Chris said:
No*s you aren't countering anything anybody says. All you're doing is blowing it off. She's saying that
And the best you have is "Nu-uh! It's not true! Brother means cousin, or uncle in their language!" when the books of reference weren't even written in that language, but to the best of our knowledge, in greek! You're acting completely condescending to peoples adequate rationale, while giving childish responsive with absolutely no substance. You're giving anecdotal evidence at best.
People living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. You have very little room to talk about being condescending.
I'm not the one treating my language as infallibly representing another. Your answer to an argument on the basis of language is "Well, that's like Clinton trying to define the word 'is.'" You don't get more condescending than that, especially when up until this post you DIDN'T offer a counter-argument to it, and the one you have is very shallow, but I documented my sources and arguments.
The historical argument is hardly anecdotal. There is a near-universal consensus of the Fathers on this matter. So what if I have to expand my number from "one who taught it" to "two who taught it." It still remains that the overwhelming number supported it. It would remain so even if we could find a third Father in the first five hundred years who thought that.
Then, when I mention Scriptures that make the most sense with the view of the perpetual virginity of Mary, I receive only silence.
In my view your argument is built around a supremacy of English translation, the unreliability of the Church Fathers, and your own ability to know accurately what most everyone missed in the EC (especially the people who speak the language).
Chris said:
We have several inferences in the Bible, as well as specific scripture that we can point to and say, Mary had sex. What do you have to prove that she DIDNT?
Don't beg the question. In none of the instnaces is your interpretation the only possible one.
Chris said:
It seems to me that when you argue that a married couple (and I don't want to hear any tripe about them not really being married and blah blah blah...) didn't have sex, the burden of proof is on your shoulders. The Bible certainly has no mention of Mary's perpetual virginity; we have no record of Paul, or Peter, John, James, Jude, or any other apostle speaking of it in his apostleship (which should lead one to question why it would now be considered any sort of dogma at all....). I haven't read much apocrypha, so there may be some mention there, but that certainly wouldn't help your case, because they aren't vald historically. In fact they would probably do more to damage your own case.
This post brings up my point well. Views that Mary wasn't married are "tripe." However, you don't have any evidence she was married. However, the arguments that disagree with you don't need to be critiqued, they are simply dismissed as "tripe."
Then you make a very faulty argument aobut the lack of the reference to the perpetual virginity in the first century. However, you overlook how many arguments you have simply for the virginity of Mary: Matthew. The Virginity of Mary isn't mentioned in I Clement, the Didiche, or the Epistle of Barnabas. In fact, I think Matthew is the sole source of the doctrine in the first century, and hiss view of it is our question in this thread.
The first extra-biblical reference to it comes in the early second century, and it makes no reference to whether Mary ceased to be a virgin or not. Most of the authors you cited give no clue they even knew about the Virgin Birth (well, Paul has one passage in Galatians that hints at it).
This argument wholly neglects the fact that we don't have any testimony in the first century about the matter except Matthew.
Chris said:
So tell me, why should I believe that Mary never had sex with her husband, and didn't have the children that are mentioned in the Bible???? Because Jerome, Origen, and Luther???? Well, they also believed in many things you would consider heretical today.
Because they were only married and not betrothed. You can't supply any evidence that they were, and you can't appeal to any extra-biblical evidence for it. Mary is never referred to in Scripture as having other children. At the cross, she had no children to talk care of her, despite the fact that we know that Jesus' brother James was at the Council in Jerusalem after that. That's a pretty good case that she didn't have sex, simply from Scripture.
Why look at Jerome, Origen, Luther, and others? Well, because even amongst such readily different theologies at differing times, almost everyone seems to agree on that. The point isn't their other theological views. It's that they all accepted it, and this is still true in the Early Church. Somehow, the majority, whether Latin-speaking, Greek-speaking, or Aramaic-speaking, seemed to miss what you seem to take as the obvious reading.
Chris said:
Let's point out that there are many other people that, in their writings, named James as the brother of Jesus, and many of them weren't even Aramaic speakers! Some include: Clement, Leo, Josephus, and a certain roman historian (I believe a contemporary of Josephus') who's name escapes me....
Josephus and Clement (assuming Alexandria) were certainly Aramaic speakers. As for the others, they were Christians, and thus, had more than a little acquaintance with Greek or Latin with a Semitic flavor. Thus, their use of "brothers" certainly includes the tradition from the texts.
Even more importantly, Greek and Latin both use
adelphos and
frater respectively for both "step-brother" and "half-brother." I don't think citing their use of "borther" when the argument is about Jesus having "step-brothers" is very strong.
Further this post is against my post to May as if Joannicius and I hadn't made an argument on the matter and simply cast her argument aside. Here, though, you are arguing against Joannicius' very argument, but in this post you said I was simply "blowing off" May's argument. The arguments against the point she was making were, indeed, already made, and even with examples, and you argue against them here.
Which is it? Did we make an argument against it already which you were disputing, or were we simply "blowing off" May's post? It would seem your criticism that I'm saying "nuh uh" has just been rendered moot, because you clearly are aware that we made the argument.
Chris said:
And as for your
Helvidius isn't the first. Tertullian was the first. He was second century and prior to any other fathers that had the opposite view. Does that make a glowing endorsement?
I am willing to concede error here. Please provide a citation, though.
It still remains, we're still counting the number of people with your view on one hand. We're up to two, because of an oversight on my part. It's hardly flattering, when I demonstrate an agreement to the opposite among so many other authors, though.
Chris said:
And yes, I know that Tertullian was regarded as a heretic by some, but he still remained a part of the Catholic Church and defended their beliefs. In fact his writings are still used today by the church. Besides, he was in better standings with the church than Origen was at the time.
No, he was not in better standing than Origen. Origen never tried to schism away and claim to have it all figured out. Tertullian did. Both were immensly popular, but Tertullian decided to make himself an enemy of everyone else. Origen never took that step.
Chris said:
besides that, how does it hurt the case of an opposition to bring up Helvidius???? Our friend Joannicus has brought up many names at much later dates, and you yourself began to argue using Jerome's writings that were written after Helvidius'. Should we be holding ouselves to lower standards than what we proclaim for others to use???
It hurts, because we only know about Helvidius, because of Jerome's argument against him. The argument made two prime types of arguments 1). Helvidius is misreading the texts and making grave blunders and 2). The opinion is unknown in the Church, so Jerome asserts Helvidius must be smarter than all those people before him (and names names), despite the fact that his grasp of his own language is poor. Jerome isn't kind about it either.
We cannot cite Helvidius without acknowledging Jerome's points and the history that goes into it. Jerome only wrote against him because he had a couple of friends insisting on it. He considered the points beneath contempt for the above reasons.
Those facts come with any discussion of Helvidius. One more is that St. Jerome was the best linguist in fourth century Christianity.
Chris said:
Also, I just re-read some of the old threads, and in response:
1.) You actually were using apocrypha (the Protoevangalium of James), written in the 2nd century to prove your arguement! And you dare to contend May's use of Helvidius???? No*s, show some consistency!
I am, and I explained above in greater detail.
Chris said:
2.) I'm not familiar with Justin Martyr's belief in the perpetual virginity. Could you kindly give me a reference?
It's in the
First Apology, similar to the PEoJ.
Chris said:
Now I don't doubt that you have, or at very least believe to have, a case. You seem to be an intelligent, and knowledgable man. I'd just like for you to present your side suitably. So far all you've done is attack our side.
I'm still waiting for you to do so. I have attempted it, and you ignored all the arguments, even the recap in post 29.