A Textual Challenge to the “Mary and Joseph Had Later Relations” Position
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Then why Jesus allows the 'nonsense' RCC to have existed more than 2000years and is the world's largest church!
Is Jesus on vacation?
Jesus allows ALL religions to exist
List the VERSES THAT PROVE Mary NEVER had sex after the birth of Christ
Verses bee, just the verses, can you do that ? :)
Know your 'sola scriptura'!
Jesus said " I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6) and that no one comes to the Father except through Him, logically He cannot validate or allow mutually exclusive truth claims of all religions, many of which explicitly deny His divinity or resurrection.
Now who did ALL the Christ Chosen Apostles in Gal 2:7-9 agree would teach the gospel to the heathen/gentile/uncirc ?
Take your time beech :)
Oh, brave words! Coming from the guy who spent the last three posts playing hide-and-seek with his own claims—first swearing the Apostles wrote the whole NT #511], then panic-backtracking to "holy men" #515, and insisting Jesus "allows all religions" #363 right up until someone pointed out how contradictory that is.
Gal 2:7-9
Who did ALL the Apostles agree would teach the gospel to the heathen/gentile/uncirc ?
Take your time beech :)
In first-century Judaism, marriage normally involved two stages: betrothal (kiddushin/erusin) and the final taking of the bride into the husband's home (nissuin). Betrothal was already legally binding. Although the couple did not yet live together or consummate the marriage, they were considered husband and wife under Jewish law, and a formal divorce was required to dissolve the union. The second stage occurred later, when the groom took the bride into his home and married life began.
Therefore, Mary was already Joseph's wife when Gabriel announced:
"You will conceive and bear a Son."
You've already said that Mary expected a normal marriage with Joseph, including ordinary marital relations.
What I find interesting is that your answer to the challenge depends on things that are not stated in the text:
- Gabriel's tone,
- Mary's assumption that the announced conception would occur immediately.
"How will this occur, since I know not man?"
So why should a presumed tone and an assumed timetable carry more interpretive weight than the explanation Mary Herself gives for Her difficulty?
And if future conception through Joseph remained Mary's expected explanation, as you assert, why does She appeal to "I know not man" as the reason for Her difficulty at all, rather than understand the announced conception as something that would occur through those expected marital relations, whenever that conception was to take place?
And there is still the matter of Gabriel's response.
According to your explanation, Mary's difficulty arises because She inferred that the announced conception would occur soon, before the marital relations She expected with Joseph. In other words, the entire discussion about the manner of conception is triggered by an inferred timetable.
Yet Gabriel's response is not merely:
"Yes, Mary, the conception will occur soon."
Instead, he explains divine conception:
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you."
He then appeals to Elizabeth's conception and concludes:
"For with God nothing shall be impossible."
Elizabeth's obstacle is explicit: barrenness and old age.
So if Mary's difficulty was ultimately rooted in an assumed timetable, why does Gabriel frame Her case alongside Elizabeth's otherwise impossible conception and conclude with God's power over impossibilities?
That seems to place the focus not merely on when conception will occur, but on how conception will occur.
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Yeah, you've said all this already. Doesn't do anything to advance your argument or to undermine mine. The most logical explanation is the simplest:
Mary was a normal girl, betrothed to a normal guy, and they expected to have sex as a married couple, but hadn't yet because they weren't yet in the consummation phase. The interval between betrothal and consummation was up to 12 months. So they were somewhere in that waiting period. She hadn't had sex yet ("I know not a man") but expected to, so when Gabriel said she's going to get pregnant, her natural response was (because she assumed this would happen before her marriage was consummated), how is this possible since I haven't had sex? And Gabriel affirms this by saying, look Mary, God is the God of the miraculous. Joseph didn't know this, so when she got pregnant he was like, WHAT? And he thought she committed adultery, which is why he wanted to divorce her until the angel said hold off there brother. He kept her a virgin until Jesus was born (Matt 1:25). Later she and Joseph had other children. (Matt. 12:46; 13:55; Mark 6:3; John 2:12; 7:3, 5, 10; Acts 1:14; 1 Cor. 9:5; Gal. 1:19).
Your explanation has to do significant theological and textual gymnastics to fit. Moreover, it goes against every cultural norm in that society. It's an "explanation" meant to elevate Mary far above her station. And we see the development of that elevation in how Mary is portrayed as co-redemptrix, crushing the serpent's head, the statues of Mary, the prayers to Mary, the shrines to Mary, the two ridiculous dogmas about Mary uttered ex cathedra, etc.
By the way, on that point, for a church that says that Mary isn't worshipped, it's hard to take that claim seriously when in the entire history of the Catholic Church, popes have only made TWO ex cathedra (infallible...LOL) statements, and BOTH were about MARY, not Jesus or God the Father or God the Holy Spirit or the Bible. But MARY.
MARY is the recipient and subject of the only two ex cathedra statements. How could this be possible? How could it be that, with all the theological controversies surrounding the Trinity, the nature of Jesus, the Bible, salvation, the mission of the church, etc., many of which exist to this day, that the only two ex cathedra statements are about..... MARY, of all things?
LOL
Two ex cathedra statements on Mary: Immaculate Conception of Mary and Assumption of Mary do not promote Mary is God to worship. They only define the nature of Mary due to theological debates that aroused.
Don't you find it odd that the church has only ever - in all its 2,000 year history - issued TWO "infallible" ex cathedra statements, and neither of them are about Jesus, the Church, the Trinity, the Bible, the doctrine of salvation, God the Father, or the Holy Spirit, but instead BOTH are about MARY?
I mean, it's not like there aren't CURRENT controversies over those other things to this very day.
You think that because the words "Mary" were on the page, Jesus and the Father were somehow left out in the cold. In reality, every single Marian dogma is entirely about Jesus Christ.
The Immaculate Conception isn’t about making Mary a goddess; it’s about protecting the Incarnation. It teaches that because Jesus was God taking on pure human flesh, God prepared a completely sinless vessel for Him. It's a statement about Christ's absolute holiness.
The Assumption teaches that Mary was brought body and soul into heaven because of Christ’s victory over death. She is the first human to experience fully what promised to all redeemed believers at the end of time.
Catholic Church settles most controversies through Ecumenical Councils and Bishop Conferences.
Asking why the pope didn't use an ex cathedra statement on the Trinity, salvation, God the Father.... is like asking why a modern government hasn't passed an emergency constitutional amendment to declare that murder is illegal. You don't need a newly minted emergency decree for something that has been foundational law since day one.
Eh....they're about Mary. The church has known that Jesus was holy since he walked the earth. There was no need whatsoever to come up with yet ANOTHER way to say that. This dogma (immaculate conception) was about MARY's holiness.
Completely made up, of course. If Mary was sinless, then that means that SHE needed to be birthed from a sinless vessel. Where does it end?
Completely made up, of course. And it makes Mary special among all humans. Nobody else experienced this or has since. That elevates Mary far above her actual status.
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Many/most controversies exist today.
Like, there's a gigantic swath of Christianity that doesn't believe in baptismal regeneration. Or in transubstantiation.
What was the "emergency" that these popes needed to solve with respect to Mary that couldn't wait for an ecumenical council?
Pope Pius IX in 1854 issued the ex cathedra statement about the immaculate conception, but Vatican I was just 15 years later. The church went more than 1800 years without this dogma. It couldn't wait another 15?
Pope Pius XII in 1950 issued the ex cathedra statement about Mary's assumption, but Vatican II was announced just 9 years later and began 12 years later. The church went more than 1900 years without this dogma. It couldn't wait another 12?
And dude, it took the church 300-400 years to flesh out the nature of Christ and the Trinity. They may have seemed foundational to you and me now, but then? Hardly so. Why not have the pope just issue an ex cathedra statement in 280 AD about these things?
Regarding the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and whether it's about Jesus or Mary... Read some of these words from that dogma:
"the Fathers of Trent sufficiently intimated by this declaration that the Blessed Virgin Mary was free from the original stain"
"Hence, just as Christ, the Mediator between God and man, assumed human nature, blotted the handwriting of the decree that stood against us, and fastened it triumphantly to the cross, so the most holy Virgin, united with him by a most intimate and indissoluble bond, was, with him and through him, eternally at enmity with the evil serpent, and most completely triumphed over him, and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot." - so we see that the Church DOES teach that it was MARY who crushed the serpent's head with her foot.
"This sublime and singular privilege of the Blessed Virgin, together with her most excellent innocence, purity, holiness and freedom from every stain of sin..."
"the Fathers taught that the exalted dignity of the Mother of God, her spotless innocence and her sanctity unstained by any fault"
"In like manner did they use the words of the prophets to describe this wondrous abundance of divine gifts and the original innocence of the Virgin of whom Jesus was born. They celebrated the august Virgin as the spotless dove, as the holy Jerusalem, as the exalted throne of God, as the ark and house of holiness which Eternal Wisdom built, and as that Queen who, abounding in delights and leaning on her Beloved, came forth from the mouth of the Most High, entirely perfect, beautiful, most dear to God and never stained with the least blemish."
Don't you dare tell me this is about Jesus. This is about Mary and it declares her to be perfect, absolutely holy, and it even says she's the EXALTED THRONE OF GOD.
I mean, good grief you guys. Don't tell me this is just "respect" for Mary. This is abject idol worship. Read those words and tell me this doesn't exalt Mary to divine status.
"the Fathers of Trent sufficiently intimated by this declaration that the Blessed Virgin Mary was free from the original stain"
"Hence, just as Christ, the Mediator between God and man, assumed human nature, blotted the handwriting of the decree that stood against us, and fastened it triumphantly to the cross, so the most holy Virgin, united with him by a most intimate and indissoluble bond, was, with him and through him, eternally at enmity with the evil serpent, and most completely triumphed over him, and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot." - so we see that the Church DOES teach that it was MARY who crushed the serpent's head with her foot.
"This sublime and singular privilege of the Blessed Virgin, together with her most excellent innocence, purity, holiness and freedom from every stain of sin..."
"the Fathers taught that the exalted dignity of the Mother of God, her spotless innocence and her sanctity unstained by any fault"
"In like manner did they use the words of the prophets to describe this wondrous abundance of divine gifts and the original innocence of the Virgin of whom Jesus was born. They celebrated the august Virgin as the spotless dove, as the holy Jerusalem, as the exalted throne of God, as the ark and house of holiness which Eternal Wisdom built, and as that Queen who, abounding in delights and leaning on her Beloved, came forth from the mouth of the Most High, entirely perfect, beautiful, most dear to God and never stained with the least blemish."
Don't you dare tell me this is about Jesus. This is about Mary and it declares her to be perfect, absolutely holy, and it even says she's the EXALTED THRONE OF GOD.
I mean, good grief you guys. Don't tell me this is just "respect" for Mary. This is abject idol worship. Read those words and tell me this doesn't exalt Mary to divine status.
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