# Do Christians believe the Virgin Mary stayed a virgin later in life? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 11, 2017, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293 "2017-11-11T05:45:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/21 "2017-11-11T18:05:48Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > In fact, something that I find very puzzling about the Jesus story, as a Jew, is the deity’s decision to cuckold someone. If Mary was betrothed to Joseph, she was already forbidden to other men. However, in Judaism, an out-of-wedlock pregnancy was not as shameful as it is in Christianity, so it seems to me it would have made a lot more sense for the deity to have chosen an unwed, unbetrothed woman. I’ve always found it interesting that while the Jesus story doesn’t make a lot of sense in the Jewish tradition, as you say, it makes tons of sense in the Greek and Roman tradition. Those gods cuckolded men all the time, and half human half god people were quite common. There might not have been that much Greek influence in Israel at the time, but there certainly was outside where some of the Gospels were written. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/22 "2017-11-11T18:11:30Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > That is not an answer to the OP question. The answer is _there is no “official Christian” position_ since there are a myriad Christian traditions and teachings. The various forms of Catholic and Orthodox churches (containing a numerical majority of Christians) do hold to the “eternal virginity” doctrine. > Already to begin with the whole “a Virgin shall conceive” thing is apparently an artifact of translation – from an Old Testament original that said “a young maid” and then became rendered as “a virgin” in the Greek versions. The fit of the Jesus story into OT prophesies and the Messiah narrative is one huge work of sacred retcon. > > . Not necessarily so. That term, like we used “Maiden” generally implies virginity, as it means “unmarried” which in those days heavily implied virginity. Here’s a Q&A on the Catholic viewpoint (which I dont accept, fyi): > **[Jesus had Brothers?](https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/jesus-had-brothers)** > > Why do Catholics teach that Mary was a virgin throughout her life when the Bible clearly says that Jesus had brothers? Ever been asked that? > Let me offer four r... ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/23 "2017-11-11T18:16:33Z")
> [@caligulathegod](#): > > I will respond with another idiom. Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. The text is clear and you are demonstrating lawyer-esque parsing of the language when it is not required. There is NO reason to interpret it like that except for the \*a priori \*purpose of forcing in a specific dogma. That all but one or two particular sects of Christianity do not have this hangup tells me that it is not essential for the religion to interpret it this way. LOL. That would be the two biggest ‘sects’ of Christianity in the world, as well as the significantly sized Coptic-Ethiopian church (and Anglicanism is divided on the question). Even the early Reformers didn’t think that Mary had other children (I think Zwingli might have, but Calvin and Luther certainly didn’t). The same early traditions from which we get the New Testament _also_ held quite strongly that Mary was ever-virgin, so it seems to be to be painfully obvious that they didn’t mean ‘brother’ in the sense in which 21st century Americans interpret it. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/24 "2017-11-11T18:17:36Z")
> [@caligulathegod](#): > > I will respond with another idiom. Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. The text is clear and you are demonstrating lawyer-esque parsing of the language when it is not required. There is NO reason to interpret it like that except for the \*a priori \*purpose of forcing in a specific dogma. That all but one or two particular sects of Christianity do not have this hangup tells me that it is not essential for the religion to interpret it this way. Very few things in the Bible are ‘clear’, except the big and obvious stuff like “thou shalt not kill”. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/25 "2017-11-11T18:23:45Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Judaism didn’t have a tradition of consecrated virgins and as you point out such a thing would be very unusual, but I don’t find that to really be a problem. Judaism doesn’t merely not have a “tradition” of consecrated virgins, it does not have a _concept_ of them. It’s hard to explain to someone who comes from a tradition with nuns and monks how foreign the idea of swearing off sex _for G-d_ is to Jews. > [@Voyager](#): > > I’ve always found it interesting that while the Jesus story doesn’t make a lot of sense in the Jewish tradition, as you say, it makes tons of sense in the Greek and Roman tradition. Those gods cuckolded men all the time, and half human half god people were quite common. I wasn’t going to say it, but I’m glad someone did. Consecrated virgins comes from the Hellenic tradition as well. > [@](#): > > There might not have been that much Greek influence in Israel at the time, but there certainly was outside where some of the Gospels were written. Nitpick: Judah; there was no Israel at the time. The country had long earlier divided into the Northern kingdom and the Southern kingdom, and then the Northern kingdom got kidnapped and assimilated by the Assyrians. ---
**Author:** ![SeniorCitizen007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8baadc/32.png) [@SeniorCitizen007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeniorCitizen007)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/26 "2017-11-11T18:25:00Z")
In Mark 1,10 the voice that spoke to Jesus after John baptised him was that of his deceased father: You are my beloved son in whom I was well pleased (did delight). All the nonsense about Jesus being conceived by God through the virgin Mary came later. Mark, as it exists today, came about as a consequence of someone altering the text and adding large chunks to support the alterations. The original text was the script of a play that would have only been understood by a very sophisticated audience. The 12 disciples were not in this original text (definitely no St Peter). I have strong sense that Jesus in the text had a different name … the mythical basis was Greek … not Jewish. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/27 "2017-11-11T18:44:11Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Judaism doesn’t merely not have a “tradition” of consecrated virgins, it does not have a _concept_ of them. It’s hard to explain to someone who comes from a tradition with nuns and monks how foreign the idea of swearing off sex _for G-d_ is to Jews. I entirely agree with that, I just put more reliance in the fact that people often do weird and unusual things, than you or the historico-critical scholars do. ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/28 "2017-11-11T20:17:15Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Very few things in the Bible are ‘clear’, except the big and obvious stuff like “thou shalt not kill”. I would argue that, even. The usual interpretation is that it refers to murder, and only of fellow Israelites, at that. But I stand by my comment. It’s a strained parsing of otherwise \*\*unambiguous \*\*language. If you didn’t already have that interpretation to defend there’s nothing in the language that would draw a reasonable person to that conclusion. Not once have you presented any positive evidence for the interpretation, only parsing the language to infer that it could possibly mean something different than it actually states. That brother _can_ mean cousin does not mean that it does. I want to see some evidence that belief is intended rather than just because the people that came up with the special pleading Immaculate Conception insist upon it. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/29 "2017-11-11T20:35:00Z")
> [@caligulathegod](#): > > I want to see some evidence that belief is intended rather than just because the people that came up with the special pleading Immaculate Conception insist upon it. The evidence that the belief was ‘intended’ is that the earliest Christian sources outside the Bible make reference to Mary being ever-virgin, and most early Christians (with some exceptions, Helvidius and apparently Tertullian) seem to have believed it. Without a time machine we can’t interrogate the gospel writers and ask them what they meant, and unfortunately they used ambiguous terms. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/30 "2017-11-11T20:36:11Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > I entirely agree with that, I just put more reliance in the fact that people often do weird and unusual things, than you or the historico-critical scholars do. “But it could happen!” isn’t really a strong basis for an argument. ---
**Author:** ![ioioio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ioioio/32/316_2.png) [@ioioio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ioioio)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/31 "2017-11-11T20:42:25Z")
I’m responding to the original question, which was “Do Christians believe the Virgin Mary stayed a virgin later in life?” Some do, some don’t. My father was an extremely fundamentalist minister and Biblical scholar/author. His opinion is that Jesus had siblings (actually half-siblings), who were natural children of Mary and Joseph. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/32 "2017-11-11T20:44:11Z")
I am emailing my uncle, who does not use the phone or computers on Shabbes, to see whether Aramaic indeed does not have a word for “cousin,” and if it did not, that the word for “brother” could be used instead. He’s a retired professor who actually knows Aramaic. At any rate, Greek **does** seem to have had words for “cousin” and “brother,” and Josephus uses the word for “cousin” more than a dozen times in his _Antiquities_, according to a couple of different sources I have found, but specifically refers to James as the “brother” of Jesus, suggesting that he believed that James was the son of Mary and Joseph. I doubt, just to head off this argument, that Josephus used “brother” to mean something like “disciple,” because he has another word he uses that gets translated as “follower” in most English versions of _Antiquities_ I have seen. Josephus has a very large vocabulary (unlike, say, Mark), and if he said something specific like brother, he probably meant that in the simplest interpretation. I doubt that he meant anything theological, the way adherents of the faith may have called one another “brothers and sisters in Christ,” since Josephus was not an adherent of the faith. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/33 "2017-11-11T20:48:00Z")
Again, a quick reminder: Virgin Birth, Eternal Virginity and Immaculate Conception are not the same thing. The first is about Jesus, is biblical and universally accepted by Christianity; the second is Catholic/Orthodox/Ethiopian teaching about Mary; the last is Catholic+(not all Orthodox) belief about Mary and only officially proclaimed as infallible teaching by the RCC. Mary having a normal marital life with Joseph would NOT run afoul of the Immaculate Conception since marital sex is not sin. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/34 "2017-11-11T20:51:30Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > The evidence that the belief was ‘intended’ is that the earliest Christian sources outside the Bible make reference to Mary being ever-virgin, and most early Christians (with some exceptions, Helvidius and apparently Tertullian) seem to have believed it. Without a time machine we can’t interrogate the gospel writers and ask them what they meant, and unfortunately they used ambiguous terms. I don’t believe they used ambiguous terms. They wrote in Greek, which has separate words for “brother” and “cousin,” and they did not seem to have a good grasp of Hebrew, let alone Aramaic-- they screwed up the “son of a carpenter” idiom, and clearly used the Septuagint instead of a Hebrew version of Jewish scriptures. They also wrote long after Jesus’ own lifetime. I doubt they actually met anyone they were writing about, or even anyone who met anyone they were writing about. They were not interested in verisimilitude, because they miss many, many opportunities for it. To use a Greek word to mean something it doesn’t, when they have a precise Greek word for their meaning (plus, a Greek word that means “relatives”), just to try to reflect the spoken language of Jesus on this one specific occasion, when they never did so on any other occasion, and in general don’t appear even to know that language, is really, special, special pleading. Then, I don’t know that Aramaic doesn’t have a word for cousin. I’m waiting to hear from my uncle. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/35 "2017-11-11T20:56:29Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I am emailing my uncle, who does not use the phone or computers on Shabbes, to see whether Aramaic indeed does not have a word for “cousin,” and if it did not, that the word for “brother” could be used instead. He’s a retired professor who actually knows Aramaic. > > At any rate, Greek **does** seem to have had words for “cousin” and “brother,” and Josephus uses the word for “cousin” more than a dozen times in his _Antiquities_, according to a couple of different sources I have found, but specifically refers to James as the “brother” of Jesus, suggesting that he believed that James was the son of Mary and Joseph. I doubt, just to head off this argument, that Josephus used “brother” to mean something like “disciple,” because he has another word he uses that gets translated as “follower” in most English versions of _Antiquities_ I have seen. Josephus has a very large vocabulary (unlike, say, Mark), and if he said something specific like brother, he probably meant that in the simplest interpretation. I doubt that he meant anything theological, the way adherents of the faith may have called one another “brothers and sisters in Christ,” since Josephus was not an adherent of the faith. Genesis 13:8 “_And Abram said to Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray you, between me and you, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen; for we be brothers._” But they were Uncle and nephew. 1 Cor. 15:6 "_After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep."_ Matthew 5:22King James Version (KJV) 22 B_ut I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire._ The term “Brother” was not always used to mean biological sharing same Mother and Father. Just like today. Mind you, I am pretty sure that James, ect were Jesus’s biological siblings, but but no means is it “clear”. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/36 "2017-11-11T21:03:45Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I don’t believe they used ambiguous terms. They wrote in Greek, which has separate words for “brother” and “cousin,” and they did not seem to have a good grasp of Hebrew, let alone Aramaic-- they screwed up the “son of a carpenter” idiom, and clearly used the Septuagint instead of a Hebrew version of Jewish scriptures. They also wrote long after Jesus’ own lifetime. I doubt they actually met anyone they were writing about, or even anyone who met anyone they were writing about. They were not interested in verisimilitude, because they miss many, many opportunities for it. To use a Greek word to mean something it doesn’t, when they have a precise Greek word for their meaning (plus, a Greek word that means “relatives”), just to try to reflect the spoken language of Jesus on this one specific occasion, when they never did so on any other occasion, and in general don’t appear even to know that language, is really, special, special pleading. > > Then, I don’t know that Aramaic doesn’t have a word for cousin. I’m waiting to hear from my uncle. English has separate words for ‘cousin’ and ‘brother’ too, but again, I know plenty of Indians (including some who speak English better than any other language and live in America) who use ‘cousin’ to mean ‘brother’, _in English_. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/37 "2017-11-11T21:07:40Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > “But it could happen!” isn’t really a strong basis for an argument. Likewise, “But their religion and culture forbids it!” isn’t a strong basis for the claim that someone _didn’t_ do something. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/38 "2017-11-11T21:14:56Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Likewise, “But their religion and culture forbids it!” isn’t a strong basis for the claim that someone _didn’t_ do something. It’s evidence, however, which “It could happen!” is not. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/39 "2017-11-11T21:19:00Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > English has separate words for ‘cousin’ and ‘brother’ too, but again, I know plenty of Indians (including some who speak English better than any other language and live in America) who use ‘cousin’ to mean ‘brother’, _in English_. Yes, but if there was a doctrine, or at least a knowledge, that Mary was ever-virgin, why say something that would, on a plain reading, be confusing? And every example of “brother” used non-literally in the Tanakh has a very obvious and specific reason-- to communicate that the relationship _feels_ (or should feel) as close as a sibling, even if the people are not actual siblings. I don’t sense anything in the gospel passage that these are cousins to whom Jesus felt especially close-- in fact, it’s the opposite. And FWIW, Hebrew does not have single words for “cousin,” but it has expressions, “uncle’s daughter,” “aunt’s son,” etc., which are actually more specific. And they are treated like single words, sort of like “fair play.” It’s a compound term. No one who speaks Hebrew would say “brother” for cousin, because Hebrew “doesn’t have a word for cousin,” anymore than an American would stumble around searching for a term for the concept “fair play,” just because English does not have a single word term. I’m going to guess that Aramaic will turn out to be similar. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2017, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293/40 "2017-11-11T21:21:29Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > And FWIW, Hebrew does not have single words for “cousin,” but it has expressions, “uncle’s daughter,” “aunt’s son,” etc., which are actually more specific. And they are treated like single words, sort of like “fair play.” It’s a compound term. So does Tamil (you can in theory say 'son of the father’s brother") but I very commonly hear people say “brother/sister” anyway, _used by people speaking in English_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-christians-believe-the-virgin-mary-stayed-a-virgin-later-in-life/801293.md?page=3)