if Jesus had brothers e.g. James how can Mary be a virgin?

Question

no offence to anyone, hust a thought that came up in my Religiuos Studies class in college

Answer 1

It almost amazing how people disreguard physical proof.

In Jewish culture, young women were usually virgins before marriage. At the time of marriage, the couple usually has sex and all virginity is lost. This is the physical proof many miss.

Mary was indeed a virgin, as it was expected before marriage. But then Mary was with her husband Jospeh and nature took over. From that point on she was no longer a virgin and each child came out in due time, Jesus, James, etc.

What the Church focuses on is the "virgin" factor. Trying to show mystical happenings when its was just simply nature taking its course.

Answer 2

Three main points of view:

1. The 'brothers' referred to in the Bible are not referring to actual siblings. The term could mean Jesus' cousins, or a symbolic phrase (as in 'am i not a man and a brother' etc). This could mean that Mary remained a virgin all her life.

2. Mary was a virgin until she gave birth to Jesus, then she and Joseph had children together.

3. Mary was not a virgin when she gave birth, all that stuff about the virgin birth was supposed to be symbolic to emphasise Jesus' importance (there are other instances of religious deities being born from virgins, across many cultures, providing precedents).

Answer 3

Religious Embellishments

The objection that some have to the virgin birth lies elsewhere. It concerns religious embellishments of the Bible account that have developed over the centuries. It seems that the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches were unwilling to acknowledge that, having fulfilled her role in bearing the Son of God, Mary had no special place in the Christian congregation. Through the centuries they made positive moves to elevate her to near equality with their Trinitarian concept of God.

In the year 553 A.D. the Second Council of Constantinople proclaimed Mary “eternal Virgin,” which would mean that her marriage to Joseph was celibate and that they never had sexual relations or children together. Then in 1854 Pope Pius IX proclaimed the Immaculate Conception of Mary. That doctrine declares that she had been preserved from all sin inherited from Adam; in fact, that she was incapable of sin. In 1950 Pope Pius XII made it an article of faith that Mary, at the conclusion of her human life, had been assumed bodily into heaven. And since 1950 the Vatican has been pondering whether the virgin Mary experienced death at all.

Despite official Church teaching, we may well question whether after the birth of Jesus Mary remained “ever virgin.” Or did she have other children by Joseph after the birth of Jesus? Does it matter? Yes, if the truth matters. So what do the Scriptures say?

Matthew records that Joseph “had no intercourse with [Mary] until she gave birth to a son,” Jesus. (Matthew 1:25) Commenting on the significance of “until” here, the Revised Standard Version, Catholic edition, published by the Catholic Truth Society, London, claims: “This means only that Joseph had nothing to do with the conception of Jesus. It implies nothing as to what happened afterwards.”

However, there is no basis in Scripture for assuming that nothing happened afterward, that Joseph and Mary never had a normal marriage. No prophecy even hinted at such a thing, no divine requirement called for it. Their intimate life together and any resulting parenthood had no bearing at all on Jesus’ earthly ministry or on his subsequent activities in the heavens. Indeed, far from supporting the notion that Mary was ever virgin, the Gospels state that Jesus was Mary’s firstborn and that he had half brothers and half sisters. Mark writes that in Jesus’ hometown, Nazareth, he preached in the synagogue to people who recognized him. Most were astounded at Jesus’ teaching and said: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?”—Mark 6:2, 3, RSV, Catholic edition; Luke 2:7.

Catholic theologians claim that these ‘brothers and sisters’ were really cousins. Yet the New Catholic Encyclopedia (Vol. 9, p. 337) admits that “the Greek words . . . that are used to designate the relationship between Jesus and these relatives have the meaning of full blood brother and sister.” These are the words adelphos and adelphé. However, the word for cousin is anepsios and for relatives, syggenon. (Colossians 4:10; Luke 1:36) There is no sound reason for thinking that the Gospel writers got these words mixed up. (Compare Mark 6:4; Luke 14:12.) Nor is there reason to deny that Joseph and Mary had a family after the birth of Jesus.

Answer 4

Ah! If you are a Protestant she had James and other brothers of Jesus and a few sisters.

If you are a Catholic Jesus was just calling his followers 'brothers' and 'sisters' and Mary was a virgin all her life! Jesus did tell a disciple that Mary was his Mother now and the disciple was now her son. Why would a man with siblings protect his mother to a disciple at his death and not a brother or sister?

Frankly I think it hardly matters either way!

An excellent unbiased book is 'the bible for dummies.' There are so many types of Christians and so many types of bible that the suggestion to 'read your bible' is quite unhelpful!

Answer 5

Mary was pregnant with Jesus before her a Joseph married, because an Angel came ,and told her she would have the Christ child, then the Holy Ghost came upon her, and she was with child, and Joseph was not going to marry her, because he thought she had been with another man, the an Angel of the Lord came and told Joseph to fear not in taking mary for a wife, for she was a virgin, and had been chosen to give birth to the Christ child that would save the world from thier sins. after Jesus was born, Mary, and Joseph had other children. All this was told in the old testiment, and it tells the things that would befall Christ, and how the people would know that he was indeed the Christ child, and all those things happened to him, and after they cruixifed him and the temple rent into, and it turned dark, they knew, or most did, that they had cruixified the Christ.

Answer 6

As I understand it, the doctrine Mary's perpetual virginity was decided upon during the First Vatican Council but there was not a quorum of cardinals when the vote was taken. So if that were the case, the issue of her perpetual virginity isn't a spiritual question but a political one. So therefore, this doctrine has some major problems. I'd be interested in hearing what Catholics say about this. My sister-in-law went to a Catholic university, but she isn't Catholic and we've never discussed this. I'll have to ask her if she knows anything about this.

Answer 7

She remained a virgin until Jesus' birth. She did not have relations with Joseph until after Jesus was born. Then Mary and Joseph had more children.

Answer 8

So how was Christ born? We understand that research on the subject of single mother birth without the participation of a male is being carried out in many advanced countries of the world. But so far human knowledge is only at a stage where scientific research has not yet advanced to such a level where positive irrefutable evidence of virgin births in human beings can be produced. However, all sorts of possibilities remain open.

At lower orders of life two phenomena are scientifically well established: Parthenogenesis and Hermaphroditism. As such, the miraculous birth of Jesus, to Mary, can be understood to belong to some similar natural but very rare phenomenon, the peripheries of which are not yet fully fathomed by man.

Here follow brief descriptions of the phenomena of Parthenogenesis and Hermaphroditism. Readers interested in a more scientific treatment of the subject matter, based upon current understanding, may refer to Appendix II.

Parthenogenesis

This is the asexual development of a female ovum into an individual, without the aid of a male agent. It is observed among many lower forms of life such as aphids and also fish. There is also evidence that parthenogenesis can be a successful strategy among lizards living under low and unpredictable rainfall conditions. In laboratory conditions, mice and rabbit embryos have been developed parthenogenetically to a stage equivalent to halfway through pregnancy, but have then been aborted. In recent study, human embryos could be activated occasionally by parthenogenesis using calcium ionophore as a catalyst. Such research raises the prospect that some early human pregnancy losses may have involved the parthenogenetic activation of the embryo.

Hermaphroditism

This term applies when organs of both sexes are present within a single female and the chromosomes show both male and female characters aligned side by side. Laboratory tests have revealed cases such as that of a hermaphrodite rabbit which, at one stage, served several females and sired more than 250 young of both sexes, while at another stage, became pregnant in isolation and gave birth to seven healthy young of both sexes. When autopsied, it showed two functional ovaries and two infertile testes while in a pregnant condition. Recent studies suggest that such a phenomenon is possible, rarely, among humans also.


http://www.alislam.org/library/books/christianity_facts_to_fiction/chapter_1.html

Answer 9

Mary never lived as a virgin after giving birth to Jesus Christ.

Christians never claims that Mary was a virgin for ever, but catholics.

Christians see her as a righteous woman who obeyed God and was blessed by God.
That's all.

Answer 10

She was a virgin until after the birth of Jesus. Then her husband, Joseph, had relations with her resulting in other offspring. Jesus being the oldest, was the half brother of his siblings. She is only considered a virgin by the Catholic Church.