WELS creating their own Bible (and one other question)?

[Luther073082]

Ya ... Somehow I forgot to put in the "did not" as in Mary did not remain a virgin. Those who argue otherwise ...really want to do so out for others reasons.

I think if one looks at the greek in this case it isn't so clear cut. . .

I'm not arguing for it, personally I don't belive in perpetual virginity either. However my impression was that the greek of the New Testement doesn't make it as clear as the English translation would make it seem.

Per Wikipedia

"The first of these passages leaves open the question of what happened after the birth of Mary's son:[6] "until" (ἕω&#962 does not necessarily imply a change after an event, as seen for instance in "In order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ" (Philippians 1:10). The New Testament does not describe as children of Mary any of those whom it calls brothers and sisters of Jesus, and these have also been interpreted as children of Joseph by a previous marriage, as Mary's sister's children, or as Joseph's sister's children."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_virginity

Also consider this:

The following people belived in Perpetual Virginity.

Martin Luther - Evangelical Catholic Reformer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther
Franz Pieper - 4th President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Pieper
Huldrych Zwingli - Protestant Leader (Reformed Churchs) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huldrych_Zwingli
John Calvin - Protestant Leader (Calvinist Churchs) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin
John Weastly - Protestant Leader (Methodism) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley

The scripture isn't clear cut and there is a strong church tradition for Perpetual virginity. . . So I'm not sure there is a reason to outright reject it as unscriptorial.

 

[twin.spin]

I think if one looks at the greek in this case it isn't so clear cut. . .

I'm not arguing for it, personally I don't belive in perpetual virginity either. However my impression was that the greek of the New Testement doesn't make it as clear as the English translation would make it seem.

Per Wikipedia

"The first of these passages leaves open the question of what happened after the birth of Mary's son:[6] "until" (ἕω&#962 does not necessarily imply a change after an event, as seen for instance in "In order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ" (Philippians 1:10). The New Testament does not describe as children of Mary any of those whom it calls brothers and sisters of Jesus, and these have also been interpreted as children of Joseph by a previous marriage, as Mary's sister's children, or as Joseph's sister's children."

Perpetual virginity of Mary - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also consider this:

The following people belived in Perpetual Virginity.

Martin Luther - Evangelical Catholic Reformer Martin Luther - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Franz Pieper - 4th President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod Franz Pieper - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Huldrych Zwingli - Protestant Leader (Reformed Churchs) Huldrych Zwingli - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Calvin - Protestant Leader (Calvinist Churchs) John Calvin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Weastly - Protestant Leader (Methodism) John Wesley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The scripture isn't clear cut and there is a strong church tradition for Perpetual virginity. . . So I'm not sure there is a reason to outright reject it as unscriptorial.

First...I attempt to avoid "this is what the greek says" to establish a view one way or another because all I can do is copy and paste.

Taking the English that is before our understanding .... I was taught this:

1. The phrase " before they came together" in the Biblical sense didn't mean that Joseph and Mary were still pen pals while engaged when this occurred or during the time when the local U-haul donkey while was enroute to Joseph's house with Mary's stuff.
2. There is no reason to conclude otherwise that "to know her" and "before they came together" that Matthew was using the same understanding in the Biblical sense

I have been told many a times that Luther is often misquoted because of his fluidity of change away from RC and that he also hung on to some RC that was not correct which people\sites like Wiki do not take that into consideration.

And as the special report to the 2011 WELS convention stated,"advances in scholarship. There are has been a great deal of work in the area of biblical linguistics and semantics since 1984. Our grasp of some facets of the biblical setting have been sharpened"

That is since 1984 ... let alone Luther and the gang Wiki talks about era.

I would have to ask...if Luther knew what we know now benefiting from the advancements of biblical semantics, would Luther have maintained that position or if we would have agreed with him if he persisted?

I would venture a guess as to no either way.

 

[twin.spin]

Did you know that Martin Luther passionately believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary? He taught it and preached it his entire life.

I realize that I'm going out on limb when I say this....Luther wasn't correct all the time. Roman Catholicism is like a spiders web...yes it can be broken away from, but nowhere does it mean that nothing of it's web remains after fleeing.

 

[mrmccormo]

I realize that I'm going out on limb when I say this....Luther wasn't correct all the time. Roman Catholicism is like a spiders web...yes it can be broken away from, but nowhere does it mean that nothing of it's web remains after fleeing.

I'm just curious why some Lutherans would dismiss Luther's stance on the issue when they (naturally) accept the vast majority of the other things he taught and said. It just seems...odd. What is your criteria for accepting some of what he said but rejecting other things he said?

(perhaps this belongs in a different thread )

 

[filosofer]

I'm just curious why some Lutherans would dismiss Luther's stance on the issue when they (naturally) accept the vast majority of the other things he taught and said. It just seems...odd. What is your criteria for accepting some of what he said but rejecting other things he said?

(perhaps this belongs in a different thread )

That confusion often arises. We do not follow Martin Luther. Rather we confess the faith that he confessed. Some things he wrote are not on the level of confession of the faith. That is also why many things in the Book of Concord, our official list of confessional statements, were not written by Luther.

 

[Luther073082]

I'm just curious why some Lutherans would dismiss Luther's stance on the issue when they (naturally) accept the vast majority of the other things he taught and said. It just seems...odd. What is your criteria for accepting some of what he said but rejecting other things he said?

(perhaps this belongs in a different thread )

Scripture. . . Really thats what it comes down to. While one could say that the scriptures don't prove that Mary and Joseph has sex. . . You also can't say that the scriptures prove they didn't either.

So even in that case a lot of Lutherans would just consider that Mary and Joseph had normal marital relations.

We don't agree with Luther's, late life Jew hating either. So we definatly don't agree with everything Luther belived in or said.

 

[mrmccormo]

That confusion often arises. We do not follow Martin Luther. Rather we confess the faith that he confessed. Some things he wrote are not on the level of confession of the faith. That is also why many things in the Book of Concord, our official list of confessional statements, were not written by Luther.

But then what is your criteria? If Luther's teachings are not accepted in whole (which is a wise policy to apply to anyone's teachings), then certainly you appeal to a higher authority than Luther to determine what is and is not "right"? Are the contributors to the Book of Concord higher than Luther?

Again, I'm curious. If you do not accept the doctrinal authority of the father (humanly speaking) of your faith, to what authority do you appeal?

 

[Luther073082]

But then what is your criteria? If Luther's teachings are not accepted in whole (which is a wise policy to apply to anyone's teachings), then certainly you appeal to a higher authority than Luther to determine what is and is not "right"? Are the contributors to the Book of Concord higher than Luther?

We have determined the Book of Concord to be of high authority because it agrees with scripture. Not because of who wrote it.

Again, I'm curious. If you do not accept the doctrinal authority of the father (humanly speaking) of your faith, to what authority do you appeal?

The father of our faith is Jesus Christ. . . Luther was just a guy that helped get it back on the right track.

So plainly speaking we use scripture as the final doctrinal authority.

 

[mrmccormo]

We have determined the Book of Concord to be of high authority because it agrees with scripture. Not because of who wrote it.

The father of our faith is Jesus Christ. . . Luther was just a guy that helped get it back on the right track.

So plainly speaking we use scripture as the final doctrinal authority.

Thank you for clarifying.

 

[CaliforniaJosiah]

Hi all! My wife is WELS. I am not (I am a Christian, though), and we both attend a WELS church in the area. Over the past few weeks, our pastor has made mention of the upcoming change in which translation of the Bible the WELS uses, and he said something like this (I'll paraphrase):

Me and several other pastors and leaders in the synod have been petitioning the president (I think he said) to create our own Bible translation. I told him that we've sent enough people through seminary with a firm education in the original Biblical languages, and perhaps its time that we make our mark and give our church a new Bible. The president said "I've been thinking the same exact thing".

Any comment on that? Understandably, I am out of the loop on this sort of thing because I'm not even WELS.

Sorry, I know nothing about any such "movement" in WELS....

PERSONALLY, I would tend to shy away from a purely denominational translation (even though I understand Luthers' GERMAN one was excellent). It's probably impossible to keep bias entirely out of translating, but keeping things ecumenical probably is be best we have to prevent such denominational bias. Like many here, when it gets deep in a verse, I go to the Greek (as best I can), but even for general study, I like things to be as unbiased as possible - even if I share that bias.

My other question was this: does the WELS believe that Mary remained a virgin throughout her entire life? Just curious.

You and I have discussed this CONSIDERABLY elsewhere....




Some points are important:


1. Yes, Luther, the Early Lutheran Fathers and for some years some Lutheran pastors BELIEVED this. Of course, just because something is believed by some Lutherans doesn't make it a LUTHERAN teaching.


2. A very FEW times, in the Latin translation of the Lutheran Confessions, the TITLE "ever virgin" is used. This was the standard TITLE for Mary at the time, especially in Latin. It is NOT presented as an article of faith (only the normal TITLE is used, and I believe ONLY in the Latin translation), no Scripture is used in this context, and it was never used as dogma. Thus, the nearly universal consensus is that it has NEVER been an official teaching or doctrine and especially not Dogma of Lutheranism. Yes, a common VIEW (see #1) of Lutherans but not a doctrine of Lutheranism, a teaching of some Lutherans but not a Lutheran teaching.


3. I think MOST of my fellow Lutherans here would have an opinion - one way or the other. FEW would call them apostate heretics or regard them as appropraite to excommunicate or defrock (or even be banned from this Lutheran forum). SOME would agree with this view, SOME would disagree, SOME would be like me and simply have no firm opinion. All this is not only permitted within Lutheranism but welcomed. We get PLENTLY "hot and heavy" over a lot of things (most of them not dogmas!) but this ain't one of them.


4. You might need to realize that in Protestantism, we have both "adiaphoron" (an issue to which there is no rule or dogmatic position) and "pious opinion" (an issue on which Scripture is silent - either way - but a historic view). Lutherans are not NEARLY as insistent to declare all our speculations and theories to be DOGMA as if our role is to tell God what He should have told us but didn't. That does NOT mean that we may not have very passionate opinions - passionately held! They just aren't dogma. Much of the "issue" between Lutherans and the RCC is the status of things. I think it was Jeremiah who said that God has a particular dislike for those who say "God says" when God said no such thing. Lutherans try to remember that.




I hope that helps.



See you around, I'm sure.



Pax


- Josiah







.

 

[Luther073082]

4. You might need to realize that in Protestantism, we have both "adiaphoron" (an issue to which there is no rule or dogmatic position) and "pious opinion" (an issue on which Scripture is silent - either way - but a historic view). Lutherans are not NEARLY as insistent to declare all our speculations and theories to be DOGMA as if our role is to tell God what He should have told us but didn't. That does NOT mean that we may not have very passionate opinions - passionately held! They just aren't dogma. Much of the "issue" between Lutherans and the RCC is the status of things. I think it was Jeremiah who said that God has a particular dislike for those who say "God says" when God said no such thing. Lutherans try to remember that.

We are not protestants...

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Did you know that Martin Luther passionately believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary? He taught it and preached it his entire life.

I think if one looks at the greek in this case it isn't so clear cut. . .

I'm not arguing for it, personally I don't belive in perpetual virginity either. However my impression was that the greek of the New Testement doesn't make it as clear as the English translation would make it seem.

Per Wikipedia

"The first of these passages leaves open the question of what happened after the birth of Mary's son:[6] "until" (ἕω&#962 does not necessarily imply a change after an event, as seen for instance in "In order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ" (Philippians 1:10). The New Testament does not describe as children of Mary any of those whom it calls brothers and sisters of Jesus, and these have also been interpreted as children of Joseph by a previous marriage, as Mary's sister's children, or as Joseph's sister's children."

Perpetual virginity of Mary - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also consider this:

The following people belived in Perpetual Virginity.

Martin Luther - Evangelical Catholic Reformer Martin Luther - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Franz Pieper - 4th President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod Franz Pieper - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Huldrych Zwingli - Protestant Leader (Reformed Churchs) Huldrych Zwingli - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Calvin - Protestant Leader (Calvinist Churchs) John Calvin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Weastly - Protestant Leader (Methodism) John Wesley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The scripture isn't clear cut and there is a strong church tradition for Perpetual virginity. . . So I'm not sure there is a reason to outright reject it as unscriptorial.

We must be mindful also that at Christ's crucifixion Jesus commended Mary to John and John to Mary as mother and son. Had our Lord had younger brothers, the responsibility of care for the widow Mary would have fallen on the next oldest son. Without a son to look after a widow, the widow would have been destitute. While this does not prove Semper Virago, it does indicate that there were no other male siblings, so those "brothers" spoken of in Scripture must be cousins of some sort.

Since we do hold the BoC as the true exposition of Scripture; second only to the Bible itself; we should look at what it has to say regarding Semper Virago:

Formula, Solid Declaration VIII. The Person of Christ, 24:

"...He showed His divine majesty even in His mother's womb, because He was born of a virgin, without violating her virginity. Therefore, she is truly the mother of God and yet has remained a virgin."

But then what is your criteria? If Luther's teachings are not accepted in whole (which is a wise policy to apply to anyone's teachings), then certainly you appeal to a higher authority than Luther to determine what is and is not "right"? Are the contributors to the Book of Concord higher than Luther?

Again, I'm curious. If you do not accept the doctrinal authority of the father (humanly speaking) of your faith, to what authority do you appeal?

To Scripture. Period.

We are not protestants...

Indeed we are not, unless you are looking at us through "Roman" eyes!

 

[filosofer]

We must be mindful also that at Christ's crucifixion Jesus commended Mary to John and John to Mary as mother and son. Had our Lord had younger brothers, the responsibility of care for the widow Mary would have fallen on the next oldest son. Without a son to look after a widow, the widow would have been destitute. While this does not prove Semper Virago, it does indicate that there were no other male siblings, so those "brothers" spoken of in Scripture must be cousins of some sort.

That is not the only explanation. There may be more going on in the text than just an assumption that he had no siblings. After all, prior to his resurrection his brothers did not believe.

And one further point, because the BoC mentions something does not make it doctrine.

Indeed we are not, unless you are looking at us through "Roman" eyes!

Or through the eyes of Protestants. (RCC: “They all look alike”; Prot: “We all are alike”)

 

[Zecryphon]

That is not the only explanation. There may be more going on in the text than just an assumption that he had no siblings. After all, prior to his resurrection his brothers did not believe.

I once heard that some of Jesus' siblings came from a prior marriage of Joseph. Now since Scripture never talks about this, as far as I know, I've always kinda dismissed it. But since you're more knowledgeable than I am in these matters, I thought I'd bring it up.

And one further point, because the BoC mentions something does not make it doctrine.

How so? I thought the BoC contained the confessions of our faith. If what it says can not be take. As teachings or doctrines, what do we regard those writings as?

 

[filosofer]

I once heard that some of Jesus' siblings came from a prior marriage of Joseph. Now since Scripture never talks about this, as far as I know, I've always kinda dismissed it. But since you're more knowledgeable than I am in these matters, I thought I'd bring it up.

That is possible, but I don’t think the Bible supports that. I do think it supports the idea that Mary and Joseph had other children after Jesus was born, and there is stronger Biblical support for this than the perpetual virginity of Mary. Any discussion about perpetual virginity comes from outside the Bible. Obviously, my own opinion.

How so? I thought the BoC contained the confessions of our faith. If what it says can not be take. As teachings or doctrines, what do we regard those writings as?

Yes, it “contains” the confessions of our faith. Not everything written in the BoC is doctrinal, nor official teaching. Or have you used garlic juice recently?

Also, that original sin is only an external impediment to the good spiritual powers, and not a despoliation or want of the same, as when a magnet is smeared with garlic-juice, its natural power is not thereby removed, but only impeded; or that this stain can be easily wiped away like a spot from the face or pigment from the wall.
​

Yes, somewhat feliciously, but it does point out the problems with saying that everything in BoC is doctrine and must be believed.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

That is not the only explanation. There may be more going on in the text than just an assumption that he had no siblings. After all, prior to his resurrection his brothers did not believe.

And one further point, because the BoC mentions something does not make it doctrine.




Or through the eyes of Protestants. (RCC: “They all look alike”; Prot: “We all are alike”)

Correct... on both counts!

 

[DaRev]

We must be mindful also that at Christ's crucifixion Jesus commended Mary to John and John to Mary as mother and son. Had our Lord had younger brothers, the responsibility of care for the widow Mary would have fallen on the next oldest son. Without a son to look after a widow, the widow would have been destitute. While this does not prove Semper Virago, it does indicate that there were no other male siblings, so those "brothers" spoken of in Scripture must be cousins of some sort.

John was given the care of Jesus' mother because he was there. Also, it is believed (and is Scripturally supported) that John's mother, Salome, was a sister of Jesus' mother, Mary, so John would have been Mary's nephew, thus the closest relative present at the crucifixion.

Since we do hold the BoC as the true exposition of Scripture; second only to the Bible itself; we should look at what it has to say regarding Semper Virago:

Formula, Solid Declaration VIII. The Person of Christ, 24:

"...He showed His divine majesty even in His mother's womb, because He was born of a virgin, without violating her virginity. Therefore, she is truly the mother of God and yet has remained a virgin."

That passage is speaking in the context of Jesus' birth, not the life of Mary. It cannot and does not support Semper Virgo.

 

[Melethiel]

Well, looks like the WELS is really considering adopting the NIV 2011...

 

[filosofer]

Well, looks like the WELS is really considering adopting the NIV 2011...

As an outsider, it really doesn’t matter to me. On the other hand, as another confessional Lutheran, I would really hope they looked elsewhere. The more I have examined the NIV 2011 revisions, I am less than pleased with it. Yes, some improvements have been made, but other changes are for the worse. How about the “translation” confusion of αγιος (traditionally “saint” or plural “saints&#8221? Try to find “saints” in NIV2011. See what they have inconsistently substituted for that translation.


The congregation I now serve has NIV using 1984 edition. But within the next year we will have to consider other options. ESV Might be “natural” since the LCMS adopted it for publications. Still not a fan. But ESV is better for accuracy in most places than NIV2011 except for its readability.

HCSB is better than it by far than NIV2011 (John 20:23, Matt. 18:18, Psalm 1:1-2, etc.). The one area I have not tried with HCSB is the oral reading of the Psalms, which is critical in liturgical worship. Elsewhere HCSB reads easier than ESV while maintaining accuracy.

So, I still hold out hope for WELS/NPH to make a wise choice.

 

[actionsub]

Thats something I've certainly thought of with #2 as to why its probably not a good idea. I mean what groups actually go out and produce their own translations? The Jehovah's Witnesses did that. . .

The Southern Baptists commissioned their own translation over issues with the NIV.