If the above is true, how then can you reconcile Matthew 13:55-56, in contrast with your belief that Mary was a perpetual (forever) virgin?
This is impossible, of course, according to Matthew 13:55-56!!!
To God Be The Glory
Here the whole thing including your objection in matt 13:55
Perpetual Virginity of Mary!
Mary conceived "without any detriment to her virginity, which remained inviolate even after his birth" (apostolic Council of the Lateran, 649)
The Bible never says anyone is a biological child of Mary accept for Jesus Christ!
And the Bible says Her child is holy! And Her child is God!
Is 7:14 God provides a sign, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son! (Singular, one son)
Ezekiel 44:2 “This gate shall remain shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it; for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it shall remain shut.”
Song of Solomon 4:12 A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
(Mary had become the dwelling place of the Almighty, like the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament. Mary was a vessel consecrated to God alone?)
Matt 1:20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
(The Bible says only the Holy Ghost conceived in Mary)
Matt 1:21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.
(A son singular) (does James save his people?)
Lk 1:28 Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee!
Blessed art thou amongst all women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
(The fruit of Her womb is blessed and holy)
Lk 1:31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.
(A son, singular)
Lk 1:34 Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
(This verse imply’s a vow of perpetual virginity, She refuses even the exalted dignity of mother of God and mother of our savior if it means violating Her vow of perpetual virginity)
Lk 1:35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
(Her son is God)
Matt 1:25 He knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus.
2 Samuel 6:23 tells us: Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child UNTIL the day of her death.
Are we to assume that Michal had children after she died?
Until only states that they had no relation up to that point, the Bible does not say they had sex ever, before or after that point!
First born does not imply a second born. An only child is still first born!
No where does say Joseph a just and therefore chaste man has gone into Mary where the Holy Spirit has conceived, 2 Sam 12:24 And David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with her: and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon: and the Lord loved him.
Brothers and sisters of Jesus?
They are not the children of Mary!
Is 7:14 a virgin shall conceive and bear a son!
(One son, singular)
James is the son of zebedee, and the other James is the son of Alpheus not Joseph!
Matt 10:2-3
In Hebrew culture any close relative can be called brother or sister, lot was called Abraham’s brother but was his nephew.
Gen 12:5 and Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son..
Gen 13:8 And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen; for we are Brothers.
The 12 sons of Jacob are brothers but all are not the children of Leah and all are not the children of Rachel! They had 4 mother’s, These may be brothers but they are simply not the children of One mother and the brothers of Jesus are not the children of Mary!
Jose’s, Simon Salome are children of another Mary!
Mk 15:40 There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome;
Is Mary the mother of James?
If you mean the Blessed Virgin Mary then no. Her sister-in-law, Mary of Clopas, was the wife of Alphaeus (St. Joseph's brother), and mother of Simon, Joseph, and the apostles Judas Thaddeus, and James (the Less, brother of the Lord): Jesus' cousins.
The "sisters" of Jesus refer to women disciples.
Salome, or Mary Salome, was the wife of Zebedee, and mother of apostles John (the beloved), and James (the greater).
Regarding Mat. 13:55 and Mk. 6:3, two of the four "brethren" are James and Judas of Alphaeus (cf. Mat. 10:2-3, Lk. 6:15-16, Act. 1:13). The third, Joseph, is identified in Mk. 15:40 as the brother of James of Alphaeus. The fourth, Simon, is identified in Mat. 13:55 and Mk. 6:3 as the brother of Joseph, James, and Judas of Alphaeus. Therefore, all four are were the sons of Alphaeus, not St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
“You had good reason to be horrified at the thought that another birth might issue from the same virginal womb from which Christ was born according to the flesh. For the Lord Jesus would never have chosen to be born of a virgin if he had ever judged that she would be so incontinent as to contaminate with the seed of human intercourse the birthplace of the Lord’s body, that court of the eternal king” (ancient writer)
Martin Luther
It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a virgin. … Christ, we believe, came forth from a womb left perfectly intact. (Weimer’s The Works of Luther, English translation by Pelikan, Concordia, St. Louis, v. 11, pp. 319-320; v. 6. p. 510.)
John Calvin
(On the Heretic Helvidius) Helvidius displayed excessive ignorance in concluding that Mary must have had many sons, because Christ’s “brothers” are sometimes mentioned. (Harmony of Matthew, Mark and Luke, sec. 39 [Geneva, 1562], vol. 2 / From Calvin’s Commentaries, translated by William Pringle, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1949, p.215; on Matthew 13:55)
[On Matt 1:25:] The inference he [Helvidius] drew from it was, that Mary remained a virgin no longer than till her first birth, and that afterwards she had other children by her husband . . . No just and well-grounded inference can be drawn from these words . . . as to what took place after the birth of Christ. He is called “first-born”; but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that he was born of a virgin . . . What took place afterwards the historian does not inform us . . . No man will obstinately keep up the argument, except from an extreme fondness for disputation. (Pringle, ibid., vol. I, p. 107)
Under the word “brethren” the Hebrews include all cousins and other relations, whatever may be the degree of affinity. (Pringle, ibid., vol. I, p. 283 / Commentary on John, [7:3])
John Wesley
‘I believe that He [Jesus] was made man, joining the human nature with the divine in one person; being conceived by the singular operation of the Holy Ghost, and born of the blessed Virgin Mary, who, as well after as before she brought Him forth, continued a pure and unspotted virgin’ (‘Letter to a Roman Catholic’, The Works of Rev. John Wesley, vol 10, p. 81).
St Augustine, Sermons 186.1 (early 5th century):
“In being born of a Virgin who chose to remain a Virgin even before she knew who was to be born of her, Christ wanted to approve virginity rather than to impose it. And he wanted virginity to be of free choice even in that woman in whom he took upon himself the form of a slave” (Holy Virginity 4:4 [A.D. 401]).
“It was not the visible sun, but its invisible Creator who consecrated this day for us, when the Virgin Mother, fertile of womb and integral in her virginity, brought him forth, made visible for us, by whom, when he was invisible, she too was created. A Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing, a Virgin pregnant, a Virgin bringing forth, a Virgin perpetual. Why do you wonder at this, O man?” (Sermons 186:1 [A.D. 411]).
“Heretics called Antidicomarites are those who contradict the perpetual virginity of Mary and affirm that after Christ was born she was joined as one with her husband” (Heresies 56 [A.D. 428]).
St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III.28.3 (13th century):
"Without any hesitation we must abhor the error of Helvidius, who dared to assert that Christ's Mother, after His Birth, was carnally known by Joseph, and bore other children.
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For, in the first place, this is derogatory to Christ's perfection: for as He is in His Godhead the Only-Begotten of the Father, being thus His Son in every respect perfect, so it was becoming that He should be the Only-begotten son of His Mother, as being her perfect offspring.
“Secondly, this error is an insult to the Holy Ghost, whose "shrine" was the virginal womb, wherein He had formed the flesh of Christ: wherefore it was unbecoming that it should be desecrated by intercourse with man.
“Thirdly, this is derogatory to the dignity and holiness of God's Mother: for thus she would seem to be most ungrateful, were she not content with such a Son; and were she, of her own accord, by carnal intercourse to forfeit that virginity which had been miraculously preserved in her.
“Fourthly, it would be tantamount to an imputation of extreme presumption in Joseph, to assume that he attempted to violate her whom by the angel's revelation he knew to have conceived by the Holy Ghost.
“We must therefore simply assert that the Mother of God, as she was a virgin in conceiving Him and a virgin in giving Him birth, did she remain a virgin ever afterwards."
The blessed Mary mother of God, is a perpetual virgin to the glory of God!
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