This is found at http://biblicalhorizons.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/concerning-bmev/
BMEV, or “Blessed Mary Ever-Virgin,” should not be an issue for any Protestant today, but clamor from various quarters means that we need once again to “get real” with the Biblical data here. Herewith is a reworking of a recent essay on the subject originally published in Biblical Horizons.
I recall that in attending a secular college I wrote a paper in philosophy concerning my Christian faith. My teacher, who was an atheist, wrote in the margins “JC” whenever he wrote of Jesus Christ. My father was so offended by this that he talked of going to the dean of the university to complain. Jesus Christ is not “JC”, and the Blessed Virgin Mary is not “BMEV”. If he does want to refer to her by this title, simply calling her Mary would be sufficient. By calling her “BMEV”, this shows undue disrespect to us Catholics, to our Lord’s mother, and ultimately to out Lord.
Early on in the church it was decided that Joseph must have kept Mary a virgin all her life. Unquestionably this is because sex was considered dirty — we need only peruse the Church “Fathers” to see this over and over. The mother of Jesus could not possibly have engaged in such a disgusting, sweaty, stinky enterprise.
Unquestionably???? I myself do question this. In all my readings in Catholic tradition, I did not once read anyone argue for the perpetual virginity of Mary because sex was dirty. If it was so unquestionably true, it would have been easy for him to cite at least one early church to prove it. But he does not bother. Of course, I cannot cite any verses to prove that the Early Church did not think this way, but this is because you cannot prove a negative. He made the assertion that the early church believed that Joseph and Mary remained virgins because sex was dirty, so he has the burden of proof to prove it.
This abysmal notion is ferociously defended by those given over to this idea. It is clear from the Bible that the pleasures of marital intercourse are to be enjoyed,
I have read a lot of teachings from the Catholic Church. I have never read that the Church has ever taught the perpetual virginity of Mary because the Church sees sex as dirty. This more has to do with the holiness of God than with the dirtiness of sex. In the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant was considered so holy by God, that it would be sacriligeous for anyone to touch it. The movie, The Raiders of the Lost Ark, was not far from the truth. When people peered into the and it would have been sinful for Joseph to deny it to her.
It was never taught that Joseph denied sex to Mary. It was mutual consent.
There is nothing dirty about sex in marriage.
The Catholic Church never taught that sex was dirty. The Church teaches that sex is good (as long as it is with marriage), but celibacy for the glory of God is better. This is taught in the Bible.
In 1 Corinthian 7:7-9, Paul states “I wish that all men were even as I myself am. However, each man has his own gift from God, one in this manner, and another in that. 8But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I.” Although Paul states that a person who marries, and naturally has sex within marriage, has not sinned, he still wished that all men to be as celibate as he was. This is not because sex is dirty. Sex, within marriage, is good. But celibacy is better.
Theologian John Murray, once asked if Mary stayed a virgin, replied to the effect: “Of course not! She was a Godly woman.”
Even conservative Protestants agree that Jesus was a celibate. So then this theologian John Murray would have to conclude that Jesus was not a godly man, right? After all, if Mary could not have stayed a virgin and be a godly woman, then Jesus could not have stayed a virgin and be godly man!
Jephthah’s daughter wept because she was consigned to perpetual virginity. Are we to believe that God rewarded Mary’s faithfulness with a curse!? — denying her the pleasures of a husband and the joys of more children?
Here is what the Bible says about Jephthah and his daughter:
Jephthah made a vow to the LORD and said, "If You will indeed give the sons of Ammon into my hand, 31then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, it shall be the LORD'S, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering."… 34When Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, behold, his daughter was coming out to meet him with tambourines and with dancing…When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, "Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are among those who trouble me; for I have given my word to the LORD, and I cannot take it back." 36So she said to him, "My father, you have given your word to the LORD; do to me as you have said, since the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the sons of Ammon."… At the end of two months she returned to her father, who did to her according to the vow which he had made; and she had no relations with a man. Thus it became a custom in Israel, 40that the daughters of Israel went yearly to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.
Judges 11:30-40
Because of Jephtah’s rash vow to God, his daughter spent all her life as a virgin. Granted, this is a tragic story. Jephtah’s daughter did not voluntarily choose to remain a virgin, this was forced upon her. But still she felt obligated to keep this vow. This was considered a curse upon the daughter. In fact, the last verse shows that from then on the daughters of Israel commemorated Jephtah’s daughter. Why would the they have commemorated someone who was cursed? Jephtah’s daughter was admired, not looked down upon for being cursed.
Matthew 1:25 is quite clear: Joseph “was not knowing her until she gave birth to a son.” It does not say “never knew her.” The “imperfect” status verb here indicates routine continual activity.
I am not sure what he is trying to prove here. If the imperfect indicates a routine continual activity then I do not see how this rules out Joseph never knowing Mary as long as he lived. Usually, the Protestant argument is that he only refrained from sex with Mary UNTIL she gave birth to a son. But what the word “until” meant to the Jew in the first century is different than what we mean by the word. With a 2,000 year gap between their culture and our culture, similar words can be used differently. For instance, in Hebrews 1:13, the Father says to Jesus “SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND, UNTIL I MAKE YOUR ENEMIES A FOOTSTOOL FOR YOUR FEET”. Does that mean that once all the enemies are at Jesus’ feet that Jesus will no longer be at the right hand of the Father? No Protestant has ever said that Jesus’ joint rule with the Father will one day end. So this just shows, in the first century Jewish culture, that “until” does not necessarily mean than a certain activity only exists UNTIL something happens.
And we may ask why Joseph would have felt any need to keep Mary a virgin. Neither he nor anyone else knew that Jesus was the incarnation of God. Often we hear from the ignorant in certain churches that “Well, if my wife had given birth to God Himself, I don’t think I could touch her sexually after that.” Well, in fact nobody knew Jesus was God incarnate. They knew that he was the promised Messiah, son of David, and savior of the world. They did not know and could not possibly have known that He was God on earth. How could Mary and Joseph ever have dealt with him growing up? How could the disciples possibly have had any kind of relationship with him if they had known He was God on earth?
The angel told Mary that the baby was the “son of the most high” (Luke 1:32). Elizabeth called Mary “the mother of my Lord” (Luke 1:43), which, in that Hebrew culture where they believed that God was the Lord of all, strongly implied the deity of her baby. So Joseph and Mary received more knowledge concerning Jesus than what the disciples received before the resurrection.
Anyway, it does not even matter. It matters what God thought, not what Joseph and Mary thought. If God did not appreciate man touching the Ark of the Covenant, which only bore tablets written by God, then God would providentially prevent man from touching the New Ark of the Covenant – Mary, who bore the Son of God.
When Jesus calmed the seas, the disciples wondered, saying, “Who is this that even the wind and waves obey him?” Clearly they did not think Jesus was God. He was a kind of super-Moses, who like Moses could command the sea. It is only after His resurrection that the disciples realized that He was God incarnate.
When Peter confessed, “You are the Messiah, the son of the Living God,” he only meant that Jesus was the promised seed of David, the Messiah. In Psalm 2, the Davidic king is “son of God.” It is only after the resurrection that anyone said, “My Lord and my God!”
Just because the disciples were slow to understand the deity Christ, we cannot assume the same of Joseph and Mary. No angel ever appeared to the twelve and said that Jesus was the son of the most high. In fact, during the public ministry of Jesus, He never directly came out and said He was God, or even the Son of God, or even that He was the Messiah. When a demoniac proclaimed He was the Son of God, He told him to be quiet. When Peter proclaimed it, Jesus told the twelve not to tell anyone. But it was told to Mary at the conception by an angel what the twelve did not understand until after the resurrection.
So, since all Mary and Joseph knew was that Jesus was a man destined for great things, there is no reason on earth they would have refrained from the joys of sex.
Funny, Paul seemed to give reasons someone would refrain from marry and experiencing the joys of sex.
But I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; 33but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, 34and his interests are divided. The woman who is unmarried, and the virgin, is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.
1 Cor 7:32-24
Only the Catholic Church takes this passage seriously. Sex, within marriage, is good, it is holy and sacred. But celibacy is better, if it is done in order to get closer to God and to serve God better.
Now, even at the time of the Reformation the hold that this evil superstition had on people was so great that the Reformers did not touch it. I read on silly and uninformed blogs that Calvin believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. That is not true. A glance at Calvin’s commentaries shows that he says, in Matthew 1:25, that it is impossible to know one way or another [he's wrong about that -- JBJ] and that it is best not to worry about it.
This is a case of “Heads I win tails you lose”. The Reformers have authority when he agrees them, but are still being held captive by that “evil superstition” when he disagrees with them.
This is what Calvin actually wrote on Matthew 1:25
The inference he [Helvidius] drew from it was, that Mary remained a virgin no longer than till her first birth, and that afterwards she had other children by her husband . . . No just and well-grounded inference can be drawn from these words . . . as to what took place after the birth of Christ. He is called 'first-born'; but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that he was born of a virgin . . . What took place afterwards the historian does not inform us . . . No man will obstinately keep up the argument, except from an extreme fondness for disputation.
Calvin's Commentaries, tr. William Pringle, Grand Rapids, Helvidius was a heretic in the early Christian Church whom argued that Mary had other children besides Jesus. Calvin was dealing with Helvidius’ argument. He was not arguing that “that it is impossible to know one way or another… and that it is best not to worry about it.” He argued that Helvidius was not able to prove his argument that Mary had other children, so it should not be believed.
Matthew 12:46-50, Luke 8:19-21, and Mark 3:31-35 record that Jesus’ mother and His brothers arrived to see him. We are assured that “brothers” might mean “relatives,” and though a pointless assertion (since Jesus surely did have brothers), this is indeed lexically possible. In Mark 3:32, however, the multitude reports to Jesus, “your mother and your brothers and your sisters are outside looking for you.” Now, “and your sisters” is absent from some ancient manuscripts. It was the consensus of the United Bible Societies Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (3rd ed., 1971), that “and your sisters” is most likely original. If it had been added later, they argue, it would also have been added in verse 31, where it is only “his mother and his brothers arrived.” Now, “brothers” might mean “relatives,” but “sisters” cannot. “Sisters” means sisters.
“Sisters” does not always mean sisters.
Therefore the soldiers did these things. But [Matthew 27:55f; Mark 15:40f; Luke 23:49 ] standing by the cross of Jesus were His [Matthew 12:46 ] mother, and His mother''s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary [Luke 8:2; John 20:1,18] Magdalene
John 19:25
So let’s see. At the foot of the cross, we have Jesus’ mother Mary and another Mary, the wife of Clopas. And how was Mary, the mother Jesus, related to Mary, the wife of Clopas? They were SISTERS! Now, how likely it is that parents would have two daughters, and name them both Mary? Aside for George Foreman, I do not know anyone who names their children with the same name. So it seems more likely that May, the mother of Jesus, and Mary, the wife of Clopas, were actually cousins and not sisters.
Since John 19:25 shows that sisters do not always mean sisters, his argument falls to the ground. And he has already conceded that “brothers” could mean kinsmen. So that means that it is very possible that the verses in the New Testament that refer to Jesus’ brothers and sisters could only means his kinsfolk.
Whatever the case may be in Mark 3, we can be absolutely certain that Mary and Joseph began to enjoy sex after her purification from childbirth, and that this pleasure was part of God’s gift to them for their faithfulness and obedience, and that they had other children together. Any other opinion is simply an impossibility from a Biblical and consistent Christian point of view.
This author has missed some Bible verses that strongly infer the perpetual virginity of Mary.
"He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; 33and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end." 34Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I do not know a man?"
Luke 1:32- 34
The angel told Mary that she will be pregnant with the Son of the Most High. Mary responds by asking how this can happen, since she does not know a man. This does not make sense under the Protestant view. According to the Protestant view, she was going to soon marry Joseph, have a typical wedding night with her husband, and eventually become pregnant. So if that was what she intended to do, why was she perplexed? Of course she would have not known man up until then, but that would change once she married Joseph. So why did she act that this would still be a problem?
The Catholic view, and also the view of the early church, was that Mary loved God so much she wanted to devote her life to nothing but prayer. But for her to do that she would need some financial sustenance. Joseph, an elderly widow, volunteered to take care of her, so that she can dedicate herself in prayer. They were legally married so that he could support her, but she would actually spend all her time in the temple praying. This is supported in the Protoevangelium of James, which was written in AD 150.
Is not this the [Or Jacob ]carpenter, the [Matthew 13:55 ]son of Mary, and brother of James [Matthew 12:46 ] and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His [Matthew 13:56 ] sisters here with us?" And they took offense [Matthew 11:6] at Him
Mark 6:3
There is a definite article before son. He is not merely A son of Mary. He is THE son of Mary. This distinction is not as clear as it is in New Testament Greek. In the New Testament Greek, the definite article signifies one and only one. For instance, Jesus is referred to as THE only begotten Son of God (John 3:16). There can only one of Him. He is not A Son of God. He is THE Son of God. In the same way, Jesus is not A Son of Mary, but THE Son of Mary. If Mary had other children besides Jesus, the proper way to express this in Greek would be to say that Jesus as A Son of Mary.
When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" 27Then He said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" From that hour the disciple took her into his own household.
John 19:26, 27
It makes no sense that Jesus would John to take of His mother if His mother had other children who could have taken cared of her.
But our argument does rest only with the Bible, but with the teachings of the early church.
Athanasius: "Let those, therefore, who deny that the Son is by nature from the Father and proper to his essence deny also that he took true human flesh from the ever-virgin Mary" (Discourses Against the Arians 2:70 [A.D. 360]).
Origen: ...And I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was the firstfruit among men of the purity which consists in [perpetual] chastity, and Mary was among women. For it were not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the firstfruit of virginity" (Commentary on Matthew 2:17 [A.D. 248]).
Augustine: "In being born of a Virgin who chose to remain a Virgin even before she knew who was to be born of her, Christ wanted to approve virginity rather than to impose it. And he wanted virginity to be of free choice even in that woman in whom he took upon himself the form of a slave" (Holy Virginity 4:4 [A.D. 401]). ..."It was not the visible sun, but its invisible Creator who consecrated this day for us, when the Virgin Mother, fertile of womb and integral in her virginity, brought him forth, made visible for us, by whom, when he was invisible, she too was created. A Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing, a Virgin pregnant, a Virgin bringing forth, a Virgin perpetual. Why do you wonder at this, O man?" (Sermons 186:1 [A.D. 411]). ..."Heretics called Antidicomarites are those who contradict the perpetual virginity of Mary and affirm that after Christ was born she was joined as one with her husband" (Heresies 56 [A.D. 428]).
See http://www.davidmacd.com/catholic/mary_perpetual_virgin.htm#The%20early%20Christian%20writings
It is my hope that the Roman Catholic Church, as it rethinks various issues today, will begin to think more clearly and Biblically about this. They rightly seek to honor Mary, but they do so in a very sadly wrong way
I, too, hope that Protestants start honoring Mary as they should. There are some signs that Protestants are re-thinking the importance of Mary. The U S New and World Report says “Today, more and more Protestants are welcoming Mary back into their spiritual lives.” (http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/religion/2008/01/25/a-warm-protestant-welcome-for-mary.html). I pray that this may be true.
