They are! For until shows a change in event or thought or action from one position to another. but like all other hard fast rules, there are limited exceptions, like the exception of Michal. These are very very rare and do not upset the rule. You are grasping at straws to defend the undefensible.
You need to prove that Matt. 1:25 means Jospeh never engaged in sex with Mary.
YOu are the one proposing that until here does not mean its normal, natural, common and wide usage! So it is incumbent on you to show why!
Even you understand this:
The kids will not go outside to play until it stops raining. You knw it means once it stops raining, the kids will go outside to play. If you do not, you need to go back to primary grammar classes to learn basic English understanding.
From Cambridge dictionary: all similar constructs as Matt. something took place until something else happened then the new thing began.
not before a
particular time or
event:
We didn't
eat until past
midnight.
See more
Fewer examples
Show me aq meaning where until means something else happens (abstinence then sex after a birth) then you have a leg to stand on. Other wise you are grasping at straws.
You're once again proving my point.
A few posts ago you argued that the
definition of "until" settled the matter.
Now you're arguing that the
context settles the matter.
Those are not the same argument.
I've never denied that "
until" marks a boundary. Nor have I denied that the immediate action under discussion is Joseph not knowing Mary.
What I've challenged is your claim that Matthew 1:25, by itself, proves Joseph and Mary later had sexual relations.
The problem is that many of your examples either explicitly describe what happens after the boundary or the later action is necessarily implied by the context:
- The rain stops, then the children go outside.
- The coffee cools, then she drinks it.
- Midnight arrives, then we arrive at the hotel.
But not all of your examples work that way.
For example:
"The photographs will be on exhibition until the end of the month."
That sentence tells us what is true up to a particular point. It does
not tell us what happens afterward.
Likewise, Matthew 1:25 tells us what did
not happen before Jesus' birth:
"Joseph knew her not until she had brought forth her son."
And Matthew's concern in the immediate context is not Joseph and Mary's future marital relations. Matthew is explaining the virginal conception of Jesus.
So we're back to the same question:
"He knew her not until she had brought forth her son."
Where does Matthew then say:
"And afterward Joseph knew her"?
He doesn't.
Therefore the verse unquestionably tells us what did
not happen before Jesus' birth. Whether marital relations occurred afterward is something you infer. It is not something Matthew explicitly states.
And since you're now appealing to context, perhaps you'll finally answer the question from Luke 1:
If Mary expected ordinary marital relations with Joseph and therefore ordinary conception in the future, why does She ask:
"How shall this occur, since I know not man?"
And why does Gabriel answer by speaking of divine conception, Elizabeth's miraculous conception, and:
"For with God nothing shall be impossible."
If Mary's concern was simply that she had not yet had relations with Joseph, Gabriel's answer seems strangely elaborate. Why point to another miraculous conception at all?
That is the contextual question I've been asking. I don't think Matthew 1:25 settles it by itself.