January 19, 2006

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now, with today's topic, here is
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James White. Good afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line.
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Not sure we'll be taking any calls today. In fact, as far as people in general are telling us, we're not even on the air yet, but hey, we're going to keep trying and hope that maybe the archive will work or something.
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I don't know. We can only do what we can do. I've given up attempting to figure out when it's going to work and when it's not anymore, to be perfectly honest with you.
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Anyway, started getting some emails last night and another one this morning that explained what in the world was going on.
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So today, it's a whole lot easier to respond to something like this in a forum like this where I can speak my response than to take all the time to do all the cutting and pasting and put all the material together that is required to provide a response.
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So I'm going to respond to something here at the beginning of The Dividing Line. Hopefully, it will be useful to a wider audience.
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Then I, instead of continuing with the Airmen material and things like that, what I wanted to do today was to provide you with a contrast between how we approach apologetics and how
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Catholic Answers does. So I'm going to try to sneak all this in as quickly as I possibly can today.
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I might skip the break and we will see how it's going as far as what I'm being told.
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We're getting two conflicting stories. We think we're streaming and the rest of the world thinks we're not. So there's a little alien on a little spaceship someplace that's listening to us.
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But other than that, there's nothing going on, I guess. But anyhow, we're just going to do what we can try to do and record it and go from there.
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Best we can do. Someday, we'll have a real ISP and we'll be able to do this without all the fun stuff at the beginning.
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Anyway, I was asked a question, an email last night that didn't make any sense to me at all.
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I knew there had to be something else going on. Wasn't given enough context to know what was going on. And this morning, Jeff Downs sent me some material that gave me the context of the question
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I had been asked in the evening hours. There is a
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Jehovah's Witness apologist by the name of George Kaplan who posted a post article something on a
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Yahoo group. And in it, there is a quotation from Isaiah 44 -24.
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And then he makes a comment. He says, some Trinitarians, and there's a reference there to me,
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I'll read that in a moment. He says, some Trinitarians say that the word alone in this verse teaches that Jehovah had no company, that no one was present with God when he created the heavens and the earth.
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Therefore, since the Father created all things through Christ, 1 Corinthians 8 -6, John 1 -3, Hebrews 1 -2, they conclude that this is evidence that Jesus is
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Jehovah. This would therefore make Jehovah a reference to the triune being that Trinitarians worship.
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Another more reasonable view holds the context and grammar of Isaiah 44 -24 does not require that Jehovah is alone in the sense of without companion.
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Then there is a footnote that is connected there. It says, Yahweh alone stretched out the heavens.
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He needed no help, had no company. He alone spread out the earth, James White, after quoting Isaiah 44 -24.
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And then it gives a reference to a very old paper, I think it's still a very useful paper, one
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I certainly stand by, that I wrote in seminary on Isaiah chapters 40 -45, basically.
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And that's still on our website, it's just Isaiah 40 -45 .html at AOMN .org.
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You can find it fairly easily off of the main index there. And then he says, in the
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Jehovah's Witness view, this means the first angel was present with God when the heavens and earth were created. That would be, of course,
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Jesus, i .e. Michael. Contradicting God's testimony above, that he was alone when he stretched out the heavens and that he created the earth by myself.
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That's an odd way of putting it. It almost sounds to me as if there is something being said there that I don't see.
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And I'm only sent this much of it, so I can't give you the rest of it. But it almost sounds like he's admitting that his implicit
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Heno -theism is contradictory to Isaiah chapter 44. But in essence, I was being asked to answer what this man was saying in his use of my citation.
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Looking at the specific text on the website, I did cite from Isaiah chapter 44, verses 24 -26.
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This was toward the end, I'd say at least three quarters of the way through the paper. And so I didn't expand on too much stuff, because by this point we had already established the various terms and categories that are being used by Isaiah to demonstrate the fact there's only one true
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God. And so I said, the intensely personal relationship, and I'm assuming everybody is looking at Isaiah 44 -24, you may not be in a position where you can.
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So let me read verses 24 -26, this is what Yahweh says, So, I commented on this,
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And what I mean by that, of course, is I had been dealing with this in the previous chapters of Isaiah.
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As if repetition will cause our dull minds to fully grasp the significance of it, the holy word again tells us that Yahweh is creator,
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Yahweh made all things. But the Lord goes beyond this to make it so emphatic as to establish the fact forever.
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Yahweh alone stretched out the heavens, he needed no help, had no company. He alone spread out the earth.
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If Yahweh did all this, then where could these other gods live? They would have to partake of the created order themselves and hence to be subject to Yahweh.
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No stone is left unturned in God's quest to express the simple fact that there is no other god anywhere beside him.
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And then I went on from there to discuss the application of this in divine providence, etc. etc.
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Now, when we look at Isaiah 44 -24, and my whole point was then and continues to be to this day, the issue is not, of course, whether the creation of angelic beings precedes the creation of the physical universe or earth, in particular, in some sort of ordo creatio.
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As soon as I saw the first email last night, I immediately thought, you know, given who sent this, this must be some question about Jehovah's Witnesses trying to do something with this text.
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And, of course, I ended up being correct about that. And they like to try to create all sorts of scenarios in regards to the order of creation, and what was made first, and try to fit certain passages into this element of creation or that element of creation.
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There is no ordo creatio being discussed in Isaiah chapter 44.
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That's not the point. That's not even the issue here. And I, as you just heard me read it, did not even make the application that is implicitly attributed to me by the
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Jehovah's Witness, George Kaplan, in his citation. That's not what the text is about.
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It's not talking about, well, what did he create first, and does he create angels first, and then the physical creation.
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So there are angels there, so he's not alone. The point of the trial of the false gods from Isaiah 40 -48 is the same thing.
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The point is that God and God alone is the creator of all things.
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And remember, and this is what is missing in a lot of background information for a lot of people looking at the text today, and we'll see how this applies in just a moment as well in another context, and that is, what was the apologetic need of God's people at this particular point in time?
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What were the religions around Israel like? What were they saying? Well, if you look at the religions around Israel, you discover that the issue of creation was a real problem for them because they all had local gods, and so they could not have a god that was sufficient in and of himself to ground creation in.
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They did not have a god that was big enough, in essence, to explain the existence of creation.
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And so they were dealing apologetically with people who would believe that creation was something that one god split another god in half and creation came out of the split body, and these kinds of myths and legends and things like that.
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And monotheism sounds very, very odd in that type of a context, and has to survive certain attacks upon its character.
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And so the point is, Yahweh is Yotzer. He is creator.
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He is the one who has made all things. It wasn't that there was anything unusual about someone saying that a god would create things.
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The point was that when you had gods that were only gods within a particular geographical area, the idea that they created all things was absolutely amazing.
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It was a tremendous assertion. And this is what God is proving in trying these idols and in demonstrating that they're false gods, is, look, you didn't even create all things.
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You don't have knowledge of the future. You don't have knowledge of the past and why things took place. You, by that, demonstrate that you're not true gods.
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So the point of Isaiah is the solitariness of Yahweh as creator, as Yotzer.
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Creation is a unique divine capacity. This is a statement of absolute monotheism.
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It is the ground of God's knowledge of future events and purpose in past events.
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Remember, that's one of the big problems with open theism. That's why I say open theists worship a false god.
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They worship an idol, is because one of the arguments that God makes in the trial of false gods in Isaiah 40 -48 is that idols cannot tell you what's going to happen in the future.
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Neither can the God of open theists. Therefore, he becomes the same kind of idol that Isaiah warned us against long, long, long ago.
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It's amazing how things keep coming back, unfortunately. This becomes the ground, the fact that God is the creator of all things becomes the ground of his knowledge of future events and the fact that he even challenges the idols, tell us what happened in the past and why it happened.
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A bunch of you evangelicals who have non -reformed views of God's knowledge, you have a problem with that one. It's also the foundation of the certainty of his promises to Israel and indeed to all who follow him in faith this very day.
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And so it's a vitally important assertion, but it's not addressing the issue that is being raised here as to some order of creation as to whether, well, did he create angels first and so then there were other things.
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No, there's no other gods. There are no other creators. He is alone as creator.
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That's the point and to try to ask the text to address other issues is a classic example in eisegesis.
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Now, is this text relevant to the Trinity? Well, I would certainly think that it is. I've used this text many, many times, for example, with Mormons to demonstrate that their polytheism is contradicted by Isaiah 44 -24 because in Mormonism you have
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Elohim sending down Jehovah and Michael to organize the earth. Well, that doesn't fit with Isaiah 44 -24.
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It simply doesn't make any sense in that context. But leaving that form of polytheism aside and looking at the henotheism, that form of polytheism amongst
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Jehovah's Witnesses today, is it still relevant? I think that it is. I would not attempt to make the proof that was alleged in the footnote, but what
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I would say is what is said of Jesus Christ as creator in the New Testament is simply and totally inconceivable in light of Isaiah 44 -24 and the entire testimony to monotheism found in the
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Old Testament. Unless you're willing to throw that monotheism out and embrace some form of polytheism, henotheism as Greg Stafford and other people like him have in essence done, and then do what you have to do to the text in the
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New Testament to put Jesus on a lower level. Do what you do in Colossians chapter 1.
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Turn the text on its head. Turn something into a part of genitive. Say, Jesus only created all other things.
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And in so doing, hand Paul's entire argument over to his opponents. I'll never forget when Jehovah's Witness apologist by the name of Martin Smart came into our chat channel and wanted to start arguing about that text, and so I asked him to do what anyone should be able to do.
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I said, so tell us about proto -gnosticism and the errors that Paul was responding to that were coming into the church at Colossae.
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But before we start arguing about prototokos and firstborn and part of genitives and things like that in Colossians chapter 1, let's talk about the background.
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Let's see if you've done your homework. And he had no idea what they were all talking about. Well, let's just talk about it. No, no, no, no, no.
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If you're going to interpret this text, then you need to interpret this text in an honest fashion. And if you do so in such a way as to turn it on its head and make
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Paul argue against Paul, make Paul join his opponents and destroy his own apologetic, well, you probably missed something somewhere along the lines, you know?
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And that's what you have to do at Colossians chapter 1. That's what you have to do at Hebrews chapter 1, all these various passages that I've addressed in the
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Forgotten Trinity and books like that and in the debates we've had and things like that. So when you look at the assertions concerning who
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Christ is and his role as creator in the New Testament, and then compare that with Isaiah chapter 44 and the strict monotheism of that, there you go.
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There's the context of what ends up coming out in that, and that's where the connection comes in, and that's where it's relevant to the doctrine of the
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Trinity. So there's my response to the utilization of my words, not completely, you know,
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I think the sentence afterwards probably should have been included just simply to give the full meaning of what I was saying, but there's the response to that, and that way
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I will be able to help those individuals who would like to know what in the world
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I would like to say in that context. Anyway. All right. Oh, 45 minutes.
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Well, we'll see if we can do this here. Some of you noticed on my blog that I mentioned a new book put out by Catholic Answers, the staff of Catholic Answers, called
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The Essential Catholic Survival Guide. It is in essence various articles from This Rock magazine.
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It looks quite beefy, 533 enumerated pages, all sorts of different topics, but as I mentioned on the blog, what is really odd, as I can see it, is the fact
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I don't see growth and development in the apologetics of Catholic Answers.
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I just don't see it. They just keep repeating the same things over and over and over and over again, and I just can't conceive of that.
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I don't understand how that works. I don't understand how someone could not have a desire to improve their presentation in the light of the best that can be put out against it.
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Maybe they just assume there's no one who's responding to them. I don't know. What I'm going to do is attempt to quickly read chapter 14 of this book, an entire chapter for you.
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I want you to listen to this. This is the chapter called Brethren of the Lord, and I'm going to contrast it by playing my opening statement against Jerry Matatick's From Salt Lake City on the subject of the perpetual virginity of Mary, which addresses the exact same issue.
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Remember that this debate took place well before this book came out. There was nothing new in what I was saying that Eric Svensson hadn't said in his books, so this material was available to Catholic Answers.
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If they had but listened, do they respond to any of it? Do they provide any type of compelling response?
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Well, let's find out. Chapter 14, Brethren of the Lord. When Catholics call Mary the Blessed Virgin, they mean she remained a virgin throughout her life.
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When Protestants refer to Mary as a virgin, they mean she was a virgin only until Jesus' birth. They believe that she and Joseph later had children, whom
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Scripture refers to as the Brethren of the Lord. The disagreement arises over biblical verses that use the terms brethren, brother, and sister.
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There are about ten instances in the New Testament where brothers and sisters of the Lord are mentioned, and they are listed here. I don't have time to go through them.
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When trying to understand these verses, know that the term brother, Greek adelphos, has a wide meaning in the Bible.
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It is not restricted to the literal meaning of a full brother or half -brother. The same goes for sister, adelphe, and the plural form brothers, adelphoi.
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The Old Testament shows that the word for brother had a wide semantic range of meaning and could refer to any male relative from whom you are not descended.
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Male relatives from whom you are descended are known as fathers. And who are not descended from you, your male descendants, regardless of the number of generations removed, are your sons.
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As well as kinsmen, such as cousins, those who are members of the family by marriage or by law, rather than by blood, and even friends or mere political allies.
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Lot, for example, is called Abraham's brother, Genesis 14, 14, even though being the son of Aaron, Abraham's brother, he was actually
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Abraham's nephew. Similarly, Jacob is called the brother of his uncle Laban. Kish and Eleazar were the sons of Mali.
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Kish had sons of his own, but Eleazar had no sons, only daughters who married their brethren, the sons of Kish.
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These brethren were really their cousins. The terms for brothers, brother, and sister did not refer only to close relatives.
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Sometimes they meant kinsmen, as in reference to the 42 brethren of King Azariah. Under the subtitle, no word for cousin, because neither
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Hebrew nor Aramaic, the language spoken by Christ and his disciples, had a special word meaning cousin. Speakers of those languages could use either the word for brother or a circumlocution, such as the son of my uncle.
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But circumlocutions are clumsy, so the Jews often used the word for brother. The writers of the New Testament were brought up using the
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Aramaic equivalent of brothers to mean both cousins and sons of the same father, plus other relatives and even non -relatives.
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When they wrote in Greek, they did the same thing the translators of the Septuagint did. The Septuagint was the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible.
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It was translated by Hellenistic Jews a century or two before Christ's birth and was the version of the Bible from which most of the Old Testament quotations found in the
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New Testament are taken. In the Septuagint, the Hebrew word that includes both brothers and cousins was translated as adelphos, which in Greek usually has the narrow meaning that the
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English brother has. Unlike Hebrew or Aramaic, Greek has a separate word for cousin, anepsios, but the translators of the
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Septuagint used adelphos even for true cousins. You might say that they transliterated instead of translated, importing the
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Jewish idiom into the Greek Bible. They took an exact equivalent of the Hebrew word for brother and did not use adelphos in one place for sons of the same parents and anepsios in another for cousins.
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This same usage was employed by the writers of the New Testament and passed into English translations of the Bible. To determine what brethren or brother or sister means in any one verse, we have to look at the context.
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Please note that. When we do that, we see the insuperable problems arise if we assume that Mary had children other than Jesus.
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When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that she would conceive a son, she asked, how can this be since I have no husband,
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Luke 134. From the church's earliest days, as the fathers interpreted this Bible passage,
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Mary's question was taken to mean that she had made a vow of lifelong virginity even in marriage. I just note there are no references here because that's simply not true.
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But anyways, this was not common, but neither was it unheard of. If she had not taken such a vow, the question would make no sense.
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Mary knew how babies were made, otherwise she wouldn't have asked the questions she did. If she had anticipated having children in the normal way and did not intend to maintain a vow of virginity, she would hardly have to ask how she was to have a child since conceiving a child in the normal way would be expected by a newlywed wife.
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Her question would make sense only if there was an apparent but not a real conflict between keeping a vow of virginity and accepting and exceeding the angel's request.
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A careful look at the New Testament shows that Mary kept her vow of virginity and never had any other children other than Jesus. When Jesus was found in the temple at age 12, the context suggests he was the only son of Mary and Joseph.
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There is no hint in this episode of any other children in the family. Jesus grew up in Nazareth, and the people of Nazareth referred to him as the son of Mary, not a son of Mary.
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In fact, others in the Gospels are never referred to as Mary's sons, not even when they are called Jesus' brethren. If they were in fact her sons, this would be strange usage.
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Also, the attitude taken by the brethren of the Lord implies that they are his elders. In ancient and particularly in Eastern societies, remember
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Palestine is in Asia, older sons gave advice to younger, but younger seldom gave advice to older. It was considered disrespectful to do so, but we find
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Jesus' brethren saying to him in Galilee that Galilee has no place for him and that he should go to Judea so he could make a name for himself,
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John 7, 3 -4. Another time, they sought to restrain him for his own benefit, and when his family heard it, they went to seize him, for people were saying he is beside himself,
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Mark 3, 21. This kind of behavior could make sense for ancient Jews only if the brethren were older than Jesus, but that alone eliminates them as his biological brothers since Jesus was
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Mary's firstborn son. Consider what happened to the foot of the cross. When he was dying, Jesus entrusted his mother to the apostle
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John. The Gospels mention four of his brethren, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. It is hard to imagine why Jesus would have disregarded family ties and made this provision for his mother if these four were also her sons.
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Under Fundamentalist Arguments Fundamentalists insist that brethren of the Lord must be interpreted in the strict sense.
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They most commonly make two arguments based on Matthew 1, 25. And he did not know her until Greek heos, also translated into English as till, she brought forth her firstborn son.
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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.
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Otherwise, why would Jesus be called firstborn? Doesn't that mean there must have been at least a secondborn, perhaps a thirdborn, and so on?
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But they are using a narrow modern meaning of until instead of the meaning that it had when the
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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.
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In fact, if the modern sense is forced in the Bible, some ridiculous meanings result. Consider this line,
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Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no children until the day of her death. 2 Samuel 6, 23. Are we to assume she had children after her death?
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By the way, just quickly, this again, I heard them using this argumentation in the late 1980s.
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Most of you already know the tremendous amount of work that Eric Svensson has done on this. Not a single reference to it.
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Not even an attempt to even try to respond to it. Just keep repeating what you said 25 years ago and hope no one notices that you're way out of line.
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Anyways, continuing here because I've still got three pages to read and it's already 424, so we may go a little bit long.
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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, but we know that no one has known since that day either.
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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. I just note in passing not any of those were who, but hey, you know,
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I've actually kept up with what's going on and evidently Catholic Answers doesn't. Recent translations give a better sense of the verse.
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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.
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Knox. Yeah, those are real good translations. Fundamentalists claim Jesus could not be Mary's firstborn unless there were other children that followed him, but this shows ignorance the way the ancient
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Jews used the term. For them, it meant the child that opened the womb. Under the Mosaic Law, it was the firstborn son that was to be sanctified.
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Did this mean that the parents had to wait until a second son was born before they could call their first the firstborn? Hardly. The first male child of a marriage was termed the firstborn even if he turned out to be the only child of the marriage.
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There's no question about that, and of course no one seriously is using that argument anyhow. Under the
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Holy Family, fundamentalists say it would have been repugnant for Mary and Joseph to enter a marriage and remain celibate.
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They call such marriages unnatural arrangements. Certainly they were unusual, but not as unusual as having the Son of God in one's family and not nearly as unusual as having a virgin give birth to a child.
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The Holy Family was not an average family, nor should we expect its members to act as members of an average family would. The circumstances demanded sacrifice by Mary and Joseph.
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If this was a special family set aside for the nurturing of the Son of God, no greater dignity could be given to marriage than that.
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Backing up the testimony of Scripture regarding Mary's perpetual virginity is the testimony of the early Christian Church. Consider the controversy between Jerome and Helvidius writing around 380, so we're talking 350 years after the
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Christ event. Helvidius first brought up the notion that brothers of the Lord were children born to Mary and Joseph after Jesus' birth.
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I think they're trying to actually assert there that that was the first person who had ever thought of this, which is sort of silly, but anyway.
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The great Scripture scholar Jerome at first declined to comment on Helvidius' remarks because they were a novel wicked and a daring affront to the faith of the whole world.
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At length, though, Jerome's friends convinced him to write a reply, which turned out to be his trius called On the Perpetual Virginity of the
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Blessed Mary. He used not only the scriptural arguments given above, but earlier Christian writings such as Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, and Justin Martyr.
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Helvidius was unable to come up with a reply, and his theory remained in disrepute and was unheard of until recent times. So if it is established that the brother and the
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Lord were not Jesus' brothers or half -brothers through Mary, who were they? Prior to the time of Jerome, the standard theory was that they were
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Jesus' brothers who were sons of Joseph, though not of Mary. According to this view, Joseph was a widower at the time he married Mary.
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He had children from his first marriage who would be older than Jesus, explaining their attitude toward him. This is mentioned in a number of early
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Christian writings. One work known as the Protevangelium of James, A .D. 125, records that Joseph was selected from a group of widowers to serve as the husband and protector of Mary, who was a virgin consecrated to God.
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When he was chosen, Joseph objected, And she is a young girl. By the way, that's a proto -Gnostic work, but hey, just because everything
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Rome teaches about Mary came from the Gnostics, we shouldn't really mention that in passing. Anyway, today the most commonly accepted view is that they were
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Jesus' cousins. Of the four brethren who are named in the Gospels, conserved for the sake of argument, only James. Similar reasoning can be used for the three.
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We know that James, the younger's mother, was named Mary. Look at the descriptions of the women standing beneath the cross.
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There were also many women there, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.
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There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James, the younger, and of Joseph and Salome, Mark 15, 40.
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Then look at what John says. I'm going to skip this because I actually get into it in the presentation.
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So it's probable that James, the younger, is the son of Mary and Clopas. The 2nd century historian Hegesippus explains that Clopas was the brother of Joseph, the foster father of Jesus.
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James would thus be Joseph's nephew and a cousin of Jesus, who was Joseph's putative son. This identification of the brethren of the
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Lord as Jesus' first cousins is open to legitimate question. They might even be relatives more distantly removed.
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But our inability to determine for certain their exact status strictly on the basis of the biblical evidence, or a lack of it in this case, notice the assertion here, lack of biblical evidence, says nothing at all about the main point, which is that the
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Bible demonstrates that they were not the Blessed Virgin Mary's children. Now, if you missed where the
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Bible demonstrated that, don't feel badly. So did I. So, there's the presentation.
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Now, again, nothing new there. This book just came out.
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Here's an opportunity for Catholic Answers, the leading Roman Catholic apologetics organization in the
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United States, to give the death blow to all the arguments that have been presented by Eric Svensson and myself and Bill Webster.
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It doesn't even sound like they know about them. They don't care. It's like, hey, you know, the people are sending us money.
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They're happy with what we're doing. We're just going to stick with what works. And I don't understand that.
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I can't even begin to conceive that. So, there's their presentation. There's the chapter from the
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Essential Catholic Survival Guide. Let's contrast that now. By the way, ye of the stuff on the other side of the wall here, for some reason, even though I took this right off of what we made the
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CD on, it sounds to me really, really, really, really, really loud. It sounds almost distorted in how it sounds.
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So be prepared to crank her down over there. Let's listen to,
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I believe I had about 25 minutes. Maybe we'll just sneak it in here.
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My opening presentation, this was from a couple years ago in Salt Lake City, between myself and Jerry Matitix on the subject of the
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Immaculate Conception. Not the Immaculate Conception, the Perpetual. I didn't even get it right. The Perpetual Virginity of Mary, discussing the issue of Adolphos, Adolphe, the natural use of language, et cetera, et cetera.
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Again, this all information available prior to the production of this book. Let's see how much of it the book actually attempted to respond to.
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Thank you very much for being here this evening. For many who are unfamiliar with the dogmatic teachings of the
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Roman Catholic Church, our debate this evening may seem like a complete waste of valuable time.
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Why not debate the Gospel, something really important? But it is the Gospel that brings me here this evening, for the
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Gospel is communicated to us in God's perfect word, the Scriptures. The Gospel is perverted when the supremacy of the
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Bible as the sole infallible rule of faith is denied. And I believe this is what Rome does.
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In this debate we will see what happens when the rightful supremacy of the Scriptures is replaced with the ultimate authority of the
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Bishop of Rome. You see, my opponent this evening has said in open debate in the past that another of the
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Marian dogmas, one with even less historical or biblical defense, that is the bodily assumption of Mary, is part of the
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Gospel of Jesus Christ itself. If he is consistent, he will likewise confess that the dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary is likewise a de fide dogma, a part of the
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Gospel. And so we are, in effect, discussing the Gospel this evening, for by demonstrating what happens when you deny sola scriptura, we will be continuing the ongoing and necessary work of vindicating the true source of the
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Gospel against those who seek to pervert it. Since we may have a number of people with us this evening who are neither
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Catholic nor Protestant, allow me to briefly note the center of the conflict. The vast majority of conservative evangelicals believe the
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Blessed Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ was a virgin when she conceived, carried, and delivered the child
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Jesus. By this we mean no human agency was involved in the conception of Christ.
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Here, all sides this evening agree in denying the consistent teaching of the general authorities of the
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LDS Church wherein they teach that Christ was immortal because he had an immortal father, Elohim, who begat
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Christ in the way we were begotten by our mortal fathers. But after the birth of Christ, we
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Protestants believe Mary, as the wife of Joseph, lived in the proper, godly relationship of man and wife with Joseph and begat other sons and daughters who are specifically named in the text of Scripture.
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We reject as a leftover of ancient Gnosticism the idea that Mary would in some fashion be defiled by being the true and proper wife of Joseph and by bearing other children.
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The Scriptures do not view having children as dirty or defiling and indeed, as Scripture says, the marriage bed is undefiled.
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Rome, on the other hand, has defined as a dogma of the faith the concept of the perpetual virginity of Mary.
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This not only affirms that Mary was a virgin at the time of the conception but that she ever remained a virgin, never entering into the normal marital relationship that one would expect given the common, natural meaning of the language of Scripture regarding her relationship with Joseph.
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Not only did Mary never have relations with Joseph and hence had no children after the birth of Jesus, but Rome has gone so far as to assert that Mary did not even lose her physical virginal integrity in the birth of Jesus.
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I quote from the Universal Catholic Catechism which says, The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the
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Church to confess Mary's real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man.
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In fact, Christ's birth did not diminish his mother's virginal integrity but sanctified it and so the liturgy of the
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Church celebrates Mary as Iparthenos, the ever virgin, end quote. This concept was first enunciated as with so much of the
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Marian mythology made doctrine not in Christian documents, but in the early Gnostic writings such as the
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Ascension of Isaiah, the Odes of Solomon, and the Protevangelium of James. And so our debate this evening boils down to this.
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One side will present the testimony of the Scriptures wherein the natural meaning of words will be the basis of the position held.
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The other side will be forced, due to the fact that it does not hold the Bible in the position of supreme authority, but instead holds to sola ecclesia, the ultimacy of the
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Church of Rome, to constantly seek the most unusual yet hopefully plausible meaning of words and phrases so as to protect the teaching nowhere found in Scripture itself.
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Indeed, if time allows, we may hear it said this evening that the Bible does teach the doctrine in reference made to Ezekiel's vision of an unopened door in the temple, applying this to Mary, etc.,
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etc. Indeed, past generations have come up with a tremendous number of allegorical proofs of any number of unbiblical teachings.
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But you, the audience, will have to judge this evening who is forced to constantly argue that the regular meaning of a word does not have to mean that, but it may mean this or that.
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Who argues from hopeful probabilities and who argues from the natural, historic, contextual, exegetically sound meaning of the inspired text itself?
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It is not difficult at all to summarize the Bible's teaching on the question did Mary have children after the birth of Jesus?
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The simplicity of this truth was illustrated brilliantly in a previous debate between my opponent and my colleague,
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Dr. Eric Svensson. Dr. Svensson asked Mr. Matitix, did Peter's mother -in -law have a daughter?
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The question is brilliant because it sweeps away the smoke and dust often associated with the argument and goes to the real issue, do words carry meaning?
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It is obvious Peter's mother -in -law had a daughter since that is what makes Peter's mother -in -law his mother -in -law.
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Peter married that daughter. Now, if Rome had come up with the idea that every pope they claim has sat upon the chair of Peter was in fact celibate and unmarried, we might well hear about how the term mother -in -law does not have to mean that Peter was married.
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We might hear about how it might mean near kin's woman, maybe the mother of a cousin, and we would find ancient literature being ransacked looking for any possible parallel or usage to defend
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Rome's teaching. But since Rome has not made such a definition, the basic contextual meaning of the term is allowed to stand.
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We do not need to have Peter's wife named. We do not have to have it spelled out in painful detail that Peter married this woman's naturally born daughter.
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The phrase mother -in -law communicates meaning sufficiently, just as brother and sister do.
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And yet my opponent this evening has more than once demanded just this level of explicit testimony regarding Jesus' brothers and sisters.
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He has directly demanded the explicit appearance of phrases such as Mary had other children, Mary's sons,
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Mary's daughters. The inconsistency will become all the more clear as the debate progresses.
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Following the canonical order primarily, the compilation of the relevant text from the New Testament regarding the brothers and sisters of Christ reads as follows.
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Matthew 12. While he was still speaking to the crowds, behold, his mother and brothers were standing outside seeking to speak to him.
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Someone said to him, Behold, your mother and your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to you. But Jesus answered the one who was telling him and said,
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Who is my mother and who are my brothers? And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, Behold, my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of my
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Father who is in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother. Matthew 13.
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Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?
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And his sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?
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John 2. After this, he went down to Capernaum, he and his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there a few days.
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John 7. Therefore, his brothers said to him, Leave here and go into Judea, so that your disciples also may see your works, which you are doing.
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For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.
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For not even his brothers were believing in him. Acts 1.
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These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer along with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.
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1 Corinthians 9. Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the
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Lord and Cephas? And finally, Galatians 1. But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the
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Lord's brother. Now, let us consider the evidence that points conclusively to the fact that we should understand these words in their normative usage.
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First, many of the passages cited would be reduced to near absurdity if we read
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Adolphos, brother, as meaning anything other than its normative definition. For example, when
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Mary and his brothers stood outside seeking to contact Jesus, are we truly to believe that the crowd meant your mother and cousins or close kinsmen are outside?
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To which Jesus replied, who is my mother and who are my cousins or stepbrothers? The ones who do the will of God are my cousins?
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Or should we seriously consider that when Jesus' brothers were taunting him to go up to the feast publicly that we are reading the text correctly and in light of the author's original intention, when we read those sad words for even his brothers did not believe in him and retranslate that due to our traditions into for even his cousins or kinsmen did not believe in him?
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Surely not. Secondly, the simple meaning of Adolphos and its feminine form,
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Adolphe, is brother and sister. The term was used in the Greek translation of the
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Old Testament in a wide variety of ways and could in fact be used of kinsfolk and cousins if the context indicated it to be so.
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But the New Testament well knows the specific terms for cousin and kinsperson and uses them sometimes even in the context where Adolphos appears, making the differentiation complete.
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As Fenson noted regarding this quote, unlike its counterpart in the Greek Septuagint, there are no instances of Adolphos in the
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New Testament that bear the meaning relatives, except of course for the references to biological siblings.
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Indeed, Adolphos is often found in passages where relatives, in the broad sense, are clearly distinguished from immediate siblings.
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In Luke 14 .12 we read, When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, or your rich neighbors.
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The word relatives, sunganese here, denotes a different class of people than brothers, friends, and neighbors.
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Similarly in Luke 21 .16, you will be betrayed by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends.
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Here again the word relatives, sunganese, denotes a different class than brothers and the two are no more interchangeable than our parents and brothers.
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End quote. I will challenge Mr. Mattox this evening to show us where in the New Testament Adolphos is used in a parallel fashion to the meaning that he is not just suggesting, not just saying is a possibility, but is saying is a dogmatic, absolute de fide necessity.
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Remember, Mr. Mattox is not saying it might not be that Mary had other children, but that absolutely, positively, with the same level of confidence we know
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Christ rose from the dead. Brother doesn't mean brother in these passages.
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Surely he can then show us passages outside the very ones in dispute where Adolphos is used in the way he suggests, but has no demands by the authors of the
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New Testament itself. Thirdly, we note that if the men found in the text of Scripture accompanying
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Mary about Galilee are not her sons, but bear some more distant relationship to her, the entire scene becomes very strange.
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Why would Mary be traveling about in the company of a group of unbelieving cousins or kinsmen? Who would ever read these passages in the way
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Rome demands we read them were they simply to take the text at face value? Fourthly, it is relevant to note that Luke, who uses
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Adolphos of the brothers of Jesus elsewhere, makes a distinction when speaking of Joseph as the father of Jesus.
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He says Joseph was, as it was supposed, the father of Jesus, Luke 3 .23.
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If Luke, the careful historian and doctor, made clear the meaning of father in regards to Joseph, so that his readers would not run the risk of confusion, why would he not likewise say the brothers, as it was supposed, of Jesus, or more so, use a more specific term, such as cousin or kinsperson?
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Again, Rome's ultimate authority clashes with the text itself. Now, aside from these direct statements, there are three other passages that are very relevant to our discussion this evening.
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The first is Luke 2 .7, and she gave birth to her firstborn son and she wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.
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There is no question that the Greek term prototokos, firstborn, is used in the
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New Testament of Christ with reference to his preeminence over all things. I have argued this very point in my writings in defense of the
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Trinity and specifically in defense of the deity of Christ. This is the proper usage in Colossians 1 .15,
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for example. But taking all of scripture together and laying the plain references to brothers and sisters in the text and the natural meaning that would be attached to prototokos in the context of giving birth, the more natural meaning here is the normative one found in narratives of birth.
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Jesus was Mary's firstborn. The Roman Catholic has to assume that here prototokos is identical in meaning with monogamous, only begotten, a term that was fully known to Luke since he used it in Luke 7 .12,
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but he chose not to use it here. Again, the natural contextual reading is easily understood, while Rome must not merely suggest a different meaning, but demand it.
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You cannot take prototokos in its natural meaning in this passage. According to Rome, you must take it otherwise.
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Keep this in mind when evaluating the evidence this evening. The same is true of Matthew 1 .25,
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which reads, But Joseph kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus. Catholic apologists for a number of years now have quickly pointed out that the word until, in the phrase until she gave birth, does not say anything about what came after the event.
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Mr. Matitix has traveled across the country speaking on this subject, each time making references to Michal, Saul's daughter, who did not have a child, 2
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Samuel 6 .23 tells us, until the day of her death. The term there in the
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Greek Septuagint is haos, one of the same terms used in Matthew 1 .25, and so we have been assured that since Michal obviously did not start having children after she died, so too
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Mary did not have to have children as a result of the use of the same term in Matthew's Gospel. And for most of the people,
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Mr. Matitix challenges to debate this subject. Pastors and other non -scholars or apologists, such a response has been enough.
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However, a number of years ago, Eric Svensson began studying not the single term haos, but the phrase it actually appears in there in Matthew 1 .25,
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haos who? He had studied under the eminent New Testament scholar D .A. Carson and had learned that language is not to be limited to mere singular words, but meaning is often communicated through syntax and phraseology.
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He recognized that there are other phrases, such as akriu, that has a distinctive meaning as a phrase that its constituent parts do not indicate alone.
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And so in the same way, men like Granville Sharp have enriched our knowledge of the Greek language in the past by studying usages across the breadth and length of the original text.
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Svensson began studying haos who? The results of his study have been published in his book Who is
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My Mother? To boil it all down, I will be asking Mr. Matitix to provide examples of the phrase haos who that would coincide with the meaning that, again
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I remind you, he must find in this passage, first in Matthew, then the
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Gospels, then the New Testament as a whole. When challenged on this point in the past, Mr. Matitix has claimed that many
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New Testament scholars disagree with these findings. In fact, my opponent has, what he's done in the past, has been to cite scholars who had never examined the data regarding haos who and who wrote long before the information was available and has asserted that they disagree with those results, such is obviously not the case.
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He has likewise asserted that no lexicon gives that meaning, seemingly hoping that his audiences do not know how lexicons are arranged, nor the fact that each new edition of scholarly works does, in fact, include new and expanded meanings based upon exactly this kind of research.
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Here again we encounter the conflict between the fair and balanced study of the text of Scripture and the dogmas of Rome.
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The exegesis of Scripture takes the combined testimony of all of the relevant passages, studies the lexical meanings of words and phrases, and concludes that it is highly likely that haos who here indicates a situation where the change, where the action continues to a particular point and upon completion, the prevailing condition is changed.
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In this case, Joseph did not engage in marital relations with Mary until she gave birth to Jesus, but as would be expected thereafter, he then took
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Mary as his wife. The normal course of marriage was interrupted only for a season and only for a reason.
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This constant conflict between dogma and the plain, natural meaning of words and texts continues when we consider
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Matthew 1 .18, where we read, Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows, when his mother
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Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the
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Holy Spirit. The natural meaning is again clear. The phrase, before they came together, is defined by Lola Nida as before they had sexual intercourse, she was found to be pregnant.
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The current scholarly standard, BDAG, has to unite in an intimate relationship, come together in a sexual context, again, just as Lola Nida, with direct reference to Matthew 1 .18.
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Now, the term that is used is actually a rather plain word, sunerchimi, which can mean to gather together in any number of contexts.
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But context determines usage. And obviously in Matthew 1 .18, the two phrases must be viewed in light of each other.
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What kind of coming together is relevant to the phrase, she was found to be with child by the
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Holy Spirit? The answer is obvious to those who allow the text to speak for itself, but the faith of Roman Catholic cannot allow the text to speak for itself, since the text is not his ultimate authority.
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Rome has said Mary had no children and was perpetually a virgin. So what does Matthew 1 .18 mean?
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It means before they came together in a platonic, protectorate -style relationship. Mr. Matitix, drawing from a unique and unusual interpretation of Mary's words to the angel, asserts that she had taken a lifelong vow of virginity, a rare enough thing in Jewish culture to begin with.
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Hence, Joseph, an older man, was simply arranging to protect her, not to actually live with her as her husband.
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So all Matthew is saying is that before they began this living arrangement, she was found to be with child by the
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Holy Spirit. Of course, not only does that assume a lot of things that cannot be proven, but it likewise turns the text on its head.
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Who cares if they had or had not begun this protectorate -type living situation since it was never intended to result in sexual union in the first place.
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The only meaningful reason to note that she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit before they came together is if coming together has its plain, normal meaning, that of coming together as husband and wife.
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Do I need to say again that Rome does not merely suggest that it might be better to take Suneir Kamiah's came together in a protectorate -style relationship, a meaning not attested in the very lexical sources to which
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I referred before in Matthew 1 .18, but that Rome insists dogmatically with the force of the anathema that Suneir Kamiah cannot mean what it normally and naturally would mean in this context.
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It is also often argued that if Mary had sons other than Jesus, then Jesus was in essence violating the law by committing
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Mary to the care of John at the foot of the cross in John 19, verses 26 -27. But the answer to this is not far to be found.
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Not only is John the disciple whom Jesus loved, but at this crisis point at the foot of the cross,
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Jesus' brothers were as yet unbelievers. Obviously, since the Lord himself had taught that those who do the will of God are his brothers and sisters, then it follows that Jesus was indeed committing his mother to his closest brother, a believer, and the action is easily understood in this light.
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Now, like a drumbeat, you will hear Roman Catholic apologists claiming that such and such a belief has been the teaching of the church for 2 ,000 years, and the perpetual virginity of Mary is no exception.
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Early Christian writers of various abilities and levels of knowledge, while clearly affirming the virgin birth of Christ, did not speak of this later concept as part of the gospel.
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Indeed, one such writer, Tertullian, spoke of Mary's other children with an ease that demonstrates it was not, at the time, a point of contention or argument.
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Now, Tertullian became a Montanist, and so his testimony is often dismissed without ever explaining to us why it is that he could make the statements he did, and no one even batted an eyebrow.
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More importantly, Basil of Caesarea, a well -known, widely respected bishop in the church, writing much later, said that the opinion that Mary had other children quote, does not run counter to faith, for virginity was imposed on Mary as a necessity only up to the time that she served as an instrument of the
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Incarnation, while, on the other hand, her subsequent virginity had no great importance with regard to the mystery of the
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Incarnation, end quote. As Roman Catholic mariologist Father Juniper Carroll has noted, quote, it is evident from this discourse that in a region of the
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Greek world apparently Asia Minor, an important churchman, without any doubt, the Archbishop of Caesarea, Saint Basil, did not hold the perpetual virginity of Mary as a dogmatic truth, nor did his metropolitan churches, end quote.
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One truly wonders how Saint Basil managed to become a saint without believing de fide, in a dogma that is now required of one by Rome.
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It has likewise sometimes been argued that the fact that Mary is referred to as the Virgin Mary by ancient Christian writers shows they likewise believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary.
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The illustration of a bachelor uncle has been used. If one had an uncle who remained unmarried for a long period and hence was known as the bachelor uncle, you would not continue to call him that after he married.
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Hence, why call Mary the Virgin if after the birth of Jesus she ceased to be a virgin? This claim illustrates something very important about Roman Catholic teaching, that being the modern tendency to define
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Mary apart from the Biblical role given to her as the Mother of Jesus. The phrase Mother of God was originally a
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Christological title. That is, it said something primarily about Jesus, not about Mary. The same is true of Virgin Mary.
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This speaks to the fact of Mary's condition as the Mother of the Lord. He was virgin born.
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It says nothing concerning Mary after her role of giving birth to Christ. I note in passing that this is the exact position made in the citation above by St.
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Basil of Caesarea. Finally, Mr. Matzik has insisted that the only reason the
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Roman Catholic Church teaches the perpetual virginity of Mary is because quote, it is a historical fact, end quote.
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He claims that it is as much a fact as God's creation. The parting of the Red Sea, the incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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Consider for just a moment what this means. A belief that stands inalterably opposed to the plain reading of the text that is never once enunciated as a part of Christian teaching in the inspired scriptures is not only, according to Roman Catholic teaching, a fact of history, but it is as clear a fact as that of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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How can someone make such an incredible claim? The answer is simple. Sola Ecclesia, the ultimate authority of Rome.
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To believe the perpetual virginity of Mary is to believe in something utterly absent from the inspired text, and the only person who will believe it is the person who has rejected
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Paul's exhortation to Timothy that the scriptures are sufficient to equip the man of God for every good work, which would include teaching and preaching what is necessary to the people of God.
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The Bible does not teach this doctrine. It contradicts this doctrine in the plainest of terms.
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If you stand on God's inspired revelation, you have but one decision to make this evening in this matter, belief in God's truth in scripture or embracing the traditions of men.
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Thank you very much. Well, there's the presentation. I believe
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I had 25 minutes there. I think we pretty much covered everything.
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We debunked the historical stuff. Pretty much none of those citations
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I've ever seen dealt with by Catholic Answers as far as Basil and the others.
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The John 7 material demonstrated where the problem was there. The only thing I didn't address was, well, they would have been disrespectful to Jesus had they been younger than him.
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But, of course, that's the whole point of John 7 is they are being disrespectful. They are not believing him.
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They are speaking in mockery. That's why it says, for even his own brothers did not believe in him.
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Which would, of course, make the whole idea of for even his own distant cousins who are unbelievers and running around with Mary all around.
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You know, they don't have jobs, evidently. They just run around as a group with Mary. I mean, I'm sorry, but it is just so obvious when you step back and look at the text, what it is that it's saying, what it is that the language means, and it's only the centuries and centuries and centuries of this promulgation of an unbiblical tradition repeated over and over and over again that allows people to miss what's obvious, to miss what's right there in front of them.
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So the question is, nothing I just said in that opening statement was not available to Jimmy Akin and Carl Keating and Tim Staples especially, who's been putting out
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CDs on Mary, and I guess he's supposed to have a book coming out on Mary, all the rest of the stuff. None of this is, we're not hiding this anywhere.
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We make these MP3s available. You know, I go on the Catholic Answers website and I download
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Catholic Answers materials and listen to them and play stuff here and respond to it, and have you ever heard, you think that opening statement would ever appear on Catholic Answers?
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I don't think so either. There's a real difference in how we approach these things.
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And if they come up with new argumentation, you know what? We'll take a look at it. Eric Svensson will take a look at it.
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Bill Webster will take a look at it. And boom, we will respond to it.
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And if it's a really good argument, then in the future, we will include that whenever we're addressing whatever it was on,
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Matthew 125, we will then add that in. If you look at, for example, look at the
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Forgotten Trinity and how I respond to various elements of Greg Stafford's argumentation to things like that to improve my own, to make it fuller and to prepare people to better deal with the best there is out there.
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That's how you do meaningful apologetics. Only, only, if you really believe that what you believe is true.
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That's why I just don't understand how Catholic answers can keep cranking out stuff that's been refuted over and over and over again with a smile on their faces going, here it is, folks.
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I just don't understand it. Well, I hope that gives you a good enough contrast just to give you a really good idea of what's going on there.
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We will continue with Bart Ehrman and Ahmed Didat. And I was listening to Jamal Badawi today. And man,
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I can't believe these people on John 2028. Just amazing stuff. We'll be back on The Dividing Line. Lots more to do.
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God bless. We need to do
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59:46
World Wide Web at aomin .org. That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G. Where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.