-- This is how ridiculous the Catholic position is ----> Joseph didn't have sex with Mary until Jesus was born....and then he still didn't have sex with her until he died.
To claim that the "until" in...
"But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus."
Is the same as the "until" in...
"Michal the daughter of Saul had no children till the day of her death"
Shows intentional misunderstanding. Repeat: Intentional.
The linguistic ignorance that you are forced to resort to is staggering.
.
Sorry, but your linguistic ignorance is staggering.
I pointed out (and you ignored) that the greek
heos carries NO IMPLICATIONS passed the
heos point.
And it is the same with English.
Until is just a time marker.
until
n
preposition & conjunction up to (the point in time or the event mentioned). (
Concise OXford English Dictionary)
The
Collins Concise Dictionary says a little more:
until
1. up to (a time}
2. (used with a negative) before (a time of event)
Until is used to mark a period of time and says nothing about what happens outside that period of time.
Something happens, or does not happen from time point "A"
until time point "B"
What happens after time point "B" we either:
1. simply do not know
2. infer from something else in the text
3. assume from the general context
“
There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage, and then as a widow until (heos) she was eighty-four.”
Lk 2:36-37).
What happened afterwards? The text does not say. We may
assume she did not marry because that seems unlikely in the circumstances.
"Michal the daughter of Saul had no children till the day of her death"
Did she have children after he death? We
assume not because it is unknown for dead women to have children. But that is an ssumption based on the context.
As you gave a made up example I will give you one.
At 7 p.m. my wife goes out. She retuns at 11 pm and asks "What did you do this evening?"
I reply "I watched television until the football started".
Now, did I carry on watching the television when the football started?
According to your theory the action changes after the "until" point. So I must have stopped watching television when the football started.
And if I don't like watching football that is what my wife would have assumed and she would be right.
But I didn't. My wife knows I always watch football if I can. So her question was really about what I did between her going out and me watching the football.
When I said "I watched television until the football started" I was saying what I did in the time period she was interested in.
What I did after the "until" point she could guess (assume) at depending on whether I liked watching football or not.
It had nothing to do with the usage of the word "until"
Until does not mean something changed. We deduce that from the rest of the text or the general context.
So you cannot
prove that Mary and Joseph had sexual relations after Jesus was born from Mt 1:25.
You
assume she did because that is what that
normally happens in a marriage. But the marriage of Mary and Joseph was not a normal marriage. It was unique in all history. God chose Mary to be the mother of his incarnate son. That made her unique in all history.
There are many reasons why Catholics believe that Mary remained a virgin and they provide the context for our belief that nothing changed after the "until" point - when Jesus was born.