It is not a tradition. It is just a plain reading of the scriptures, without the need to make Mary ever-virgin, thus removing an element of eisegesis... The concept has zero foundation in Scripture (particularly Torah and the Prophets), or in Hebrew culture and tradition. It is a foreign concept. But the 'Ever-Virgin' has deep roots in paganism. That it is a syncretism is almost without an argument. That most titles given to Mary have their profane counterpart should be a mighty clue. False; it is a post-reformation tradition, as is Mormonism, J Witnesses, Pentecostalism, Seventh Day Adventism, etc. It is modern.
Not at all - I was simply entertaining your argument for the purpose of the subject matter: 'Yeshua had no brothers because he gave his mother to John' is a faulty premise without an understanding of the familial relations and conditions at the time. Since that data is not available, the premise remains, and must remain, without merit.
False; the premise remains. If there had been natural children of Mary other than Jesus, then those children had a solemn Jewish obligation to care for her as a widow, modern revisionist theories notwithstanding.
Take off your Rome colored glasses, wipe the Greece from your eyes and study that passage in depth. Yeshua is telling the people to do as Moses says, and not to follow the tradition of the Pharisees (their takanot and ma'asim... what they 'say' and 'do')... He then follows with a point by point tear-down. Every time he went up against the Pharisees, it was an intentional, premeditated attack upon their greater tradition... Their 'authority'. They had no authority.
False;they had the authority of Moses seat, and the Messiah said to obey their authority, but not their example if it were unrighteousness.
There has been some doubt as to whether their were really consecrated Jewish virgins at the Temple. In my previous post I referenced the first-century Jewish historian Josephus in support of “Temple virgins” in Jerusalem, but I fear that this cannot be substantiated. Jimmy Akin asked me for the citation and I cannot find it. One would assume that it would be in Book 5 of the Jewish Wars of Josephus. There Josephus mentions cloisters, but he does not tell us who lived in them. That’s as close as Josephus gets.
There are, however, three Scriptural accounts that are used by Catholics to demonstrate that there were special women who ministered at the Temple complex.
Exodus 38:8 mentions women who “watch (צָבָא) at the door of the tabernacle.”
The second is in 1 Samuel:
“Now Heli was very old, and he heard all that his sons did to all Israel: and how they lay with the women that waited (צָבָא) at the door of the tabernacle:” (1 Samuel 2:22, D-R)
In both of the verses above, Hebrew verb for “watch” and “waited” is the same. It is the Hebrew word צָבָא, which is the same verb used to described the liturgical activity of the Levites (see Num 4:23; 8:24). This corresponds to the Latin translation in the Clementine Vulgate, which relates that these women “observabant” at the temple doors – another liturgical reading.
So these women are not simply hanging out around the Temple, looking for men, gossiping, or chatting about the weather. These are pious women devoted to a liturgical function. In fact, the Court of Women might exist formally for these special “liturgical women.”
The third and final reference to these liturgical females is in 2 Maccabees:
And the virgins also that were shut up, came forth, some to {High Priest} Onias, and some to the walls, and others looked out of the windows. And all holding up their hands towards heaven, made supplication. (2 Macc 3:19-20)
Here are virgins that are shut up. In the Greek it is “αἱ δὲ κατάκλειστοι τῶν παρθένων” or “the shut up ones of the virgins.” In this passage the Holy Spirit refers not to all the virgins of Jerusalem, but to a special set of virgins, that is, those virgins who had the privilege and right to be in the presence of the High Priest and address him. It’s rather ridiculous to think that young girls would have general access to the High Priest of Israel. However, if these virgins had a special liturgical role at the Temple, it becomes clear that they would both address the High Priest Onias and would also be featured as an essential part of the intense supplication in the Temple at this moment of crisis.
There is further testimony of temple virgins in the traditions of the Jews. In the Mishnah, it is recorded that there were 82 consecrated virgins who wove the veil of the Temple:
“The veil of the Temple was a palm-length in width. It was woven with seventy-two smooth stitches each made of twenty-four threads. The length was of forty cubits and the width of twenty cubits. Eighty-two virgins wove it. Two veils were made each year and three hundred priests were needed to carry it to the pool” (Mishna Shekalim 8, 5-6).
We find another reference to the “women who made the veils for the Temple…baked the showbread…prepared the incense” (Babylonian Talmud Kethuboth 106a).
Rabbinic Jewish sources also record how when the Romans sacked Jerusalem in AD 70, the Temple virgins leapt into the flames so as not to be abducted by the heathen soldiers: “the virgins who were weaving threw themselves in the flames” (Pesikta Rabbati 26, 6). Here we also learn that these virgins lived in the three-storey building inside the Temple area. However, it is difficult to find any other details about this structure. The visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich placed the cloisters of the Temple Virgins on the north side of the Temple (Emmerich’s Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary 3, 5).
Even more, the first century document by the name of the Apocalypse of Baruch (sometimes called “2 Baruch”) describes the Temple virgins living in the Temple as weavers of the holy veil:
“And you virgins who weave byssus and silk, and gold from Ophir, in haste pick it all up and throw it in the fire that it will return it to its Author, and that the flame will take it back to its Creator, from fear that the enemy might seize it” (2 Baruch 10:19).
So then, there is ample evidence for the role of consecrated women, especially virgins at the Temple. If one were to accept the passages above, we have plenty of testimony for cultic women in the time of Moses’ tabernacle, in the time of David, in the Second Temple era, and in the first century of Our Lord.
This substantiates the claims of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church who claim that the Blessed Virgin Mary was presented to the Temple and served there from the age of three until the age of fourteen. To claim that Temple virgins are a myth of celibacy-crazed Catholic bishops does not hold up. Scripture and Jewish tradition records that there were specially commissioned virgins associated with the Temple. We may not know much about them, but we know that they existed.
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>> “Scripture and Jewish tradition records that there were specially commissioned virgins associated with the Temple. We may not know much about them, but we know that they existed.” <<
Then it should be easy for you to post that scripture.
(”Jewish Tradition” is a broad and vaporous term, including practices instituted by Torah, and the practices of liars and whore mongers)
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False; it is a post-reformation tradition, as is Mormonism, J Witnesses, Pentecostalism, Seventh Day Adventism, etc. It is modern.Then, as a doctrine with vast implications, one should be able to find it in the scriptures - particularly the prophets, as the Father does nothing but that he reveals it to his prophets... And it's genesis (forgive the pun) should find at least a root in Torah... But no... Nada. Zip. Not a peep. Nothing, to my knowledge, until the Protoevangelium of James - A work found to be spurious very early on, and decried by Tertullian and Origen (IIRC). Funny how all the weirdness in the Roman church finds it's beginnings in such works... Admitted false, yet retained... Fake, but accurate...
False; the premise remains. If there had been natural children of Mary other than Jesus, then those children had a solemn Jewish obligation to care for her as a widow, modern revisionist theories notwithstanding.
Indeed, the obligation exists - but it is not as rigid as you would hope. As an example, if a widow's sons are destitute and a benefactor volunteers a better life than they can provide, then their duty to care for her is best served in relinquishing that duty to the benefactor (providing her acquiescence, of course). The purpose is the provision for the widow in her elder years, and there is nothing that says she must suffer in poverty (and be a burden to her sons) if a better arrangement is available. While not directly on point, the Book of Ruth is instructive.
So while we are in agreement that the obligation exists, without knowing the particulars and parameters, your premise cannot be sustained.
False;they had the authority of Moses seat, and the Messiah said to obey their authority, but not their example if it were unrighteousness.
No, the authority remains in Moses, they can speak within his authority, but only to the degree that they adhere to Moses - They have no authority of their own. No disciple can gainsay his master.
As to the commentary from 'Did Jewish Temple Virgins Exist and was Mary a Temple Virgin?' by Dr Taylor Marshall:
The absolute paucity of evidences outside of the Roman/Ortho paradigm, and particularly amongst the Jews, whose histories and regulations are incredibly well defined - That absence of evidence (particularly regulatory) leaves the whole argument wanting, to be kind. There is no evidence of temple virgins because vestal virgins were not part of Hebrew life and religion. Every part and order of Temple and Tabernacle worship is well defined in Torah, yet *nothing* regarding any sort of nunnery whatsoever.
That the Hebrews valued virginity goes without saying, but neither does that require consecrated temple virgins in order to quantify that respect. In fact, it is the height of hubris to impose upon them cultural norms which they deny outright. However, temple virgins are part and parcel of Greek and Roman worship - One doesn't have to wander too far to understand where the concept comes from.
As to the meager defenses from Scripture: Without the need for a defense of consecrated virgins, the scriptures stand with the meaning the Hebrews give it. Eisegesis.
As to Josephus, I myself have read Josephus numerous times, and I recall no passage that mentions 'cloisters'... Certainly nothing specific to vestal virgins.
As to 2Macc, Let me know when the full books of Jason of Cyrene are found and maybe we can revisit the matter - I highly doubt the 'condensed version' that 2Macc purports to be would be inspired. It certainly has none of what I look for in that regard.