Thank-you, Uphill Battle.
I wasn't raised EO.
I investigated the matter for myself, including the original Greek and the closest contemporary sources I could (for example, Celsus and Targum).
And I prayed.
I remember our discussion on this before. Didn't your father have some part in it? Correct me if my memory is fuzzy.
A "norm" that insists upon itself forces its own standard to be upheld.
rather, a "norm" insists that outside of obvious evidence to the contrary, normal assumptions should be used.
And your example is not only absurd, it's not applicable. You're talking about something that would require a miracle -- breaking all laws of science. Hardly the case when two people decide to marry if their ages are quite different. Can you point to where your example has happened before? Are you willing to say that never has a marriage occurred between a young woman and an older man?
no, of course I'm not saying any such thing. But, if the standard is "the bible doesn't say that they didn't" or "the bible doesn't say that it wasn't" then you could pretty much assume anything you want to. As absurd as my example is, using the method of "well, the bible didn't say that" it COULD have happened, absurd or no.
Remember "Fiddler on the Roof"? Seems to me the 'tradition' the first daughter fought to break was to have the right to have any choice in who was to be her spouse. Her father had already made her a 'match' -- and it happened to be someone quite older than she was. Her father saw it as a good match because of the financial security it would provide her. A pretty good example of what the "norm" was in times past.
how fiddler on the roof applies, is beyond me.
The "norm" that young people fall in love and decide to get married is relatively new you know. The norm in place at the time of Mary and Joseph was that girls father's made the match, provided a dowry (after all, they were passing along property that required upkeep), and what the daughter thought about it wasn't really primary.
perhaps. That still is outside of the "norm" that it would be a doddering old man. Don't forget, that part of the whole "norm" would be that the father would want for her to have children within her union. You know as well as I the stock that Jewish tradition put in having children.
Now, stepping aside from the thrust of the point for a moment, I find it very interesting that you eschew the use of normal assumption when addressing my points, but then insist upon it for making your own.
that's fairly interesting, don't you think?
You are correct in that I've never read anything Catholic that points to a consideration that they were never married. I have read Thekla's discussions regarding that issue with interest, but have no firm opinion one way or the other regarding that.
alrighty then.
I have no firm opinion on their ages either. I simply have a firm opinion that one cannot reject the possibility that Joseph could have been much older and previously married based upon Scripture alone.
not when you have someone whom you believe telling you that that's what it was, at any rate.