Kevin's Watch

holsety, I didn't mean to imply there are no disputes over interpretation, but rather, disputes about what is actually from Muhammad or not. The Bible is collection of letters that weren't written for purpose of passing down, unlike Koran.

Orlion, you get a little wonky there. Certainly, Mary's virginity at Christ's birth is important, but thereafter...? I've never heard that it would have to be so in order to affect Jesus being Son of God.

And I've never heard of sex itself as fallen activity, as marriage, and being one flesh, is mentioned in the garden, before sin was introduced.

A lot of theology is extra-biblical. You usually find them in 'Apocrypha'.

And not so much that Mary had to be a virgin after the birth of Christ, it's just that she was due to her nature. But she definitely had to be when giving birth to Christ.

Sex between married couples, especially when done according to taharat ha-mishpachah, family purity, is considered a mitzvah in Judaism; so it is not viewed as a sin at all.

DoctorGamgee wrote:Iolanthe,

Check Matthew 13:55 and 12:46. I'll bet you will find his mother/bretheren mentioned there. Your husband may not have remembered those facts.

Unless he is parsing "brothers" and 'half-brothers' as they had different fathers (God-v-Joseph).

Doc

Will do, Doc, tomorrow, too tired now. Thought it would be Matthew.

It would be funny if it was a same-sex marriage.

Iolanthe wrote:Hashi - I read the Apocrypha once but cannot remember it at all. I must read it again. Wasn't it the Synod at Nicaea that brought about the split in the church between the Greek and Roman churches over the Trinity?. AD 325 according to Wikipedia.

The Schism came later, middle of the 11th century. The Council of Nicaea decided the canonical books of the bible and the trinitarian nature of god among other items. There were several other councils over the next few hundred years and different sects (Copts, Nestorians, etc.) peeled off after later ones, but the Catholic and Orthodox churches remained together through all the early medieval councils. The last one they both participated in was around the reign of Charlemagne.

holsety, I didn't mean to imply there are no disputes over interpretation, but rather, disputes about what is actually from Muhammad or not. The Bible is collection of letters that weren't written for purpose of passing down, unlike Koran.

I got that, but my understanding of Islam is different. That is, regardless of the unconditional recognition of the Quran as sacred, there is still debate over a great deal of other material attributed to Muhammad. Additionally, the Sunni/Shi'a split has a historical foundation in a disagreement over who he wanted to succeed him that apparently carries on to this day (I admit I haven't really heard or watched a discussion between Sunnis and Shi'as over this debate and know little about it, but it does seem to have some relation to a disagreement(s) about what Muhammad wanted/thought and even what he thought/said about matters of doctrine).

Also, as far as original sin goes, this is something from Martin Luther, and I'm also gonna give why I disagree with what he says. I would definitely be interested in other people's responses.

It is also taught among us that since the fall of Adam all men who are born according to the course of nature are conceived and born in sin. That is, all men are full of evil lust and inclinations from their mothers’ wombs and are unable by nature to have true fear of God and true faith in God.

The problem I have with this is that the Eden story shows that Adam and Eve, prior to the fall, were unable to have true fear of and true faith in god. He gave them a direct command, and they disobeyed it with full recognition that they were disobeying (if with no understanding that disobedience was bad). I recognize Luther might be out of date, but, it does seem like a lot of christians view this failing as deriving from the fall, even though it seems to have caused the fall.

Cybrweez wrote:Seems the argument hinges on wanting Mary to be always a virgin, so you can't have brothers/sisters for Jesus.

Agreed. And it's certainly not realistic to imagine that, still married 30 years later, she never had sex.

Cybrweez wrote:Usually Paul's letters are used.

That's what I thought too. The stuff about women being subservient to their husbands and all that.

Holsety wrote:Additionally, the Sunni/Shi'a split has a historical foundation in a disagreement over who he wanted to succeed him that apparently carries on to this day...

Yes, IIRC, it was mainly about which of his sons was the legitimate successor to his mantle.

--A

There is nothing new here. A relationship between Jesus and (iirc, I read it decades ago) Salome was implied by the "Gospel of Thomas". There were a number of imaginative documents that appeared between about 200-300 claiming to have been written by various apostles and such, at least four of them (very different in both style and doctrine) are attributed to Thomas. 400 is late, and this document's credibility ought to be regarded as low; its authority as about nil.

In Catholism (and presumably other theologies), sex in of itself is not only a sin, it is THE sin (original, as it were).

Orlion, I don't know where you get your ideas about sex being equated with sin, but that is not Roman Catholic doctrine nor in line with any orthodoxy. That idea originated with the New Prophecy sect way back in the 200s, I believe, but was rejected (along with other heresies like docetism).

God told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply". He ORDAINED the sexual union. However, you are almost on target here:

Birth from sexual union carries original sin.

Actually, it's conception from sexual union that transfers sin to the next generation... from the male side; because "through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men".

Jesus was born of a woman so He could be fully human. But his father was God, so that he would also be sinless. Sex is NEVER portrayed as sin in the Bible as long as it is within the bounds Jesus quoted from Genesis: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."

Read the Song of Solomon!!

BTW, the Apocrypha is a collection of books written during the intertestamental period, between 400-ish BC and 0 BC. There is nothing in it about Christ.

Jesus did have physical brothers. (Matthew 12:47) And this verse seems to indicate that Joseph had relations with Mary after Jesus' birth: Matthew 1:25 "[Joseph] did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son."

[/wonk]

in fact Jesus' brother James wrote my favorite book of the Bible.

James is a great book.

Holsety wrote:The problem I have with this is that the Eden story shows that Adam and Eve, prior to the fall, were unable to have true fear of and true faith in god. He gave them a direct command, and they disobeyed it with full recognition that they were disobeying (if with no understanding that disobedience was bad). I recognize Luther might be out of date, but, it does seem like a lot of christians view this failing as deriving from the fall, even though it seems to have caused the fall.

The disobedience caused the Fall, which is nothing more than "separation from God".

deer of the dawn wrote:BTW, the Apocrypha is a collection of books written during the intertestamental period, between 400-ish BC and 0 BC. There is nothing in it about Christ.

Jesus did have physical brothers. (Matthew 12:47) And this verse seems to indicate that Joseph had relations with Mary after Jesus' birth: Matthew 1:25 "[Joseph] did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son."

[/wonk]

In Catholic Bibles, yes. That is the group called Apocrypha. The better term would be Jewish Apocrypha. When I or (presumably) Hashi use the term 'Apocrypha', it is to say 'books from a biblical time that are not necessarily canon, but are tangent to Christian belief.' For example, there's an old book called 'The Life of the Virgin Mary' or something like that. It isn't 'canon', per se, but it is the source of most, if not all, the Catholic belief on the Virgin Mary. Christian Apocrypha. Other examples would be the first epistle of Clement, the Revelation of Peter, and I'm drawing a blank....

Apocrypha books should not be confused with Psuedogryphic (I made that up, but the actual term is similar) which would include things like the first and second book of Adam, Enoch, etc.

I'm not sure where I got the 'sex is the Original Sin.' Could be more a Puritan concept. I stand by everything else I said, though.

Orlion wrote:When I or (presumably) Hashi use the term 'Apocrypha', it is to say 'books from a biblical time that are not necessarily canon, but are tangent to Christian belief.'

Yes, that is exactly what I mean.

Orlion wrote: I'm not sure where I got the 'sex is the Original Sin.' Could be more a Puritan concept. I stand by everything else I said, though.

My grandmother's church sort of followed this. Their logic was roughly that the Disobedience was the sin. But because Eve went first and "seduced" Adam to eat, and because the thing they realized was their nakedness, and because Eve's portion of the punishment was to still desire Adam, but give birth in pain, sex was "corrupted."
They were a little weird, though. Most branches I'm familiar with don't think of sex itself as sin, definitely not the Original. Only sex in inappropriate contexts is sinful.

O & H:
Back, so many years ago, in a Phil. of Religion class, we did a bit of Apocrypha and Pseudographia. I thought they were a lot more fun to read...at least the small portion we did.

Iolanthe wrote:

DoctorGamgee wrote:Iolanthe,

Check Matthew 13:55 and 12:46. I'll bet you will find his mother/bretheren mentioned there. Your husband may not have remembered those facts.

Unless he is parsing "brothers" and 'half-brothers' as they had different fathers (God-v-Joseph).

Doc

Will do, Doc, tomorrow, too tired now. Thought it would be Matthew.

Well, I sought but I didn't find. Found my four bibles, but C doesn't appear to have one, unless he's hiding it somewhere! I think he's been leading me up the garden path. I definitely remember his saying that he didn't know Jesus had brothers and sisters, and that it wasn't in his bible, but that was probably a few years ago and the memory plays funny tricks. No matter, it's not important.

However, I remembered that I had a conversation about this with my sister via FB as my niece was going to buy a christening present for her partner's sister's baby and she had bought a King James bible, and amongst that conversation I see that C advised that a Dorian Bible would be more appropriate! Funny thing, though, I can't find anything about this in google, so perhaps his memory is going as well.

I like the KJV...it lends itself well to quoting.

--A

wish i still had this book i loved. contained many non-canonical Bible books. Thomas, Mary - others of that ilk.

I lost it somehow before I could finish it though. so I am not sure if the had a book of Judas.

but one exists and I would like to read that very much.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Judas