(Click to enlarge.)
I’ve fallen a few entries behind in my NT commentary series, so I’m going to try to catch up before I leave the continent next week. Thus, I’ll double-up today and for the next few days.
Compare Matthew 12:46-50;Mark 3:31-35; John 15:14
The take-away here, I suppose, isn’t some supposed denigration of his family, or of the family generally, but the indication that Jesus had brothers. (Presumably half-brothers.)
This quite clearly seems to work against the idea of Mary’s perpetual virginity, which has become dogma among Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.
We had a speaker on campus a few weeks back, George Zervos, an Eastern Orthodox priest (I think) who teaches at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, who showed how the dogma of Mary’s perpetual virginity developed in the early centuries of Christianity. Fascinating.
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