Did Mary Have Other Children?

Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry ^ | Unknown | Matt Slick

[don-o]

I don’t believe God would have left Mary without other children.

Why did Jesus commend Mary to John's care as he was hanging on the cross, if she had other children to take care of her?

[Salvation]

I laugh every time a thread like this comes up, for your founders believed in the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Virgin Birth—or Prophetic Slip?
The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary
Aeiparthenos (An Anglo-Catholic Priest on Mary's Perpetual Virginity)
[Why I Am Catholic]: Because of the Protestant Reformers Beliefs On Mary
Catholic Biblical Apologetics: Mary: Virgin and Ever Virgin
Luther, Calvin, and Other Early Protestants on the Perpetual Virginity of Mary
Luther, Calvin, and Other Early Protestants on the Perpetual Virginity of Mary
The Protestant Reformers on the Virgin Mary
Zwingli’s’ Mariology: On Mary “Full of Grace”

[sigzero]

You mean like for 2000 years refusing to allow Bishops to marry when the Bible clearly teaches they can be and should be if they can’t bridle their lusts? Yeah, I think they missed this one too. The plain reading of it is, yes, he had brothers and sisters and Joseph knew his wife Mary.

[Natural Law]

"As the veneration of Mary increased throughout the centuries, the vehicle of Sacred Tradition became the means of promoting new doctrines not explicitly taught in the Bible."

Again, another problem with the Protestant doctrine of Scriptural exclusivity that suggests that all that was revealed by God, for all purposes, is contained in one handy-dandy book. Let's examine the Bible, not by a dissection of each word and verse, but at the level of its intended scope and purpose.

The Bible was not intended to be a science or a history book, it is a religious book, and consequently one cannot obtain information about the natural sciences or history from it. In the words of (then) Cardinal Ratzinger; "Holy Scripture in its entirety was not written from beginning to end like a novel or a textbook. It is, rather, the echo of God's history with his people. It arose out of the struggles and the vagaries of this history, and all through it we can catch a glimpse of the rises and falls, the sufferings and hopes, and the greatness and failures of this history. The Bible is thus the story of God's struggle with human beings to make himself understandable to them over the course of time; but it is also the story of their struggle to seize hold of God over the course of time."

One cannot get from Holy Scripture a scientific explanation of how the world arose or a detailed historical account of irrelevant happenings. Again n the words of Cardinal Ratzinger; "one can only glean religious experience from it. Anything else is an image and a way of describing things whose aim is to make profound realities graspable to human beings. One must distinguish between the form of portrayal and the content that is portrayed. The form would have been chosen from what was understandable at the time -- from the images which surrounded the people who lived then, which they used in speaking and in thinking, and thanks to which they were able to understand the greater realities. And only the reality that shines through these images would be what was intended and what was truly enduring."

The Holy Scripture is ambiguous on this issue but the Holy Tradition holds that Mary was otherwise childless and that is good enough for me.

[carton253]

Luke 2:7 calls Jesus her first-born son. To me that means she had other children.

[Natural Law]

"You mean like for 2000 years refusing to allow Bishops to marry when the Bible clearly teaches they can be and should be if they can’t bridle their lusts?"

What perverted cult are you referring to, because that is not the teachings of the Catholic Church.

[sigzero]

People are forever going to argue this one *and* it makes no difference what-so-ever.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I am going to go ahead and say it, the Catholic worship of Mary is heresy.

[wildbill]

I’m reminded of my grandmother, a staunch Baptist, explaining the references to wine in the Bible. According to her, the many refrences weren’t about any alcoholic wine, but simply a Jewish version of Welch’s grape juice.

The controversy about the family members of Jesus is discussed in great detail and with lots of scholarly references in the book, “The Jesus Dynasty” by Dr. James Tabor, head of the Dept of Religion at U North Carolina.

You can’t read this book without coming away with the conclusion that the “perpetual virginity of Mary” theory is much like my Grandmother’s Jewish grape juice theory—something that was invented much later to meet the required tenets of a theological matter of faith.

[tophat9000]

The essay does make a great case for Joseph having children who were his by another wife, who perhaps died in childbirth prior to Joseph’s betrothal with Mary.

Then by that logic why are not Joseph "earlier" children from a first marriage traveling with there Father and Stepmother "Joseph & Mary" at Jesus birth?...

[sigzero]

lol...that is funny. So all those poor schucks arguing that the RC church should allow its priests to marry....what a waste of time arguing something that doesn’t exist. Please.

[Rashputin]

"But there are still those who think a smoking gun lurks somewhere . . ."

If there's a smoking gun anywhere it'll turn up and blow the tush off of those folks who think five hundred years of carnal BS is superior to two thousand years of Christ directing His Church. Of course, they'll either reinterpret it or otherwise discount it as fact the same way they do everything else that doesn't agree with their own carnal understanding.

The same appeal Satan made to Eve works all the time these days as well. People want to be as god and place their own understanding above what they're commanded which is to take up their cross and follow Him. They're not commanded to reinterpret or rewrite everything to suit their own carnal understanding and then carry any little wood chips that remain after they're done carving everything up to suit themselves rather than accepting what has been Christian knowledge for two thousands years.

[Mach9]

Trick question? Maybe you should let us know where the New Testament, or the Old for that matter, refers to Bishops and the conditions of their ordination, consecration . . .

[freedumb2003]

>>The Bible was not intended to be a science or a history book, it is a religious book<<

You gonna GET IT NOW!

[Mach9]

Yo, bro!

[freedumb2003]

>>I am going to go ahead and say it, the Catholic worship of Mary is heresy.<<

It isn’t “worship,” but I will now stand back and watch the result of your tossing a skunk into this particular punch bowl...

[sigzero]

1 Timothy 3 gives the qualifications for Bishop.

[Grunthor]

“Did Mary Have Other Children?”

James, Joseph, Simon and Judas.

[wmfights]

Thanks for the ping. It was a good read.

[ken in texas]

If Scripture does not tell us definitively one way or the other, we should not spend our time on speculation.

GOD directed what would be written in what we know today as the Bible. If we needed more details, they would have been provided.