Was Mary a virgin all her life?

Yes, the Church recognizes Mary as 'Ever-Virgin'. There are multitudes of patristic writings on the subject. Once again, I recommend first reading this...

http://www.catholic.com/library/mary_saints.asp

Please, read *all* of the tracts. It will take some time, but it will answer all of your questions, and then we can share our perspectives on this incredible topic.

The Church does teach as a dogma of faith that Mary remained a virgin until her death. Here is a great link that explains who the brothers of the Lord were. Please, check it out.

http://net2.netacc.net/~mafg/genlgy01.htm

And as a whole, this site below can answer just about all of your apologetics questions.

http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZINDEX.HTM

God Bless you in your studies, Jason.

Neal

Jason; St. Jerome who translated the Bible from Greek to Latin uses the Bible to nullify the arguments that modern day Protestants try to use gainst Mary's perpetual virginity. It can be found here.http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/helvidiu.htm

Originally posted by Hoonbaba
And Galatians 1:19 says that James is the brother of Jesus. If that's true, then wouldn't that mean that Mary WASN'T a virgin all her life?
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Galatians 1:19 says the following:
But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother.

Two of the twelve original Apostles were named James. James the Greater, son of Zebedee and James the Lesser, son of Alphaeus. Neither one of these is the brother of Jesus in terms of blood lineage, but rather it is meant on a spiritual level.

Hence, this verse cannot be used to disprove the perpetual virginity of Mary.

good post
in luke there is also something about the borther of jesus
we all must be careful
i guess u r all caucasian so ur culture is different from the east
im a chinese and did u know that a cousin with the same surname like low or tan or lim or lee or anything could be considered as ur brother
as for me i refer to my cousins as cousins but my aunt who bears the same surname of mine refers my cousins as my brothers
did u know that

Originally posted by niwde
good post
in luke there is also something about the borther of jesus
we all must be careful
i guess u r all caucasian so ur culture is different from the east
im a chinese and did u know that a cousin with the same surname like low or tan or lim or lee or anything could be considered as ur brother
as for me i refer to my cousins as cousins but my aunt who bears the same surname of mine refers my cousins as my brothers
did u know that

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I didn't know that! Thank you! Americans do have the tendency to believe that the world revolves around them, and so must at any time, past/present/future, conform to what is currently considered the 'norm' socially and culturally. There are people who insist on believing that the ancient Jews were just like us today in manner and speech, they just wore long robes.

I dont have the tendency.....

I got curious so here goes.....how do you reconcile perpetual virginity with Matthew 1:24-25? When it says Joseph "knew her not" until Jesus was born, what do catholics believe this means?

Hey, Jeff! I copied an excerpt from one of the tracts in my link. Please do not take offense at the use of the word 'fundamentalist' as it is not meant as a derogatory term, but only as a description of a method of interpretation.

Fundamentalists insist that "brethren of the Lord" must be interpreted in the strict sense. They most commonly make two arguments based on Matthew 1:25: "[A]nd he did not know her until (Greek: heos, also translated into English as "till") she brought forth her firstborn son." They first argue that the natural inference from "till" is that Joseph and Mary afterward lived together as husband and wife, in the usual sense, and had several children. Otherwise, why would Jesus be called "first-born"? Doesn’t that mean there must have been at least a "second-born," perhaps a "third-born," and so on? But they are using a narrow, modern meaning of "until," instead of the meaning it had when the Bible was written. In the Bible, it means only that some action did not happen up to a certain point; it does not imply that the action did happen later, which is the modern sense of the term. In fact, if the modern sense is forced on the Bible, some ridiculous meanings result.

Consider this line: "Michal the daughter of Saul had no children till the day of her death" (2 Sam. 6:23). Are we to assume she had children after her death?

There is also the burial of Moses. The book of Deuteronomy says that no one knew the location of his grave "until this present day" (Deut. 34:6, Knox). But we know that no one has known since that day either.

The examples could be multiplied, but you get the idea—nothing can be proved from the use of the word "till" in Matthew 1:25. Recent translations give a better sense of the verse: "He had no relations with her at any time before she bore a son" (New American Bible); "He had not known her when she bore a son" (Knox).

Fundamentalists claim Jesus could not be Mary’s "first-born" unless there were other children that followed him. But this shows ignorance of the way the ancient Jews used the term. For them it meant the child that opened the womb (Ex. 13:2; Num. 3:12). Under the Mosaic Law, it was the "first-born" son that was to be sanctified (Ex. 34:20). Did this mean the parents had to wait until a second son was born before they could call their first the "first-born"? Hardly. The first male child of a marriage was termed the "first-born" even if he turned out to be the only child of the marriage.

HTH!

No offense at the term Sandy. And that did help thanks!


Jeff

No problem. Have you followed my link to the other tracts? Lots of info there!

My question is really does it matter if she was or not AFTER Jesus was born?

The Lord's brother.

that's one brother, not brethren

Peter had a wife, too. Celibacy, hm. however you spell that.

There are other places wherei t talks about Jesus. For example, His mother and brethren. Context, my good people. if I said "my mother and brothers," do you think I'd be talking about my mother and the other people in my church?! hehe.

Don't be selective in how you study the Bible....

Yes, I think it does. You are asking if it matters whether or not the mother of Christ was faithful to God!

She was chosen to bear God in her body. He took *all* of His humanity from her. She was a temple Virgin, vowed to God to remain that way for life. She didn't break her vow by marrying Joseph, or by bearing the Christ, but she would have broken it by consummating her marriage and bearing other children. Which there is no proof whatsoever that she did. And abundant testimony that she didn't.

I should think it would be pretty important to know if the 'handmaiden of the Lord' and the Mother of God was an oath-breaker. No?

Originally posted by paulewog
Peter had a wife, too. Celibacy, hm. however you spell that.

There are other places wherei t talks about Jesus. For example, His mother and brethren. Context, my good people. if I said "my mother and brothers," do you think I'd be talking about my mother and the other people in my church?! hehe.

Don't be selective in how you study the Bible....

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If I said 'my mother and four sisters' would you assume that my mother had five daughters?

You'd be wrong.

Originally posted by paulewog
Don't be selective in how you study the Bible....

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Absolutely. Study the language of Palestine at the time of Jesus, of family relationships, and find that extended family such as cousins, were often called "brother." Trace the so-called siblings in the Bible, and find their parentage mentioned, and no mention is made of Mary, or even Joseph.

Study the writings of the Early Church Fathers, of people who KNEW Jesus and his family, and also the Jewish way of living. Mary was dedicated to the service of God before her birth, and she was betrothed to an older man, who had grown children.

No sir, don't be selective at ALL in your studies!!


Peace be with you,
~VOW

Originally posted by paulewog
The Lord's brother.

that's one brother, not brethren

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Testing, testing... one... two... three. Can anyone read this?

I ask this simply because it appears that my post refuting Galatians 1:19 had gone unread. You see, in this instance, the Lord's brother is one of the Apostles James, both of whom we know had fathers who were not Joseph. Ergo, Mary was not their mother either. Which means, in this case... this "brother" was not a blood-relative in the sense that they shared the same biological mother (they could well have been a familial relation... cousins).

So, did anyone actually read my post, or is my staying here pointless because I really don't have any real contribution to make to this board? Or is it that people are willfully refusing to read the information I supply which makes my staying equally useless because you cannot get a fool to admit mistakes, as per Proverbs?

Please let me know one way or another, preferrably sooner rather than later.