Comments on: Did Jesus Have Siblings?

By: Darren Petrie

Darren Petrie — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:58:07 +0000

K.I.S.S.

The answer is yes.

By: Saturday, October 25, 2008 » don furnaloni

Saturday, October 25, 2008 » don furnaloni — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 22:58:14 +0000

[...] recent blog exchange about The Virgin Mary at SQJTaipei, caused me to recommend a book to him that upon later reflection I felt several others of you could [...]

By: Josh Furnal

Josh Furnal — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:09:20 +0000

In my experience, the kind of Italian Catholics that have held tightly to this sort of doctrine has been voiced on two extremes: 1) those people who could really care less about religion, but if they feel threatened by your presence, know how to immediately resort to being uber-religious, and 2) the uber-religious who are not ecumenically oriented.

So, in short, to you SQJ, it shouldn’t have to matter. Alot of these ‘doctrinal’ issues that come up are defense mechanisms. That’s the function of doctrine in general, and why the Church has it: to ward off those who aren’t like us.

I’m sure there are several different dialects in Chinese. It would be like the more provincial Chinese person demanding that all those who don’t speak their province’s dialect, should in fact speak it, for it’s the REAL chinese language. And when an outsider rolls into town who speaks with a different tone, suspicion greets them and defenses go up.

But the bottom line is, you have your thoughts on mary, and your friend has theirs. Who’s right? I guess that depends if you’re the outsider rolling into town, or the provincial person greeting them with suspicion.

By: sqjtaipei

sqjtaipei — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 04:31:18 +0000

@Furnal
But should this matter to me? It seems like the Catholic church goes through a lot of work to maintain the teaching that Mary didn’t have other children. I think that the text (of the Bible) is unclear on the matter… making me think it isn’t important one way or the other. But it seems to be important to Catholics. Is it important with your friends in Italy? If so, why?

By: Josh Furnal

Josh Furnal — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:14:27 +0000

SQJ, I haven’t ever found CARM sympathetic or fruitful for dialog with Catholics.

One possible way that this might be of interest or relevance is in how far one would want to press the “only begotten” phrase in John 1.18 and to whom it refers grammatically . Is Jesus the ‘only begotten’ of God or of Mary? I think there’s room to say that Jesus is the only begotten of both, being the whole incarnation thing…

So the question then becomes, does God have more sons or does Mary?

Also, “brothers” can refer to more than just blood siblings. It can mean also step-siblings or half-siblings, or even close relative.

Historically, the Eastern Church interpreted Mary as having step-children, while the West interpreted it as cousins.

I would highly recommend Tim Perry’s book Mary for Evangelicals, if you wanna chase this rabbit further down the rabbit-hole…

- A reply near to home sweet rome