This is precisely why the RCC has not affirmed this fifth Marian dogma, although in 1950 the other four Marian dogmas were dogmatized.
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Is there salvation without Mary?
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This is precisely why the RCC has not affirmed this fifth Marian dogma, although in 1950 the other four Marian dogmas were dogmatized.
Perhaps you can explain to us why every Catholic (not to mention all other) translation of the Bible into English refers to these individuals as the "sisters" and "brothers" of Jesus Christ in all five of the Gospel passages. If, in fact, they were not, you might think that at least one translation would correct this error, would you not?
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I was posting information as a source to a tradition. It is a very early source & within its pluses or minuses, it provides testimony of certain beliefs held by early Christians & still held by many. I am not trying to persuade anyone to accept it but it can at least provide perspective as to how certain beliefs formed. If it was written centuries later, then it would not hold much value. It is strongly possible that it is someone’s secondary & inferior, but sincere, recount from James the step brother of the Lord in which the original was lost in the persecutions of Nero.
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That said, there is a wealth of information from the ECFs and other early sources which is not only erroneous, but heretical, yet which various groups and individuals hold to be true because of the age. A popular example is the recent interest in the Book of Enoch.
in any event we are both in agreement that the PoJ is an extraneous resource which is hardly entirely reliable and is open to scholarly debate.
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Hebrew and Greek are two entirely different languages in about every sense. Hebrew is relatively simple, especially in its vocabulary, such that many words carry multiple meanings. Greek, on the other hand, is extremely sophisticated, especially in its grammatical development. Because Greek has more verb tenses than English, for example, the translators have difficulty conveying the precise meaning of many verbs. Greek is also very precise in its vocabulary, especially regarding human relationships. Whereas Hebrew has only one word that can be translated as love, Greek has three.
If the gospel writers were aware that the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ were not the actual children of Joseph and Mary, then why did they not tell us? They had five specific instances in which they could have clarified the issue, but they did not.
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ViaCrucis
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This presumes that there would have been a need to do so. There are a lot of details in the Gospels for which the Evangelists spend no time whatsoever going into further detail about. That's because the Gospels aren't biographies in the modern sense of the term, they are Gospels. The only reason why Jesus' siblings get brought up at all is to establish narrative context for what Jesus said and did.
We should temper our expectations of what information the biblical writers saw fit to mention; they weren't writing with the assumption that two thousand years later we'd be reading these texts and guessing about certain details. They wrote these texts in the particular historical circumstances of their own time, addressing the things they believed necessary for their own purposes. Why doesn't Mark mention Jesus' birth? Well that wasn't part of the story of Jesus that Mark was trying to focus on.
So we should ask: Is there any reason why the Evangelists should need to say whether or not Jesus' siblings were or weren't Mary's children? If these were the children of Mary, and this was known by the Christian communities already, then there's no reason for the Evangelists to bring it up if there's no reason to do so; and conversely, if these were the children of Joseph from a previous marriage, and this was known by the Christian communities already, then there's no reason for the Evangelists to bring it up if there's no reason to do so.
This is all to say that using the silence of the Evangelists as evidence of a particular proposition here requires an a priori assumption of the conclusion: If I already have decided that these are Mary's children, then the silence of the Evangelists just means that we should assume these were Mary's children. If I have already decided that these are the children of Joseph from a previous marriage, then the silence of the Evangelists just means that we should assume these were the children of Joseph from a previous marriage.
So what we are left with is: We don't know. At least not from Scripture alone. Scripture doesn't provide us with these answers. And, since Christians treat the Church's received tradition with varying degrees of deference, the simple antiquity of the tradition provides sufficient support of this view. That is, tradition favors the side that these are not other children of Mary, thus these are not blood-siblings of Jesus at all, but children of Joseph from a previous marriage. Or, alternatively, in the West the view that these were probably cousins gained a great deal of traction.
Is that tradition correct? Well, how we answer that then gets into bigger conversations about things such as tradition and ecclesiology. But it still doesn't really get us any closer to a definite biblical answer to our inquiry, because Scripture still remains quiet on the subject.
-CryptoLutheran
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Um, nope. No one reading this thing is going to believe that James actually wrote it. My guess is because Jesus didn't beam out of Mary Star Trek style.
19. And I saw a woman coming down from the hill-country, and she said to me: O man, whither art thou going? And I said: I am seeking an Hebrew midwife. And she answered and said unto me: Art thou of Israel? And I said to her: Yes. And she said: And who is it that is bringing forth in the cave? And I said: A woman betrothed to me. And she said to me: Is she not thy wife? And I said to her: It is Mary that was reared in the temple of the Lord, and I obtained her by lot as my wife. And yet she is not my wife, but has conceived of the Holy Spirit. And the widwife said to him: Is this true? And Joseph said to her: Come and see. And the midwife went away with him. And they stood in the place of the cave, and behold a luminous cloud overshadowed the cave. And the midwife said: My soul has been magnified this day, because mine eyes have seen strange things -- because salvation has been brought forth to Israel. And immediately the cloud disappeared out of the cave, and a great light shone in the cave, so that the eyes could not bear it. And in a little that light gradually decreased, until the infant appeared, and went and took the breast from His mother Mary. And the midwife cried out, and said: This is a great day to me, because I have seen this strange sight. And the midwife went forth out of the cave, and Salome met her. And she said to her: Salome, Salome, I have a strange sight to relate to thee: a virgin has brought forth -- a thing which her nature admits not of. Then said Salome: As the Lord my God liveth, unless I thrust in my finger, and search the parts, I will not believe that a virgin has brought forth.
Infancy Gospel of James, or Protevangelium (Roberts-Donaldson translation)
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Right, if it’s the main source of Marian ideas, I think that’s a problem. It’s not even critical whether the book itself is the source. Presumably it reflects mythology that had developed in parts of the early church. I would expect that, to be credible, we’d want a better foundation for beliefs.
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Daniel Marsh
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Jesus could not be born without a mother. But, she herself does not save us. Jesus being fully God and fully Man did.
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That is an interesting, if dangerous, theological premise. Just because something is not stated or clarified in the Bible hardly means that it is true. For example, the writers of the New Testament mentioned precious little about Mary. For reasons known only to them they decided that the historical record of her platonic relationship with Joseph was irrelevant, as was her immaculate conception, as was her assumption into heaven - even though similar doctrines relative to Jesus Christ found full expression. Thus, the RCC has determined to read into scripture a wide range of dogmas and doctrines which are essential for the salvation of its members. These are unique to the RCC and have escaped the notice of all other branches of Christianity being, at the very best, adiaphora.
When, however, the clear reading of the Bible contradicts RCC dogma then the RCC is committed to dismissing the Bible in place of its own dogma. If only the Gospel writers had not mentioned those pesky brother and sisters of Jesus Christ, it would have been so much simpler for the RCC to develop its dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary and to confirm that all sexual intercourse is inherently sinful.
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I did not say James wrote it but that it contained certain traditions from James like the ever virgin Mother, Joseph was a widower, the Lord’s “siblings” were not the children of the Virgin Mother. Detractors of these apostolic traditions say the Gospels do not say this. Really? We see these as being implicit within the writings of the Gospels.
The writer of the Protoevangelion may not have had the best recall or even faith expression but he preserved lesser but necessary truths that are related to the Lord’s incarnation ( John 1). These accounts were held as truths by early Christians who sifted out many false gnostic writings that said things like the Lord did not die on the cross, was not born of a Virgin, was not resurrected etc.
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ViaCrucis
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The Protoevangelium of James belongs, I'd argue, to a category of early Christian literature that is best compared to modern fanfiction.
It's very clearly ahistorical, so to that end it is hardly reliable.
However, it does clearly present ideas and traditions from the early Church. As an historical representation of early Christian ideas it is useful, at least to an extent.
It's Marian narrative, however, is clearly ahistorical, Pagans had temple virgins, not the Jews. But the author borrows the idea of virgins serving in a sacred space from the surrounding Greco-Roman culture and applies it to Judaism. This is clearly done out of pious devotion, by presenting Mary as a holy, pure, and pious woman her entire life--one who grew up in and surrounded by the Sacred--she is chosen as the pure vessel of the Son of God.
The piety expressed therein is admirable; though I'd argue misguided. In some sense attempting to "purify" Mary, in a kind of pious sanitation effort to present her as especially special, the mundaneness of the Virgin Birth gets lost. By "mundaneness" I mean that God doesn't choose the lofty, the great, or the spiritual for His purposes, He chooses the weak, the meager, and the small.
This is the God who chose a small shepherd boy to be the king of Israel, the one from whose line would come our Salvation, Jesus Christ. God chose a nomad to be the father of many nations, through the promised Seed. God chose a murderer to be the deliverer of Israel from slavery in Egypt.
And God chose a nobody, a humble virgin girl, to be the Highly Favored of God. In her humility and meekness she was made Theotokos, and so we honor her as the mother of our Lord.
"A message came to a maiden young;
The angel stood beside her,
In shining robes and with golden tongue,
He told what should betide her:
The maid was lost in wonder -
Her world was rent asunder -
Ah! how could she
Christ's mother be
By God's most high decree!
No greater news could a messenger bring;
For 'twas from that young mother
He came, who walked on the earth as a king,
And yet was all men's brother:
His truth has spread like leaven,
'twill marry earth to heaven,
Till all agree
in charity
to dwell from sea to sea."
-CryptoLutheran
It's very clearly ahistorical, so to that end it is hardly reliable.
However, it does clearly present ideas and traditions from the early Church. As an historical representation of early Christian ideas it is useful, at least to an extent.
It's Marian narrative, however, is clearly ahistorical, Pagans had temple virgins, not the Jews. But the author borrows the idea of virgins serving in a sacred space from the surrounding Greco-Roman culture and applies it to Judaism. This is clearly done out of pious devotion, by presenting Mary as a holy, pure, and pious woman her entire life--one who grew up in and surrounded by the Sacred--she is chosen as the pure vessel of the Son of God.
The piety expressed therein is admirable; though I'd argue misguided. In some sense attempting to "purify" Mary, in a kind of pious sanitation effort to present her as especially special, the mundaneness of the Virgin Birth gets lost. By "mundaneness" I mean that God doesn't choose the lofty, the great, or the spiritual for His purposes, He chooses the weak, the meager, and the small.
This is the God who chose a small shepherd boy to be the king of Israel, the one from whose line would come our Salvation, Jesus Christ. God chose a nomad to be the father of many nations, through the promised Seed. God chose a murderer to be the deliverer of Israel from slavery in Egypt.
And God chose a nobody, a humble virgin girl, to be the Highly Favored of God. In her humility and meekness she was made Theotokos, and so we honor her as the mother of our Lord.
"A message came to a maiden young;
The angel stood beside her,
In shining robes and with golden tongue,
He told what should betide her:
The maid was lost in wonder -
Her world was rent asunder -
Ah! how could she
Christ's mother be
By God's most high decree!
No greater news could a messenger bring;
For 'twas from that young mother
He came, who walked on the earth as a king,
And yet was all men's brother:
His truth has spread like leaven,
'twill marry earth to heaven,
Till all agree
in charity
to dwell from sea to sea."
-CryptoLutheran
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Valletta
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No, when the Catholic Church chose the 73 books of the Bible one requirement was that all text had to comply with Catholic teaching--if any text contradicted Catholic teaching it was rejected. Remember the Catholic Church was thriving before one word of the New Testament was written. During the Protestant reformation when new religions were formed those religions dropped parts of Catholic teaching. Luther, for example, was able to get some but not all of the books he wanted dropped from the Bible. He was unsuccessful with Revelation, which very much describes the Catholic mass. Many times declarations of Catholic teaching occur because some heresy takes place. That does not mean that is when the teaching began, it may need emphasis or clarification on what we know and don't know. For example, we know Mary was assumed into Heaven, but whether she died has been a matter of some discussion.
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concretecamper
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MariaChristi
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MariaChristi
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Dear Albion.
Having prayed over just leaving this thread or posting a reply to you. I'm sending this reply to you. I was saddened by your post as I was by Sparta's also. Since you are a "Facilitator", I expected more than a certain type of "correction" on your part. You seem to assume that a devout Catholic who loves our Blessed Mother as God certainly has shown His love for her, is approaching Mary as if she were God. That really is not what devout Catholics do. If I spoke too many words perhaps you missed the desire of one of God's children seeking to defend our Mother from the remark made by Sparta. I and do not intend to post on this forum again. Sorry, but I want to post where there is greater respect for God's Mother.
Having prayed over just leaving this thread or posting a reply to you. I'm sending this reply to you. I was saddened by your post as I was by Sparta's also. Since you are a "Facilitator", I expected more than a certain type of "correction" on your part. You seem to assume that a devout Catholic who loves our Blessed Mother as God certainly has shown His love for her, is approaching Mary as if she were God. That really is not what devout Catholics do. If I spoke too many words perhaps you missed the desire of one of God's children seeking to defend our Mother from the remark made by Sparta. I and do not intend to post on this forum again. Sorry, but I want to post where there is greater respect for God's Mother.
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Albion
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Hello, Maria. By the way, were you having some difficulty getting your previous post to appear as intended? It looks like you just forgot to put the [/quote] notation at the end of the part you were quoting. It's easily edited when that happens.
SOME people, and not necessarily Roman Catholics, DO in fact approach Mary (and St. Jude and other saints) in prayer in a way that needs to be reserved for God alone. That doesn't mean that they think Mary or any other saint is actually the equal of God, but when those are the sentiments, the words that are used in prayer, and it's defended in a post here, then it's right of us to point out that this is a wrongful practice.
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Valletta
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I don't know how you would purport to know such a thing, to judge that others are improperly approaching Mary and the saints. Only God knows what are in the hearts of his children. Leave the judging to Jesus, consider that Jesus may tell you it was you who improperly treated the saints. Catholics believe that those in Heaven are alive, that we may ask of them as we do in one of our oldest prayers, Psalm 103: "Bless the LORD, all you angels, mighty in strength and attentive, obedient to every command. Bless the LORD, all you hosts, ministers who do God's will. Bless the LORD, all creatures, everywhere in God's domain. Bless the LORD, my soul!"
That we pray for one another is in the Bible, you and even Catholics don't have to accept the apparitions of our Blessed Mother, from that appearance to the Apostle James, to Our Lady of Walsingham, Our Lady of Guadalupe to Lourdes and Fatima, but you might be wise to do so.
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concretecamper
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he doesn't. It is easy to say untruths, impossible to back them up. This is what we all are witnessing. It is not the first time, it won't be the last.
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