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James, the half-brother of Jesus

All good questions @Biblebeliever, for the focus of the thread though, IMO there are several things that we don’t know and can’t prove within Cannonized Scripture.

  1. We cannot prove whether or not Joseph had other wives simultaneously with Mary or prior to Mary
  2. We also cannot prove that he didn’t have another after he married Mary or that he didn’t have a wife and/or children previously.
  3. All that can be proven is that there were other children that were called brothers and sisters with no mention of who their mother was or their birth order.
  4. That Mary was definitely the mother of Christ and he was her first.
  5. That Joseph was intimate with Mary after she brought forth Christ. Some might be able to argue that if Christ was her firstborn then there must be a “secondborn”, however that view IMO is not as airtight as it would seem to be at first glance since that was often used as an idiom for the inheritor. It did not necessarily prove the existence of a second son, just the existence of a first son.
Everything else is simply speculation if we are utilizing the Cannonized Scripture
 
https://www.biblicaltraining.org/library/brothers-jesus

I'll try and see if I can can find away to link to The Digital Biblical Archeological Society Library for y'all it has some very good break downs of the views of the Apolistic Fathers and I'll peice together somethings I read in The Researchers Library of Anceint text.
 
Biblebeliever said:
Questions regarding Jesus' birth:
In Luke 1:26-33 Mary is told by the angel Gabriel that she will be with child who will be called the Son of the Most High." (In Mary's dream, she is told she WILL be with child.)

Luke 1:34 states that Mary's reaction is: "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" (She does not make any mention of being pledged to be married to Joseph.)

Mary got ready and hurried to visit Elizabeth. Luke 1:56 states that "Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home."

Matthew 1:20-25 states that "Joseph had no union with Mary until she gave birth to a Son," The Bible does not say that Joseph had no union with another possible wife. Joseph was not with Mary for three months while she was visiting Elizabeth. And the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and calls him, "Joseph, son of David." And David was also a known polygynst. (Joseph's dream occurred later than Mary's dream, because Joseph did not know that Mary's pregnancy was through the Holy Spirit.) So that is why even though he was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to pubic disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

1. Did Mary not know she had been pledged or promised in marriage to Joseph as she makes no mention of him, so could it have been an arranged marriage that only Joseph knew about?

2. Did God guide Mary to hurry and go visit Elizabeth as soon as she was told she would become pregnant to prove to skeptics that Joseph was not Jesus' biological father?

3. The Bible does not say where Elizabeth was living when Mary visited her except it was a town in the hill country of Judea. Was this Joseph's plan to not expose Mary to public disgrace?

4. Is it possible Joseph did not know whether Mary would be returning home until she came back and was considering divorcing her for three months?

5. How long was it before Joseph had his dream and found out the truth about Mary's pregnancy?

6. Is it possible Joseph already had a wife since the Bible does not state that Joseph was a virgin, only that Mary was a virgin?
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Lots of good questions, but how do you answer most of them? Canon doesn't really answer them. We know what we know. You can't build a doctrine on suppositions.

Bottom line:

Joseph could have been a polygynist, but if one tries to prove it based on the evidence we have, it won't be looked upon very credibly.

Mary could have been a perpetual virgin, but if one tries to prove that based on the evidence we have, it won't be looked upon very credibly (sorry RCC).
 
eye4them said:
MOA = Monogamy Only Advocate.
My best understanding is that one cannot prove from the text [of the Torah] that Moses had two wives simultaneously. The MOAs I've read refute saying that Zipporah must have died before Moses took the Chushite. OK, I just skimmed that thread, and I didn't see anywhere that we can prove Moses had two living wives at the same time. If you have a place or argument/exegesis that you could cite... that would be great, because I am working on a message right now and I would love to be able to pull out an air-tight "Moses was a polygynist" argument. Thanks.
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Well it's not going to be air tight but fairly solid, I thought that thread was fairly solid.
It may be that some of the good stuff was in a prior thread where we had some deep conversation; we had the analysis of the Hebrew cantilation marks regarding Moses' 3rd father in law? If it ins't in that thread I'll dig that up I think that verse is quite convincing. I don't want to get more into Moses in this thread on Jacob Yeshua's brother.
I'll try to find our good arguments and share them with you...
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1-it's a big assumption to say Moses wife died and not report that fact.
2-regarding yet another wife of Moses Please look at this post again: Biblical Families: Numbers 10:29 Moses' father in law Hobab so if we are dealing with 3 wives, will they claim none were living at the same time?
 
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Verifyveritas76 said:
...
  1. That Joseph was intimate with Mary after she brought forth Christ. Some might be able to argue that if Christ was her firstborn then there must be a “secondborn”, however that view IMO is not as airtight as it would seem to be at first glance since that was often used as an idiom for the inheritor. It did not necessarily prove the existence of a second son, just the existence of a first son.
Everything else is simply speculation if we are utilizing the Cannonized Scripture
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Since the firstborn son has specific laws associated with him in the Law of G-d, the special designation of "first born" was applied even to families with only 1 male child, so those who would make the claim about 'must be a secondborn' would be way off.
 
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