The Orthodox understanding, of course, was that Mary remained a virgin and I'm told that Luther, possibly other Reformers, and the Wesleys believed this too.
We could be off on a tangent here, but there are questions all ways round.
If Mary were a consecrated virgin as Orthodox Tradition maintains then what was Joseph doing by betrothing himself to her in the first place? Unless it was some kind of 'guardianship' marriage with no expectation of consummation.
But yes, the term translated 'virgin' can simply mean 'young woman' but young women were generally expected to remain virgins before marriage any way.
There's also the 'How can this be ...?' that @ChastMastr mentions. A redundant question unless we assume the pregnancy would start imminently and before the marriage.
It all makes for a very rich and mind-tangling Christian experience of course.
I'm always wrestling with the literal and the figurative, with sign and symbol and a 'sacramental worldview' that connects with ultimate reality.
The virgin conception is recorded only in Matthew and Luke. Luke may have copied it from Matthew with his on florishes. It is not mentioned in Mark or John or elsewhere in the New Testament. Seems largely immaterial to the rest of the NT. Not bothered by it.
The virgin conception is recorded only in Matthew and Luke. Luke may have copied it from Matthew. It is not mentioned in Mark or
I’ve never understood what difference that is supposed to make. If something is just recorded in one of the Gospels, it’s still recorded in the canon of Scripture. Why have four gospels if we expect no differences between them?
The more direct response to a charge of the birth narratives describing an older man with a much younger teenage bride is that the text never actually says that. That’s in an inference some have made based on various bits of the Gospels, but it’s nowhere actually stated.
If Mary were a consecrated virgin as Orthodox Tradition maintains then what was Joseph doing by betrothing himself to her in the first place? Unless it was some kind of 'guardianship' marriage with no expectation of consummation.
One explanation I’ve heard from those who believe Mary remained a virgin is that from Joseph’s perspective the marriage was mainly about help raising his other children, and/or that after the angelic visitations Joseph agreed to no expectation of consummation.
But this is probably a thread in its own right.
And yes, @chrisstiles, that should have been Rahab.
And yes, I agree that the text does at places does seem to say that there will be consequences. But the people of Israel weren’t actually prevented from settling in the Land, nor—for the most part and as best I recall, happy to be corrected if I’m wrong—is failure to annihilate the Canaanites actually given as a reason for the exile. Meanwhile, had that command been complied with, would there have been a Syrophoenician (Canaanite) woman for Jesus to encounter?
I’m not trying to say the text is clear one way or the other. Rather, I’m trying to say the text is nuanced, and that perhaps it gives its own indications that it shouldn’t be taken at face value.
It's an unpleasant story. In a collection of unpleasant stories.
What does your 'it' in 'it's' refer to? Just asking.
Older man with much younger teenage bride.
Amongst stories about genocide and capital punishment and so on.
Ah, thanks, not the story of Our Lord's incarnation then. Phew!
I'm not telling anyone what to believe, but you have to be pretty close to these stories to not notice that they are weird and disturbing.
I would argue it is precisely because they are weird and disturbing that they are there. One has to wrestle with them. In essence, but themselves, they are unsolvable.
Where do you see the text saying that Joseph was so much older? I know this has been assumed in many circles, but there is nothing to back that up.
As I said, it’s not in the text.
However, many do, and have since the early church, inferred he was older from a couple of things. One is that while Mary is reported as present throughout the life of Jesus, Joseph isn’t mentioned after the story of 12-year-old Jesus in the Temple. Of course, younger people die too, but some do infer from that that Joseph was dead by the time Jesus reached adulthood, and therefore might have been older.
Some also look to the passages describing Jesus’s brothers, such as John 7:1-9, and infer that Jesus’s brothers are older, presumably the sons of Joseph from an earlier marriage. The text certainly doesn’t require such an inference, but some see an older-younger brother dynamic similar to the one described with Joseph and his older brothers in Genesis.
But yes, all inference—inference and, if it is part of the understanding of one’s church, Tradition. It’s a set of inferences and understandings that go back a long, long way.
It's an unpleasant story. In a collection of unpleasant stories.
What does your 'it' in 'it's' refer to? Just asking.
Older man with much younger teenage bride.
Amongst stories about genocide and capital punishment and so on.
There's nothing in the text saying that Joseph was older or that Mary was a teenager. There's also nothing saying that Joseph was in any way abusive or unpleasant to Mary. There is plenty of unpleasantness in the Bible, I don't think that Mary and Joseph's betrothal or marriage is part of it.
I find the whole automatic "yuck" idea for this kind of age difference very odd. I would, of course--I married a man 20 years older than myself. But it's common throughout history, and around the world, and not all of those marriages can be chalked up to "she had no choice" or "he's a child molester at heart". Sometimes people love/like/choose each other in spite of an age difference, not because of it.
I find the whole automatic "yuck" idea for this kind of age difference very odd. I would, of course--I married a man 20 years older than myself. But it's common throughout history, and around the world, and not all of those marriages can be chalked up to "she had no choice" or "he's a child molester at heart". Sometimes people love/like/choose each other in spite of an age difference, not because of it.
There's certainly a bit of a moral panic about it, I've noticed. When I met Mrs LB I was 25 and she was 18; no-one looked askance. There'd be people demanding the police examine my hard drive now.
I find the whole automatic "yuck" idea for this kind of age difference very odd. I would, of course--I married a man 20 years older than myself. But it's common throughout history, and around the world, and not all of those marriages can be chalked up to "she had no choice" or "he's a child molester at heart". Sometimes people love/like/choose each other in spite of an age difference, not because of it.
What is the "traditional" belief in the age difference? I heard some thought she was 12 or 14 and he was 70, but maybe I'm muddling up the stories.
I find the whole automatic "yuck" idea for this kind of age difference very odd. I would, of course--I married a man 20 years older than myself. But it's common throughout history, and around the world, and not all of those marriages can be chalked up to "she had no choice" or "he's a child molester at heart". Sometimes people love/like/choose each other in spite of an age difference, not because of it.
What is the "traditional" belief in the age difference? I heard some thought she was 12 or 14 and he was 70, but maybe I'm muddling up the stories.
This sounds very unlikely - historically, poor people married relatively late in life as they did not have the same pressure to carry on their bloodline and secure inheritances. Poor women also generally went through puberty later as puberty start is linked to bodyfat percentage and general nutrition status.
Even in cases where upper-class people married young in order to secure inheritances, they wouldn't live together until adulthood. There wasn't any point in living together if she wasn't menstruating yet, people knew that menstruation = pregnancy being possible even if they didn't know the actual biology of it.
I think his age being high is a guess just because he's absent from the story later on - but manual labour (especially something like carpentry or masonry where the risk of infected injuries was quite high) could easily lead to death at a younger age.
It's an unpleasant story. In a collection of unpleasant stories.
What does your 'it' in 'it's' refer to? Just asking.
Older man with much younger teenage bride.
Amongst stories about genocide and capital punishment and so on.
There's nothing in the text saying that Joseph was older or that Mary was a teenager.
It's a reasonably common inference from historical data that Mary was very probably in her mid teens, and Joseph very probably somewhat older (though not necessarily much older -- that's something from tradition).
The cultural environment was the Roman occupation of Judaea, which was why people were looking for a Moses figure to release them from oppression.
Caesar was King, and the cult of Caesar had a theology whereby Caesar was decended from God(ess) and born of a virgin. The epithets applied to Jesus - Wonderful, Counsellor, Peacemaker etc - were those already used for Caesar.
These stories reflect the milieu they were written in.
The story of the virgin birth has no more importance to me than the story of the virgin birth of a Caesar.
The cultural environment was the Roman occupation of Judaea, which was why people were looking for a Moses figure to release them from oppression.
Caesar was King, and the cult of Caesar had a theology whereby Caesar was decended from God(ess) and born of a virgin. The epithets applied to Jesus - Wonderful, Counsellor, Peacemaker etc - were those already used for Caesar.
These stories reflect the milieu they were written in.
The story of the virgin birth has no more importance to me than the story of the virgin birth of a Caesar.
Okay, I appreciate you filling in the blanks for me. I had no idea why my answering a question on the Septuagint text provoked these kinds of reflections.
There is an underlying Protestant assumption going on here that everything needs an explicit proof-text or reference before it is to be believed or considered.
As if the basis of faith is a collection of writings rather than a Person.
Of course, this doesn't come as a surprise, nor is it reprehensible, as most posters on this particular thread appear to be Protestant Christians of one form or other.
That doesn't mean, of course, that RC and Orthodox Christians sit loosely by the scriptures nor that all Protestant Christians are bibliolaters or woodenly literal in a caricatured sense. Far from it.
But Tradition brought us the scriptures folks ... 😉
Those nice Roman Catholics, Orthodox and Copts etc bequeathed you the New Testament. Where else did it come from?
Which doesn't mean that we shouldn't debate these things of course.
The Big T Tradition argument would be that some of these beliefs go back a lo-oo-ong way and the more 'ad fontes' and closer to the source you get the more likely it is to be based on reminiscence and oral tradition.
It took a good while before a consensus emerged across the early Church on all manner of things most of us here would consider core doctrines - the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, the divinity of the Holy Spirit for a kick-off.
Of course I'd argue it's a both/and thing - scripture and Tradition - or scripture within Tradition as the guiding principle.
Sorry folks. Here I stand...
Which doesn't mean I don’t have doubts or wrestle with this stuff. There'd be something wrong if I didn't.
Seems like you all just decide whatever you like to believe about the stories.
That’s not what you’re doing?
I mean, it looks to me like you’re dismissing the story as “unpleasant” because of something that’s not actually in the story. Meanwhile others seem to be trying to understand the story as written in the context of the culture in which it was written and of the audience to which it was written.
If Joseph had been married before, losing his wife after she bore several children, then presumably those children would also have been required to make the journey to Bethlehem, as they would be of the line of David. The stable would have been very crowded.
In Matthew 1: 25, we have "But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a Son. " The qualifying phrase would not be needed if they simply never formed their union.
In Matthew 1: 25, we have "But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a Son. " The qualifying phrase would not be needed if they simply never formed their union.
From what I’ve read, there’s a whole rabbit hole on how that phrase, and particularly what we have as “until” in English, can be understood in Greek and translated.
There is an underlying Protestant assumption going on here that everything needs an explicit proof-text or reference before it is to be believed or considered.
I’m going to challenge the idea “everything needs an explicit proof-text or reference before it is to be believed or considered” is a “Protestant assumption.” That strikes me as an inaccurate over generalization.
And frankly one that gets a bit tiresome.
It might be an assumption, as stated, among some Protestant groups, but definitely not among all.
Seems like you all just decide whatever you like to believe about the stories.
That’s not what you’re doing?
I mean, it looks to me like you’re dismissing the story as “unpleasant” because of something that’s not actually in the story. Meanwhile others seem to be trying to understand the story as written in the context of the culture in which it was written and of the audience to which it was written.
I think it is all manure. I'm simply reflecting back at you what I hear you saying about your own stories.
I'm not "dismissing" them really. I have zero stake in them and they have very little to interest me.
Actually this is quite interesting in that there are lots of myths I don't really have any interest in. I suppose you could say that I disbelieve in the Greek myths but I think more accurate would be to say that there's nothing I have heard about them that really grabs me.
And yet I also accept that retelling stories within cultural groups does make them seem alive and full of meaning, so being indifferent and uninterested probably just shows that I am an outsider to those who see meaning in the repetition of those stories.
And yet I also accept that retelling stories within cultural groups does make them seem alive and full of meaning, so being indifferent and uninterested probably just shows that I am an outsider to those who see meaning in the repetition of those stories.
The idea that Joseph is older is actually arguing from silence. There is nothing in Scripture that says that. Mark says the brothers of Jesus were with Mary and they tried to intervene in his ministry. Not half brothers. Jesus was the first born. As Jewish tradition would have it, the first born is dedicated to God. I can leave it at that.
Um. It's the firstborn in the sense of "a male who opens the womb," that is, the firstborn of a particular mother. If a man were to have two wives, both of them with sons, the firstborn son of each woman would be dedicated.
Genesis describes the oldest children of Jacob as Joseph’s “brothers,” even though it is clear they were his half-brothers.
As I understand it, the Greek adelphoi was regularly used to mean “brothers,” “half-brothers,” “step-brothers,” “adopted brothers” or even “cousins.” So, that James, Joses/Joseph, Simon and Jude are called adelphoi of Jesus doesn’t actually indicate their exact relationship.
This seems weird to be arguing about at Easter, but que sera. May I point out that it’s nowhere near impossible to imagine a blended family where a pack of brothers might accompany their mother/stepmother somewhere, regardless of whether they have a biological relationship or not? I mean, Mr Lamb’s first son doesn’t hate me, and we’re not blood kin. If my own son LL started setting up to be the Messiah, who knows? Son #1 might even go and drag LL home with me…
Though in fact, I’ve always assumed it was the half?/brothers who were upset about Jesus’ ministry, and they kind of strong-armed Mary (who knew better) into going with them—on the theory that Jesus would listen to Mom.
(And while I’m at it, the Old Testament is written primarily in Hebrew, not Greek, so the whole adelphoi thing is useless. What you want is the Hebrew term, which I think was ahi or aho. On my phone, so I can’t check. 😩. But I’m sure the same principle holds for both languages—and English!— generally speaking, people don’t bother specifically nothing half or step brothers unless there’s a clear need to do so (such as when you’re doing genealogy).
It plainly says the brothers were with Mary when they sought to intervene in Jesus' ministry. I am going to take Mark at his word here.
Happy 'Western' Easter @Gramps49 and everyone else!
Yet you don't take Matthew and Luke 'at their word' on the Virgin Birth?
Why take Mark 'at his word' and not other Gospel writers?
I'm assuming you don't take the Creed 'at its word' when you say it in church?
As for 'I can leave it at that' no, you can't. None of us can.
As @Nick Tamen has indicated, there are other ways to understand the references to Christ's brothers and Holy Tradition (in the Orthodox and RC sense) understands it in the way he has eloquently outlined.
Oh, @Nick Tamen - yes, I fully accept that I was in danger of caricature or a simplistic representation of Protestant positions (plural) on this one.
Which is why I hedged my comments with caveats.
But given the kind of response we see here from @Gramps49 which effectively says, 'Look, here's a proof-text Da-Naa-aah! That'll do for me. 'Nuff said. My own personal interpretation trumps that of Tradition, Creeds and councils ...' then I think I can be forgiven a degree of hyperbole.
Ok. This is a thread about scripture. What the Bible says or doesn't say.
If it were plain and straightforward then we wouldn't be having this discussion nor would there be so many different churches and denominations.
We all interpret scripture in the context of one tradition or Tradition or other.
We all interpret it in the context of a faith community or body of doctrine.
There are plenty of things scripture doesn't say. Apart from some tantalising and much debated passages in the Pauline corpus and some indications in Revelation the NT doesn't include instructions on 'how' to conduct church services for instance.
Why not?
Because in an early Christian context worship was modelled on synagogue practice and nobody would have needed to be told in the emerging scriptures how to do it.
Anyhow - however we approach the scriptures they bear witness to the Living Word, the Word Made Flesh, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ whose glorious Resurrection all of us celebrate today - whether we mark Easter today or next Sunday.
Genesis describes the oldest children of Jacob as Joseph’s “brothers,” even though it is clear they were his half-brothers.
As I understand it, the Greek adelphoi was regularly used to mean “brothers,” “half-brothers,” “step-brothers,” “adopted brothers” or even “cousins.” So, that James, Joses/Joseph, Simon and Jude are called adelphoi of Jesus doesn’t actually indicate their exact relationship.
We encountered something similar when we were working in Kenya- certain people groups would use the word "brother" to cover a breadth of familial relationships.
We got confused on many an occasion!
Seems like you all just decide whatever you like to believe about the stories.
"Whatever you like to believe" is probably pushing things a bit far, because what we believe ends up being constrained by community - none of us are here with our own personal beliefs independent of what others believe, if that was the case there would be no need to share what we think with others or listen to what others believe, comparing our views and (potentially) adapting our beliefs as a result (as a potential adaption of beliefs, I'm struck with the comparison of Jesus and assumed older step brothers to Joseph which I had not previously noted - that thought of Joseph rejected by his brothers, considered dead by his father, only to be returned to life as a ruler in Egypt to save his family and the whole of Egypt from famine ... that's a very rich parallel that could be interesting to explore). You subsequently recognise that community re-telling (which IMO includes all the extra interpretation we all add to the stories) has value, to the community and to all individuals within that community.
And yet I also accept that retelling stories within cultural groups does make them seem alive and full of meaning, so being indifferent and uninterested probably just shows that I am an outsider to those who see meaning in the repetition of those stories.
The retelling constrains what we believe, fixing some sort of bounds to what would be considered plausible to the community, and also allows the stories to tell us something important for the community today (recognising that not all stories in Scripture would be as meaningful as others for a particular community in a particular situation).
@Alan Cresswell you perhaps won't be surprised then to hear that Holy Tradition, in Orthodox terms, draws precisely that parallel between the story of Joseph and the story of Christ - along with other typolological parallels of course - the pit into which Joseph was cast and the tomb into which Christ was laid etc etc.
But yes, all of us whether atheist, agnostic, theist of whatever kind, Christian of whatever tradition or flavour, approach and interpret these things in the context of a community or 'body of beliefs' of some kind.
And yes, circumstances and context determine how much weight we place on particular passages and stories - the emphasis on the Exodus and freedom stories for former slaves being one historical example with echoes today.
What we have to watch out for is the manipulation of tropes and stories by a Putin, a Hegseth or a Trump.
The idea that Joseph is older is actually arguing from silence.
No actually it’s not. Arguing from silence would be asserting that the lack of any statement about Joseph’s age proves something about Joseph’s age.
The idea that Joseph was older is making inference from what is contained in the text. Whether that inference is correct is another matter.
I disagree. There is nothing in the text to make that inference from, other than the absence of Joseph. Given the much shorter life spans of that time and place, the remarkable thing is not the absence of Joseph but the presence of Mary.
Another "hint" that Jesus was the eldest of the children may come at the cross, when Jesus places Mary into the care of the Beloved Disciple. Jesus, as the eldest, would have had the responsibility of caring for his widowed mother. By placing Mary into the hands of the Beloved Disciple, instead of one of his siblings, Jesus showed the significance/priority of the New Community.
At least, that seems to me to a possible legitimate inference from the actual text.
Or that he didn't have siblings as such but either half-brothers and sisters or close kinsmen, which is how the Orthodox and RCs understand it.
I'm beginning to think this thread should be called, When the Bible doesn't say what [bipeople[/b] say it says.
Which applies to all of us of course.
Who wrote and compiled the NT scriptures and agreed which writings to include?
They didn't drop down out of heaven like the Book of Mormon.
The Bible is authoritative for sure but it isn't 'stand-alone'.
Of course some traditions developed in order to 'explain' or fill in apparent gaps in scripture. Tell it not in Gath but I'm not convinced by the traditional / Traditional identification of all 'The Seventy' for instance.
It seems to me that almost anyone whose name is mentioned in a Gospel or epistle is assigned to that number... when the Saints go marching in as it in.
Sure, there's a lot of myth and pious legend in Holy Tradition.
Ancient hagiographies tend to comply with a set formula for instance.
We can become 'Church-Fundamentalists' as well as biblical fundamentalists if we aren't careful.
I'm sorry my head hurts. If Mary was a perpetual virgin and Joseph had children from a previous marriage then the siblings are not related to him. They are not half-brothers, they are not related.
I don't care about this stuff but sometimes it seems like some of you are not following the logic of your own religious views.
It has been said that the nativity stories are parable rather than historical. I'm not sure if parabolic is the right adjective, but I certainly don't take them to be historical accounts.
E.g. I have always been sceptical that the hymns in Luke are historical, and for me it is more credible that the hymns of a Christian community are placed into his parable rather than being spontaneous inspirations.
“I believed in the virgin birth before I knew what a virgin was”.
What I’m clear about is that those who argued and argued AND argued about whether Mary was theotokos or christotokos knew very well what a virgin was. They weren’t arguing about whether or not she was a virgin when Christ was conceived. Like it or not, it’s pretty clear that was the common belief amongst Christians certainly in the fourth century. And very likely much earlier. Long before the canon of scripture was ratified.
Protestants can seriously underestimate Tradition. The Bible is a child of Tradition.
Some Protestants argue that it was protected from error by the Holy Spirit, regardless of Tradition. Even if there is some truth in that belief, I think it’s a misunderstanding of early church history and the work of the Ecumenical Councils.
It plainly says the brothers were with Mary when they sought to intervene in Jesus' ministry. I am going to take Mark at his word here.
You seem to be inferring something Mark doesn’t say—that because Jesus’s brothers were with Mary, they were also her natural children. Mark doesn’t actually say that.
Surely you’ve seen step-children with their step-parents before. As @Lamb Chopped and others have said, it’s not uncommon, and I can think of no reason why it would have been uncommon during Jesus’s time.
The idea that Joseph is older is actually arguing from silence.
No actually it’s not. Arguing from silence would be asserting that the lack of any statement about Joseph’s age proves something about Joseph’s age.
The idea that Joseph was older is making inference from what is contained in the text. Whether that inference is correct is another matter.
I disagree. There is nothing in the text to make that inference from, other than the absence of Joseph. Given the much shorter life spans of that time and place, the remarkable thing is not the absence of Joseph but the presence of Mary.
Another "hint" that Jesus was the eldest of the children may come at the cross, when Jesus places Mary into the care of the Beloved Disciple. Jesus, as the eldest, would have had the responsibility of caring for his widowed mother. By placing Mary into the hands of the Beloved Disciple, instead of one of his siblings, Jesus showed the significance/priority of the New Community.
At least, that seems to me to a possible legitimate inference from the actual text.
When I said “the text,” I meant the Gospel texts as a whole. Apologies if that wasn’t clear. Earlier in the thread I mentioned texts other texts that are also considered by some in inferring that Joseph was older than Mary. (I didn’t mention Mary and John at the cross, but it would indeed be another example.)
My point was that some people, taking all the information about Mary, Joseph and Jesus’s siblings contained in the Gospels, infer that Joseph was older and that Jesus’s brothers were older step-brothers. And it is by no means the only inference that can be drawn, much less a necessary inference.
I'm sorry my head hurts. If Mary was a perpetual virgin and Joseph had children from a previous marriage then the siblings are not related to him. They are not half-brothers, they are not related.
I don't care about this stuff but sometimes it seems like some of you are not following the logic of your own religious views.
Not all Christians believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary. Catholics and Orthodox generally do. Some Anglicans do, some don’t. Protestants generally do not, though some do. Some, like me, are agnostic on the matter.
Part of what you are seeing here reflects those differing beliefs.
With you. It’s not essential, either way, to my personal faith. But I recognise that ever-virgin is Traditional.
(Just to make it clear, I’m a Protestant who has studied with interest early church history, particularly Irenaeus (“Against Heresies”) and the record of the Ecumenical Councils. Not a common source of study amongst Protestants, more’s the pity.)
Yes, we can all see that of course. It's not as if RCs and Orthodox are now rubbing their chins and saying, 'Goodness me! Thanks @Gramps49, we've never thought of that before!'
Whatever view of this we take, as @Barnabas62 rightly says, it was pretty much the consensus in the 4th century when the Nicene Creed was written and a consensus coalesced around which NT books should be considered canonical.
Not everyone agreed of first but a general consensus gradually emerged.
I'm not anathematising those who believe differently or who are agnostic on the issue, of course - nor would it be within my paygrade even I wanted to do so.
It's not easy for someone from a nominally Anglican turned evangelical charismatic Protestant background like me to accept these things and I don’t do so glibly.
Why didn't the 4th century Christians read Mark 6:3 in the way you have here? Were they not used to reading the 'plain meaning' of the text?
Had they become so corrupted by Catholic superstition that they couldn't be trusted to formulate the Creeds nor come to a consensus on the canon of scripture?
@Barnabas62 - the RCs and Orthodox would argue of course that the Holy Spirit works through Holy Tradition to safeguard the truth - or The Truth in Capital Letters as The Truth is actually a Person - our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Not a set of doctrines or propositions but the embodiment of Truth - 'the way the truth and the life' - the Second Person of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.
That can be challenged as problematic of course, as there care differences between the RCs and Orthodox over aspects of Tradition. Each claims theirs is the right take of course.
Protestantism, crudely, tries to resolve this issue by making scripture 'alone' the bar and lodestone - which well-intentioned aim doesn't solve the problem of course as we then have to decide how to interpret scripture correctly. The Reformed? The Lutherans? The Pentecostals? The ...?
That's a gross simplification of course, but you get my drift.
It ain't about @Gramps49's personal interpretation nor Gamaliel's nor that of any of us here individually - and I don’t think Gramps49 would disagree with that either.
It's about how these things are interpreted collectively and more widely than our individual 'small corners.'
We could go on arguing forever, but does it really matter? Besides curiosity, I mean. Whatever the precise nature of their relationship to Jesus, they clearly considered themselves family enough to feel shame on his behalf and to try to haul him home.
I'm sorry my head hurts. If Mary was a perpetual virgin and Joseph had children from a previous marriage then the siblings are not related to him. They are not half-brothers, they are not related.
"My brother is adopted" is not an oxymoron. Likewise, "my brothers" may include stepbrothers where the distinction isn't important. Natural language is flexible like that.
"Half-brother" is specific but as has been pointed out the people who describe James as Jesus' half-brother are not the people who think Mary was always a virgin.
It's an unpleasant story. In a collection of unpleasant stories.
What does your 'it' in 'it's' refer to? Just asking.
Older man with much younger teenage bride.
Amongst stories about genocide and capital punishment and so on.
There's nothing in the text saying that Joseph was older or that Mary was a teenager.
It's a reasonably common inference from historical data that Mary was very probably in her mid teens, and Joseph very probably somewhat older (though not necessarily much older -- that's something from tradition).
Do you have a source for the historical data that lower-class 1st century Palestinian women both typically married in their teens and also typically lived with their husbands immediately?
Comments
We could be off on a tangent here, but there are questions all ways round.
If Mary were a consecrated virgin as Orthodox Tradition maintains then what was Joseph doing by betrothing himself to her in the first place? Unless it was some kind of 'guardianship' marriage with no expectation of consummation.
But yes, the term translated 'virgin' can simply mean 'young woman' but young women were generally expected to remain virgins before marriage any way.
There's also the 'How can this be ...?' that @ChastMastr mentions. A redundant question unless we assume the pregnancy would start imminently and before the marriage.
It all makes for a very rich and mind-tangling Christian experience of course.
I'm always wrestling with the literal and the figurative, with sign and symbol and a 'sacramental worldview' that connects with ultimate reality.
As well as everything else.
What does your 'it' in 'it's' refer to? Just asking.
Older man with much younger teenage bride.
Amongst stories about genocide and capital punishment and so on.
The more direct response to a charge of the birth narratives describing an older man with a much younger teenage bride is that the text never actually says that. That’s in an inference some have made based on various bits of the Gospels, but it’s nowhere actually stated.
One explanation I’ve heard from those who believe Mary remained a virgin is that from Joseph’s perspective the marriage was mainly about help raising his other children, and/or that after the angelic visitations Joseph agreed to no expectation of consummation.
But this is probably a thread in its own right.
And yes, @chrisstiles, that should have been Rahab.
And yes, I agree that the text does at places does seem to say that there will be consequences. But the people of Israel weren’t actually prevented from settling in the Land, nor—for the most part and as best I recall, happy to be corrected if I’m wrong—is failure to annihilate the Canaanites actually given as a reason for the exile. Meanwhile, had that command been complied with, would there have been a Syrophoenician (Canaanite) woman for Jesus to encounter?
I’m not trying to say the text is clear one way or the other. Rather, I’m trying to say the text is nuanced, and that perhaps it gives its own indications that it shouldn’t be taken at face value.
Ah, thanks, not the story of Our Lord's incarnation then. Phew!
I'm not telling anyone what to believe, but you have to be pretty close to these stories to not notice that they are weird and disturbing.
I would argue it is precisely because they are weird and disturbing that they are there. One has to wrestle with them. In essence, but themselves, they are unsolvable.
However, many do, and have since the early church, inferred he was older from a couple of things. One is that while Mary is reported as present throughout the life of Jesus, Joseph isn’t mentioned after the story of 12-year-old Jesus in the Temple. Of course, younger people die too, but some do infer from that that Joseph was dead by the time Jesus reached adulthood, and therefore might have been older.
Some also look to the passages describing Jesus’s brothers, such as John 7:1-9, and infer that Jesus’s brothers are older, presumably the sons of Joseph from an earlier marriage. The text certainly doesn’t require such an inference, but some see an older-younger brother dynamic similar to the one described with Joseph and his older brothers in Genesis.
But yes, all inference—inference and, if it is part of the understanding of one’s church, Tradition. It’s a set of inferences and understandings that go back a long, long way.
There's nothing in the text saying that Joseph was older or that Mary was a teenager. There's also nothing saying that Joseph was in any way abusive or unpleasant to Mary. There is plenty of unpleasantness in the Bible, I don't think that Mary and Joseph's betrothal or marriage is part of it.
There's certainly a bit of a moral panic about it, I've noticed. When I met Mrs LB I was 25 and she was 18; no-one looked askance. There'd be people demanding the police examine my hard drive now.
What is the "traditional" belief in the age difference? I heard some thought she was 12 or 14 and he was 70, but maybe I'm muddling up the stories.
This sounds very unlikely - historically, poor people married relatively late in life as they did not have the same pressure to carry on their bloodline and secure inheritances. Poor women also generally went through puberty later as puberty start is linked to bodyfat percentage and general nutrition status.
Even in cases where upper-class people married young in order to secure inheritances, they wouldn't live together until adulthood. There wasn't any point in living together if she wasn't menstruating yet, people knew that menstruation = pregnancy being possible even if they didn't know the actual biology of it.
I think his age being high is a guess just because he's absent from the story later on - but manual labour (especially something like carpentry or masonry where the risk of infected injuries was quite high) could easily lead to death at a younger age.
It's a reasonably common inference from historical data that Mary was very probably in her mid teens, and Joseph very probably somewhat older (though not necessarily much older -- that's something from tradition).
Caesar was King, and the cult of Caesar had a theology whereby Caesar was decended from God(ess) and born of a virgin. The epithets applied to Jesus - Wonderful, Counsellor, Peacemaker etc - were those already used for Caesar.
These stories reflect the milieu they were written in.
The story of the virgin birth has no more importance to me than the story of the virgin birth of a Caesar.
Some later invent things like the immaculate conception of Mary.
Okay, I appreciate you filling in the blanks for me. I had no idea why my answering a question on the Septuagint text provoked these kinds of reflections.
As if the basis of faith is a collection of writings rather than a Person.
Of course, this doesn't come as a surprise, nor is it reprehensible, as most posters on this particular thread appear to be Protestant Christians of one form or other.
That doesn't mean, of course, that RC and Orthodox Christians sit loosely by the scriptures nor that all Protestant Christians are bibliolaters or woodenly literal in a caricatured sense. Far from it.
But Tradition brought us the scriptures folks ... 😉
Those nice Roman Catholics, Orthodox and Copts etc bequeathed you the New Testament. Where else did it come from?
Which doesn't mean that we shouldn't debate these things of course.
The Big T Tradition argument would be that some of these beliefs go back a lo-oo-ong way and the more 'ad fontes' and closer to the source you get the more likely it is to be based on reminiscence and oral tradition.
It took a good while before a consensus emerged across the early Church on all manner of things most of us here would consider core doctrines - the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, the divinity of the Holy Spirit for a kick-off.
Of course I'd argue it's a both/and thing - scripture and Tradition - or scripture within Tradition as the guiding principle.
Sorry folks. Here I stand...
Which doesn't mean I don’t have doubts or wrestle with this stuff. There'd be something wrong if I didn't.
I mean, it looks to me like you’re dismissing the story as “unpleasant” because of something that’s not actually in the story. Meanwhile others seem to be trying to understand the story as written in the context of the culture in which it was written and of the audience to which it was written.
In Matthew 1: 25, we have "But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a Son. " The qualifying phrase would not be needed if they simply never formed their union.
And frankly one that gets a bit tiresome.
It might be an assumption, as stated, among some Protestant groups, but definitely not among all.
I think it is all manure. I'm simply reflecting back at you what I hear you saying about your own stories.
I'm not "dismissing" them really. I have zero stake in them and they have very little to interest me.
And yet I also accept that retelling stories within cultural groups does make them seem alive and full of meaning, so being indifferent and uninterested probably just shows that I am an outsider to those who see meaning in the repetition of those stories.
The idea that Joseph was older is making inference from what is contained in the text. Whether that inference is correct is another matter.
Genesis describes the oldest children of Jacob as Joseph’s “brothers,” even though it is clear they were his half-brothers.
As I understand it, the Greek adelphoi was regularly used to mean “brothers,” “half-brothers,” “step-brothers,” “adopted brothers” or even “cousins.” So, that James, Joses/Joseph, Simon and Jude are called adelphoi of Jesus doesn’t actually indicate their exact relationship.
Though in fact, I’ve always assumed it was the half?/brothers who were upset about Jesus’ ministry, and they kind of strong-armed Mary (who knew better) into going with them—on the theory that Jesus would listen to Mom.
(And while I’m at it, the Old Testament is written primarily in Hebrew, not Greek, so the whole adelphoi thing is useless. What you want is the Hebrew term, which I think was ahi or aho. On my phone, so I can’t check. 😩. But I’m sure the same principle holds for both languages—and English!— generally speaking, people don’t bother specifically nothing half or step brothers unless there’s a clear need to do so (such as when you’re doing genealogy).
Happy 'Western' Easter @Gramps49 and everyone else!
Yet you don't take Matthew and Luke 'at their word' on the Virgin Birth?
Why take Mark 'at his word' and not other Gospel writers?
I'm assuming you don't take the Creed 'at its word' when you say it in church?
As for 'I can leave it at that' no, you can't. None of us can.
As @Nick Tamen has indicated, there are other ways to understand the references to Christ's brothers and Holy Tradition (in the Orthodox and RC sense) understands it in the way he has eloquently outlined.
Oh, @Nick Tamen - yes, I fully accept that I was in danger of caricature or a simplistic representation of Protestant positions (plural) on this one.
Which is why I hedged my comments with caveats.
But given the kind of response we see here from @Gramps49 which effectively says, 'Look, here's a proof-text Da-Naa-aah! That'll do for me. 'Nuff said. My own personal interpretation trumps that of Tradition, Creeds and councils ...' then I think I can be forgiven a degree of hyperbole.
Ok. This is a thread about scripture. What the Bible says or doesn't say.
If it were plain and straightforward then we wouldn't be having this discussion nor would there be so many different churches and denominations.
We all interpret scripture in the context of one tradition or Tradition or other.
We all interpret it in the context of a faith community or body of doctrine.
There are plenty of things scripture doesn't say. Apart from some tantalising and much debated passages in the Pauline corpus and some indications in Revelation the NT doesn't include instructions on 'how' to conduct church services for instance.
Why not?
Because in an early Christian context worship was modelled on synagogue practice and nobody would have needed to be told in the emerging scriptures how to do it.
Anyhow - however we approach the scriptures they bear witness to the Living Word, the Word Made Flesh, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ whose glorious Resurrection all of us celebrate today - whether we mark Easter today or next Sunday.
We encountered something similar when we were working in Kenya- certain people groups would use the word "brother" to cover a breadth of familial relationships.
We got confused on many an occasion!
The retelling constrains what we believe, fixing some sort of bounds to what would be considered plausible to the community, and also allows the stories to tell us something important for the community today (recognising that not all stories in Scripture would be as meaningful as others for a particular community in a particular situation).
But yes, all of us whether atheist, agnostic, theist of whatever kind, Christian of whatever tradition or flavour, approach and interpret these things in the context of a community or 'body of beliefs' of some kind.
And yes, circumstances and context determine how much weight we place on particular passages and stories - the emphasis on the Exodus and freedom stories for former slaves being one historical example with echoes today.
What we have to watch out for is the manipulation of tropes and stories by a Putin, a Hegseth or a Trump.
I disagree. There is nothing in the text to make that inference from, other than the absence of Joseph. Given the much shorter life spans of that time and place, the remarkable thing is not the absence of Joseph but the presence of Mary.
Another "hint" that Jesus was the eldest of the children may come at the cross, when Jesus places Mary into the care of the Beloved Disciple. Jesus, as the eldest, would have had the responsibility of caring for his widowed mother. By placing Mary into the hands of the Beloved Disciple, instead of one of his siblings, Jesus showed the significance/priority of the New Community.
At least, that seems to me to a possible legitimate inference from the actual text.
I'm beginning to think this thread should be called, When the Bible doesn't say what [bipeople[/b] say it says.
Which applies to all of us of course.
Who wrote and compiled the NT scriptures and agreed which writings to include?
They didn't drop down out of heaven like the Book of Mormon.
The Bible is authoritative for sure but it isn't 'stand-alone'.
Of course some traditions developed in order to 'explain' or fill in apparent gaps in scripture. Tell it not in Gath but I'm not convinced by the traditional / Traditional identification of all 'The Seventy' for instance.
It seems to me that almost anyone whose name is mentioned in a Gospel or epistle is assigned to that number... when the Saints go marching in as it in.
Sure, there's a lot of myth and pious legend in Holy Tradition.
Ancient hagiographies tend to comply with a set formula for instance.
We can become 'Church-Fundamentalists' as well as biblical fundamentalists if we aren't careful.
I don't care about this stuff but sometimes it seems like some of you are not following the logic of your own religious views.
E.g. I have always been sceptical that the hymns in Luke are historical, and for me it is more credible that the hymns of a Christian community are placed into his parable rather than being spontaneous inspirations.
“I believed in the virgin birth before I knew what a virgin was”.
What I’m clear about is that those who argued and argued AND argued about whether Mary was theotokos or christotokos knew very well what a virgin was. They weren’t arguing about whether or not she was a virgin when Christ was conceived. Like it or not, it’s pretty clear that was the common belief amongst Christians certainly in the fourth century. And very likely much earlier. Long before the canon of scripture was ratified.
Protestants can seriously underestimate Tradition. The Bible is a child of Tradition.
Some Protestants argue that it was protected from error by the Holy Spirit, regardless of Tradition. Even if there is some truth in that belief, I think it’s a misunderstanding of early church history and the work of the Ecumenical Councils.
You seem to be inferring something Mark doesn’t say—that because Jesus’s brothers were with Mary, they were also her natural children. Mark doesn’t actually say that.
Surely you’ve seen step-children with their step-parents before. As @Lamb Chopped and others have said, it’s not uncommon, and I can think of no reason why it would have been uncommon during Jesus’s time.
When I said “the text,” I meant the Gospel texts as a whole. Apologies if that wasn’t clear. Earlier in the thread I mentioned texts other texts that are also considered by some in inferring that Joseph was older than Mary. (I didn’t mention Mary and John at the cross, but it would indeed be another example.)
My point was that some people, taking all the information about Mary, Joseph and Jesus’s siblings contained in the Gospels, infer that Joseph was older and that Jesus’s brothers were older step-brothers. And it is by no means the only inference that can be drawn, much less a necessary inference.
Not all Christians believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary. Catholics and Orthodox generally do. Some Anglicans do, some don’t. Protestants generally do not, though some do. Some, like me, are agnostic on the matter.
Part of what you are seeing here reflects those differing beliefs.
With you. It’s not essential, either way, to my personal faith. But I recognise that ever-virgin is Traditional.
(Just to make it clear, I’m a Protestant who has studied with interest early church history, particularly Irenaeus (“Against Heresies”) and the record of the Ecumenical Councils. Not a common source of study amongst Protestants, more’s the pity.)
“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?”
This line places:
Mary
Jesus
His named brothers
His unnamed sisters
all together as a single household unit.
Nothing in the narrative signals that these are cousins, step‑siblings, or extended kin. The simplest reading is that they are Mary's other children.
To the argument that it is more complicated than the simplest reading, I would say that the best interpretation is always the simplest reading.
Yes, we can all see that of course. It's not as if RCs and Orthodox are now rubbing their chins and saying, 'Goodness me! Thanks @Gramps49, we've never thought of that before!'
Whatever view of this we take, as @Barnabas62 rightly says, it was pretty much the consensus in the 4th century when the Nicene Creed was written and a consensus coalesced around which NT books should be considered canonical.
Not everyone agreed of first but a general consensus gradually emerged.
I'm not anathematising those who believe differently or who are agnostic on the issue, of course - nor would it be within my paygrade even I wanted to do so.
It's not easy for someone from a nominally Anglican turned evangelical charismatic Protestant background like me to accept these things and I don’t do so glibly.
Why didn't the 4th century Christians read Mark 6:3 in the way you have here? Were they not used to reading the 'plain meaning' of the text?
Had they become so corrupted by Catholic superstition that they couldn't be trusted to formulate the Creeds nor come to a consensus on the canon of scripture?
@Barnabas62 - the RCs and Orthodox would argue of course that the Holy Spirit works through Holy Tradition to safeguard the truth - or The Truth in Capital Letters as The Truth is actually a Person - our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Not a set of doctrines or propositions but the embodiment of Truth - 'the way the truth and the life' - the Second Person of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.
That can be challenged as problematic of course, as there care differences between the RCs and Orthodox over aspects of Tradition. Each claims theirs is the right take of course.
Protestantism, crudely, tries to resolve this issue by making scripture 'alone' the bar and lodestone - which well-intentioned aim doesn't solve the problem of course as we then have to decide how to interpret scripture correctly. The Reformed? The Lutherans? The Pentecostals? The ...?
That's a gross simplification of course, but you get my drift.
It ain't about @Gramps49's personal interpretation nor Gamaliel's nor that of any of us here individually - and I don’t think Gramps49 would disagree with that either.
It's about how these things are interpreted collectively and more widely than our individual 'small corners.'
Which takes time.
And is why we need one another.
"Half-brother" is specific but as has been pointed out the people who describe James as Jesus' half-brother are not the people who think Mary was always a virgin.
Do you have a source for the historical data that lower-class 1st century Palestinian women both typically married in their teens and also typically lived with their husbands immediately?