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Does that mean her marriage to Joseph was illegitimate? I've seen couples get annulments because they didn't consummate the wedding. What of Mary and Joseph?
This strikes me as a uniquely Catholic preoccupation rooted in the conflation of chastity with virtue. I could be wrong. I just don't know anyone asking this "pressing question" but Catholics. Paul didn't help much of course with saying remaining unmarried was the more elevated route in life, and marriage was a concession to people's "weakness", so it would imply that Mary could not be venerated if she had stooped to the horrible low of having sex.
Personally I never really understood at a gut level why it's so important that Mary was a virgin at all. Probably back in the day it was thought that the curse was transmitted through the man, but we know today that any genetic trait could also come from the mother's side, so there's no real protection in Mary apparently receiving some magic sperm from on high. Jesus should have just sprung out of god's forehead straight to earth, really. So this whole thing strikes me as some epic level crazy nonsense. Why make things more complicated than they need to be?
Does that mean her marriage to Joseph was illegitimate? I've seen couples get annulments because they didn't consummate the wedding. What of Mary and Joseph?
No, because it was always intended to be a continent marriage. There was no expectation of sexual relations.
Personally I never really understood at a gut level why it's so important that Mary was a virgin at all. Probably back in the day it was thought that the curse was transmitted through the man, but we know today that any genetic trait could also come from the mother's side, so there's no real protection in Mary apparently receiving some magic sperm from on high. Jesus should have just sprung out of god's forehead straight to earth, really. So this whole thing strikes me as some epic level crazy nonsense. Why make things more complicated than they need to be?
The virgin birth is an historical claim. It's not that it necessarily had to be that way, but that's how it was. God could have come into the world any way He saw fit.
Believe the claim or don't, but it's not some manufactured solution to satisfy some kind of logical problem.
The virgin birth is an historical claim. It's not that it necessarily had to be that way, but that's how it was. God could have come into the world any way He saw fit.
Believe the claim or don't, but it's not some manufactured solution to satisfy some kind of logical problem.
Do Catholics hold that god was fully man and fully god at the same time? I suppose the would necessitate Jesus being born to a human woman at least, if not a virgin -- rather than, say, simply appearing out of nowhere or something of that nature.
Do Catholics hold that god was fully man and fully god at the same time? I suppose the would necessitate Jesus being born to a human woman at least, if not a virgin -- rather than, say, simply appearing out of nowhere or something of that nature.
Yes. He could have still been fully God and fully man any way He chose to. He could have sprung out of the earth already fully God and fully man.
No, because it was always intended to be a continent marriage. There was no expectation of sexual relations.
Even the Revised Standard version of the Catholic Bible doesn't agree with you. Here are the last two verses of Matthew 1.
24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.
I think we all know our scriptural euphemisms to know what "knew her not" meant. And the word "until" means that it eventually happened.
Then there's the New American Bible, Vatican Edition
24 When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home. 25 He had no relations with her until she bore a son, and he named him Jesus.
By relations, I'm pretty sure they don't mean having discussions about the household checking account.
There is no scriptural basis for Mary's virginity. The origins of the myth of Mary's perpetual virginity didn't appear until the 2nd Century with the non-canonical Protoevangelium of James.
The argument for Mary's perpetual virginity is further undermined by Luke 2:7, which describes Christ as Mary's first-born son. That is a very odd choice of words if Mary remained a virgin afterwards. Why include that descriptor at all? Why not describe as her only child?
And of course, there are several references in the Bible to Jesus's brothers and sisters, which the Catholic church has to tap dance around by naming them cousins. Yet cousins was a complete different word in the languages of the time, just as it is today.
In other words, Mary and Joseph almost certainly went on to have a passel of kids after the birth of Christ in the normal way. Does this make Christ any less holy? Does it make Mary any less blessed? Of course not.
Why should we care? The problem with this kind of nonsense is that the encrustation of myth--especially when such myths are flatly contradicted by our own Bible--creates doubt for everything else.
Last edited by MinivanDriver; 09-27-2022 at 08:53 AM..
Does that mean her marriage to Joseph was illegitimate? I've seen couples get annulments because they didn't consummate the wedding. What of Mary and Joseph?
If God can do the impossible thing of making a virgin give birth...
then obviously he can make a non- virgin still be a virgin if he wants.
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