brothers and sisters.

I've been over this before on another topic a while back, so I'll try to just go over this briefly. First, I would disagree with the premise of your statement about the "the fact that verse that says Joseph knew Mary" -- I don't think this is a fact at all. As I stated above, I don't see how this verse says anything one way or the other about what Mary and Joseph did or didn't do after Jesus was born.

Regarding the "brothers of Jesus" issue: The word for "brother" in Aramaic was also used for other close relations, such as cousins, because Aramaic had no word for "cousin." Therefore, just because the Bible refers to "brothers of Jesus" does not necessarily mean that Mary had other children besides Jesus. In fact, you can look elsewhere in the Bible (depending on the translation), and see the word "brother" being used for a close relation who is not literally a brother. For example, Genesis 14:14 says:

"And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan." (Genesis 14:14, KJV)

But who was this "brother" who was taken captive? If we look just two verses previous, in Genesis 14:12, we see:

"And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed." (Genesis 14:12, KJV)

In other words, Lot was Abram's nephew (if the word "brother" is meant literally here; see also Genesis 11:26-27), even though verse 14 calls him Abram's brother.

A similar reference to a "brother" who is not a literal brother can be found in Genesis 29:15.

There is also some indirect evidence in the Bible that Jesus did not have siblings. For example, in John 7:3-4 Jesus's "brothers" tell him what to do, something that would seem to imply that they are older than Jesus, given the cultural norms of the time (yet we know that Mary had no children prior to Jesus). Also, in John 19:26-27, Jesus entrusts Mary into the care of the "beloved disciple", and it says: "From that time on, this disciple took her into his home." Why would Jesus have entrusted Mary to this disciple, and why would this disciple have taken Mary into his home, if Mary had other children who could have taken care of her?

In conclusion, the Bible doesn't ever come right out and say explicitly that Mary remained a virgin all her life. But it also doesn't explicitly say that she didn't remain a virgin. And if you look at the history of Christian belief, Christians believed in Mary's perpetual virginity almost unanimously from the earliest centuries until some time after the Protestant Reformation. (I have seen quotes showing that even Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli believed that Mary remained a virgin.) So I personally would take that as evidence in favor of Mary's perpetual virginity, in the absence of an absolutely clear statement one way or the other from the Bible.

It isn't hard to understand, but I have found that catholics don't want to accept this part of Scripture because it goes against catholic teaching. I think we should start with the Bible and see what it says.

I really wish that you wouldn't assume that Catholics "don't want to accept" parts of Scripture "because it goes against Catholic teaching." Catholic teaching is based on Scripture. And Catholic teaching says that the Bible is divinely inspired and inerrant, so it would be against Catholic teaching not to accept parts of the Bible. We do disagree with you about what the Bible means on some points, but it is a mischaracterization to say that we ignore or don't want to accept parts of the Bible.

To turn the tables for a moment, I could just as easily say that you "don't want to accept" Jesus's statement in John 6:53, ("Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you"), since you don't believe that Jesus is physically present in the Eucharist. But I wouldn't say that, because I sincerely believe that you do want to accept everything that Jesus tells you, but that you just disagree with me about what Jesus meant here.

No argument that "brother" doesn't have to mean having the same natural mother. It can mean that, though. Both meanings are in that greek word, from what I see.

Consider this logic:

Jude 1:1

"Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James,"

Galatians 1:19

"But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother."

I think this verse strongly suggests that James was Jesus' natural brother. I assume that apostles are automatically understood to be the Lord's brethren. It would seem very redundant to say "hey, James is an apostle.. but also a brethren!" Well, tell us something we didn't know.

Matthew 13:55-56

"Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they all not with us?"

Mark 6:3

"Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him."

Again, the context of these verses just doesn't make sense to the "neighbor" version of "brother". Are these people going to say: "ok, this is Jesus.. a natural man.. with this natural mother we know.. and by the way.. he lives near these nice chaps.."? Jesus was claiming to be from God. The way to try to discredit that is to name *natural* family that they know. They'd want tap the natural bloodline.. not say "Jesus is friendly with these people". So? How does that indicate that he isn't from God?

Context is crucial to understanding scripture. It doesn't matter how many other verses use "brethren" to mean a brother in spirit.. it doesn't change the meaning of the other verses.

Finally, a very important question needs to be asked. If Mary *truly* stayed a virgin for life, what does that imply about Joseph, her *husband*? It means he had to stay a virgin too. Yes.. umm.. I'm skeptical of that :-)