twinc,
No, mate! You do not understand the meaning of until vs after. If I had no whiskers on my face that needed shaving
UNTIL puberty, it means that
AFTER puberty came, I needed to shave my whiskers (or grow a beard).
Therefore, what does
'until' mean in this verse? Matt 1:25 (NLT) states, 'But he [Joseph] did not have sexual relations with her [Mary]
until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus'.
So, for Joseph to not have sex with Mary
until Jesus was born, it means that they had sex
after Jesus' birth.
other translation render Matt 1:25:
- But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus' (NIV).
- 'but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus' (ESV).
- 'But he had no sexual relations with her before she gave birth to her son. And Joseph named him Jesus' (GNT).
- 'And he knew her not till she brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS' (Douay-Rheims 1899).
- 'And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus' (KJV).
- 'He had no relations with her until she bore a son, and he named him Jesus' (NABRE).
- 'but did not have marital relations with her until she gave birth to a son, whom he named Jesus' (NET).
Oxford Dictionaries online gives the meaning of 'until' as 'Up to (the point in time or the event mentioned)' (Oxford dictionaries 2017. s v
until). The Merriam-Webster Learners' Dictionary gives the meaning of 'until' as: 'up to (a particular time) — used to indicate the time when a particular
situation, activity, or period ends' (Merriam-Webster 2017. s v
until).
Therefore, 'until' in Matt 1:25 means that the end of 'no sexual relations' between Joseph and Mary came when Jesus was born. I'm not 'refusing to understand'. I do understand what the Greek and English mean by 'until'.
Thayer's Greek lexicon gives the meaning of ἕως (
hews =until) as, 'the temporal terminus ad quem, till, until (Latindonee,usquedum); as in the best writings a. with an preterite indicative, where something is spoken of which continued up to a certain time:
Matthew 2:9'.
Your accusation of me is:
This is false. Do a Google search of 'Matt 1:25 commentaries' and you'll find that I'm not an ignoramus on this topic.
Ben Witherington in his commentary on Matt 1:18-25 stated:
This is a narrative of surprising and unexpected events and suggests a God of unexpected actions. Finally, Matthew 1:25 is a crucial conclusion to our passage and suggests Mary and Joseph did not have marital relations until after the birth and naming of Jesus. The stories thereafter (see e.g. Mark 3:21-35 and Mark 6 and the parallels in Matthew) suggest Mary and Joseph, being good early Jews, went on to have numerous children, both boys and girls the natural way who are rightly called Jesus' brothers and sisters. In short, Matthew's Gospel affirms the virginal conception of Mary, but not her perpetual virginity, or for that matter her own immaculate conception by her mother. Those ideas are found only in much later Catholic traditions.
I do not appreciate it when you misrepresent what the Bible states and what I have written.
Oz