Was The Holy Spirit Mary's Husband?

User avatar
darinhouston
Posts: 3112
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2008 7:45 am

Re: Was The Holy Spirit Mary's Husband?

Post by darinhouston » Sat Nov 15, 2008 5:52 pm

karenstricycle wrote: What about Mark 6:3 ?
(RSV) Mark 6:3 "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him."
I agree with you (and Mark 6:3). The RC's tend to have the following response ...
excerpt from http://www.globalserve.net/~bumblebee/ecclesia/brothers.htm wrote:First, note that James, Joses, Juda, and Simon are called the brothers of Jesus, not the sons of Mary. No one in the Bible, besides Jesus, is ever called a natural son of Mary. So this verse doesn't show, at all, that Mary didn't remain a virgin - the "brothers" of Jesus could have been his cousins (as I'll be arguing below), or they could have been His brothers by adoption (that is, they could have been adopted by Joseph and Mary), or they could have been Jesus' half-brothers (for instance, if Joseph were a widower and had fathered those children with his previous wife). All of these cases are possible and are in complete harmony with the above Biblical verse.

An explanation of how the word "brother" is used in the Bible.

In the Bible, the term "brother" is used in a more general sense than is common today; it would be better translated as "kinsman" or "relative". There are several Biblical examples of this. The reason for this is that Hebrew didn't have a word for "cousin", so the word "brother" was used to include cousins. The people who wrote the Bible were of Jewish culture and were accustomed to this usage, and so they applied it when writing in other languages as well, such as Greek. The Greek Old Testament used by the Evangelists, called the "Septuagint", was translated into Greek by Jewish scholars about a century before Jesus' time, and it refers to cousins and other close relatives as "brothers" in exactly the way I've described. In the following examples, I'll provide the verses in English, and also a transliteration of the Greek Old Testament used in Jesus' time.

The first example concerns Abram and Lot.

Genesis 11:26
Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.

This verse tells us that Abram is the uncle of Lot: Abram is the brother of Lot's father. But in another verse, Abram is called Lot's "brother":

Genesis 14:12,14
And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. And when Abram heard that his brother [Lot] was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan.

[Here's the Greek version from the Septuagint:]
Genesis 14:14
akousas de abram hoti Echmalwteutai lwt ho adelphos autou ErithmEsen tous idious oikogeneis autou triakosious deka kai oktw kai katediwxen opisw autwn hews dan

Similarly, the Bible tells us here that Laban is Jacob's uncle:

Genesis 29:13
And it came to pass, when Laban heard the tidings of Jacob his sister's son, that he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house. And he told Laban all these things.

However, two verses later, Laban calls Jacob his brother:

Genesis 29:15
And Laban said unto Jacob, "Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for nought? tell me, what shall thy wages be?"

Genesis 29:15
eipen de laban tw iakwb oti gar adelphos mou ei ou douleuseis moi dwrean apaggeilon moi tis o misthos sou estin

In the following, the cousins of the daughters of Eleazar are called their "brethren":

1 Chronicles 23:21-22
The sons of Merari; Mahli, and Mushi. The sons of Mahli; Eleazar, and Kish. And Eleazar died, and had no sons, but daughters: and their brethren the sons of Kish took them.

1 Chronicles 23:21-22
uioi merari mooli kai mousi. uioi mooli eleazar kai kis. kai apethanen eleazar kai ouk Esan autw uioi all' E thugateres kai elabon autas uioi kis adelphoi autwn.

In the following, the "brethren" of Ahaziah include at least 42 men, who were not his brothers - his brothers were all killed before he became the king (2 Chronicles 22:1) - but rather his cousins or other similar relatives:

2 Kings 10:13-14
Jehu met with the brethren of Ahaziah king of Judah, and said, Who are ye? And they answered, We are the brethren of Ahaziah; and we go down to salute the children of the king and the children of the queen.
And he said, Take them alive. And they took them alive, and slew them at the pit of the shearing house, even two and forty men; neither left he any of them.

2 Kings 10:13-14
kai iou euren tous adelphous ochoziou basilews iouda kai eipen tines umeis kai eipon oi adelphoi ochoziou hmeis kai katebEmen eis eirEnEn twn uiwn tou basilews kai twn uiwn tEs dunasteuousEs.
kai eipen sullabete autous zwntas kai sunelabon autous zwntas kai esfaxan autous eis baithakad tessarakonta kai duo andras ou katelipen andra ex autwn.
So we see that the term "brother" in the Bible can refer to family relationships other than the one to which we usually apply it.

Now that we know that the word "brother" in the Bible doesn't necessarily mean a sibling, we shall proceed to look at what else the Bible has to say about the "brothers" of Jesus (James, Joses, Juda and Simon).

The Bible shows us that James and Joses had a different mother than Jesus did.

Mark 15:40
There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome;

Obviously, Mary the mother of James and Joses is not the mother of Jesus. The context here is the crucifixion of Jesus, and if the Mary in question here were Jesus' mother, this would have been stated. Therefore, the mother of James and Joses was not Mary the mother of Jesus.

Now, let us look at Mark 6:3 again:

Mark 6:3
Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

We've seen that James and Joses were not Jesus' brothers as we understand the term, but rather cousins at best. But what about Juda and Simon? Are they Jesus' "real brothers"? Clearly they are not, because it would be absurd to name Jesus' cousins first, and then His "real" brothers.

So it would seem that Mark 6:3 does not give any evidence at all that Jesus had any siblings. In fact, it proves that He didn't, when we take into account what the Bible says concerning James and Joses.

It is claimed that the following verse says that Mary and Joseph had sex after Jesus' birth:

Matthew 1:25
And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus.

However, what the Bible is actually doing here is underlining the fact that Joseph is definitely not Jesus' father, since he didn't have sexual intercourse with Mary before Jesus was born. But the word "till" in this verse does not imply that Joseph "knew" Mary after the birth of Jesus (that is, that they eventually had sexual intercourse). Here's a Biblical example to demonstrate this:
1 Timothy 6:14
"I charge you to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Does this imply that we are allowed to sin after Jesus appears? Of course not.
In addition, note that if Joseph intended to ever have sex with Mary, why did he wait until after Jesus' birth? There was nothing to stop him. So this actually indicates that Joseph did not intend to have sex with Mary.

tom
Posts: 99
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:52 am

Re: Was The Holy Spirit Mary's Husband?

Post by tom » Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:57 pm

Hello everyone,

Jim has sent me this link because we have been emailing for awhile and he suggested I get into this forum. I don't really know what to say other then if anyone has questions about Mary or the Catholic Church I love to talk about it. What has been posted on this forum seems rather shallow and giving many scriptural verses. Since I have been calling Steve I like to have scripture to back up what the Church teaches. You may not agree with it but at least I'm not pulling it out of my hat!

Hope to talk to you soon,

User avatar
darinhouston
Posts: 3112
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2008 7:45 am

Re: Was The Holy Spirit Mary's Husband?

Post by darinhouston » Wed Dec 10, 2008 10:43 pm

Excellent! Welcome, Tom -- glad to have you.

Jill
Posts: 582
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:16 pm

Post by Jill » Wed Dec 10, 2008 10:55 pm

.
Last edited by Jill on Thu Feb 17, 2011 2:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

tom
Posts: 99
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:52 am

Re: Was The Holy Spirit Mary's Husband?

Post by tom » Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:03 am

Karen,

I know you took offense to what I have said about the Mormon Church, I'm sorry. I meant not to offend but to make a point.

As far as what Augustine had to say about Mary I hadn't looked it up. Here are some of what he had to say;

"Our Lord . . . was not averse to males, for he took the form of a male, nor to females, for of a female he was born. Besides, there is a great mystery here: that just as death comes to us through a woman, life is born to us through a woman; that the devil, defeated, would be tormented by each nature, feminine and masculine, as he had taken delight in the defection of both" (Christian Combat 22:24 [A.D. 396]).

"That one woman is both mother and virgin, not in spirit only but even in body. In spirit she is mother, not of our head, who is our Savior himself—of whom all, even she herself, are rightly called children of the bridegroom—but plainly she is the mother of us who are his members, because by love she has cooperated so that the faithful, who are the members of that head, might be born in the Church. In body, indeed, she is the Mother of that very head" (Holy Virginity 6:6 [A.D. 401]).

"Having excepted the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, on account of the honor of the Lord, I wish to have absolutely no question when treating of sins—for how do we know what abundance of grace for the total overcoming of sin was conferred upon her, who merited to conceive and bear him in whom there was no sin?—so, I say, with the exception of the Virgin, if we could have gathered together all those holy men and women, when they were living here, and had asked them whether they were without sin, what do we suppose would have been their answer?" (Nature and Grace 36:42 [A.D. 415]).

I am much more interested what the Bible has to say about Mary. The Church fathers teach things and many are believed by all the Church fathers. I don't just accept them, I want to know why. That's why I look to the Bible to where they got their teachings.

Tom

User avatar
darinhouston
Posts: 3112
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2008 7:45 am

Re: Was The Holy Spirit Mary's Husband?

Post by darinhouston » Sun Dec 14, 2008 1:30 am

The previous discussion on the Ark and whether it represents Mary or Jesus has been moved to a new topic, here:

Does The Ark Represent Jesus? or Mary?
http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=77&t=2477

Jill
Posts: 582
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:16 pm

Post by Jill » Tue Dec 16, 2008 7:03 pm

.
Last edited by Jill on Thu Feb 17, 2011 2:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Priestly1
Posts: 52
Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2008 3:45 pm

Re: Was The Holy Spirit Mary's Husband?

Post by Priestly1 » Tue Sep 22, 2009 5:49 pm

Some think that the Holy Spirit was the spiritual Mother of the Word incarnate and Mary was the physical Mother of the Word incarnate.




Rev. Ken

Jill
Posts: 582
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:16 pm

Post by Jill » Sun Feb 07, 2010 3:26 pm

.
Last edited by Jill on Thu Feb 17, 2011 2:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
kaufmannphillips
Posts: 585
Joined: Sun Dec 21, 2008 8:00 pm

Re: Was The Holy Spirit Mary's Husband?

Post by kaufmannphillips » Sun Feb 07, 2010 4:09 pm

Hi, Jill -

In Hebrew, the word for "spirit" is feminine.

Origen quotes the Gospel of the Hebrews as saying: "Just now my mother, the holy spirit, took me by one of my hairs and brought me to Tabor, the great mountain."

Jerome quotes the same twice in an abbreviated form, and perhaps once more in a paraphrased form. Jerome writes, "Now no one should be offended by this, because 'spirit' in Hebrew is feminine, while in our language [i. e., Latin] it is masculine and in Greek it is neuter. In divinity, however, there is no gender." So saith Jerome.
========================
"The more something is repeated, the more it becomes an unexamined truth...." (Nicholas Thompson)
========================

Post Reply

Return to “Roman Catholicism”