I read what you wrote about Mary’s ceremonial purification and what this uncleanness symbolizes. But my simple yes or no question is this: If Mary had been sinless (i.e. without original and actual sin), would it have been possible for her to undergo the postnatal ceremonial purification described in Leviticus 12 and Luke 2? If no, then why not?

In the peace of Christ,

- Bryan

If Adam and Even had not fallen, then either they could have gotten to heaven without grace, or they could not have gotten to heaven without grace. Logically, those are the only two possibilities.

The former position is Pelagian. The latter position entails that even if Adam and Eve had not sinned, God would nevertheless have been their Savior, because they would still be saved from eternal separation from God by grace.

But, Mary was conceived within a post-Fall order under which she would have been conceived having original sin. She was born under fallen man, and fallen man required salvation by divine sacrifice, because an infinite debt was owed for sin against an infinite God. By contrast, Adam and Eve were not created within that post-Fall order. Grace (being gratuitous) was not due to Adam and Eve, but neither were they created within a pre-existing order in which they would otherwise have been deprived of grace and yet were gratuitously protected from the original sin they would have contracted under that order. The grace possessed by Adam and Eve prior to the Fall did not require divine sacrifice, because there was no debt for sin. Therefore, Mary’s salvation is not the same as Adam and Eve’s would have been had they not sinned, because, for the reason just explained, Mary’s salvation required Christ’s Passion, while the pre-Fall grace enjoyed by Adam and Eve did not require Christ’s Passion. Hence, if Adam and Eve sang the Magnificat prior to their Fall, the word ‘Savior’ (in the Magnificat) would not have had the same implicature as it does for Mary, because it would not have included this notion of redemption and sacrifice by God on behalf of man on account of sin.

In the peace of Christ,

- Bryan

Adam and Eve would have been able to sing the Magnificat? I don’t think so.

The alternative is that they could work their way to heaven, apart from grace. That is Pelagianism. (See comment 10)

In the peace of Christ,

- Bryan

Mary comes to the altar. For her a bird is killed and its blood is displayed on the side of the altar, which is the doorpost/doorway of the Temple. God sees the blood and causes the avenger to pass over Mary, which is what all blood displayed at the doorpost of the Temple means.

Uncleanness is symbolic death. That’s clear in Leviticus and Numbers 19. Mary is under death at this point, and requires a propitiatory (and temporary) animal sacrifice. The only people under death are those in union with Adam, as she was at this point. She is not in union with a prelapsarian Adam. She is in union with the postlapsarian Adam.

Jesus, not being united to Adam in his estate of sin, could not become unclean. He was not under death.

John’s baptism was for repentance, but that is not why Jesus was baptized. Jesus’ baptism was to set him aside as priest. Some washing in Leviticus were for uncleanness, but others were part of ordination. Peter Leithart’s *The Priesthood of the Plebs* is a good study on this.

On another point: We are indeed doing our reading in the context of the one holy catholic and apostolic church. We would welcome you to the Lord’s Table in our church, because we are catholic. We are not a sect. We treat the church as one. The RC and EO churches are sects that are neither apostolic in worship nor catholic in behavior.

The Church has never made perpetual virginity or IC a dogma, and there have always been those who objected to it. These things are not in the Nicene Creed. And quite some time back, that part of the Church that sought to be faithful to Jesus and His Word came reject these notions as grossly unworthy of Mary, the theotokos.

We invite you to join us and start honoring Mary properly, as she deserves to be honored.

First, you tell me that the Jesuits don’t count as exegetes because they’re Jesuits, but that Heil does count. Well, I can’t keep up with all of your sects. Donahue and Harrington are certainly well worth reading, and if you don’t like ‘em, that’s your loss.

As for Heil, he says that there’s a sharp contrast between the position of Mary and of the people sitting around Jesus, that we wonder if Jesus will leave the crowd and go outside, that Jesus distances himself from Mary who is standing outside, and that Jesus “declares that ‘those seated around him in a circle’ constitute his true mother and brothers rather than those ’standing outside’” (p. 92). That is, he’s saying that the crowd around him is his mother “rather than” (Heil’s words) Mary who is standing outside. If that’s not supporting what I’m saying, I don’t know what is.

Second, the groups in the first part of the story and the last part of the story may not be numerically identical. Contrary to what you wrote in your response, I didn’t say they had to be. There may have been twenty of Jesus’ relatives who thought he was nuts, while only Mary and his brothers actually came to seize him. But certain people “went out to seize him” in v. 21, and when they arrive where he is and send for him in v. 31, it turns out that they are Mary and his brothers.

Third, there is nothing in the text to suggest that Jesus got up and went out and everything to suggest that he didn’t. Jesus’ mother calls him to come out. People tell Jesus that his mother is calling him. And Jesus says that these people sitting around him are his mother. He is already with his mother. Why should we conclude that after saying that, Jesus still got up and went outside? It seems clear from the very next verse that Mary and Jesus’ brothers didn’t “seize” him as they came out to do (v. 21). So the text implies — though it doesn’t state explicitly and doesn’t need to — that Jesus didn’t go out to the people who were standing outside.

Fourth, Jesus says that those who are doing God’s will are his mother and brother and sister (v. 35), and he identifies those who are doing God’s will with the ones who are sitting in a circle around him. He looks at them and identifies them as his mother. The people say to him, “Your mother is outside.” Jesus says, “Here is my mother.” So if Mary thinks that it’s a problem for Jesus to be acting the way he is, with all these people surrounding him (vv. 20-21), then she is not understanding God’s will correctly. She needs to make sure she’s aligned with Jesus’ mother (the ones doing God’s will).

Fifth, I have never said that Jesus’ mother was (at that time) not part of Jesus’ “supernatural family.” It’s possible to sin and still be part of the church of Jesus Christ. It’s certainly possible to be mistaken about God’s will or about Jesus’ mission and still be part of the church of Jesus Christ. And it’s possible to have a misguided maternal concern for Jesus, thinking he needs to rest instead of doing what he’s doing because he seems to be acting crazy, which is a form of putting your own wisdom above His (and therefore above God’s), to need something of a mild rebuke, and still to be part of the church. Jesus is not dooming Mary to be outside forever. But he’s setting up a distinction between outside and inside that ought to have caused her to reflect on her position and her need to “come inside” and make sure she’s doing God’s will and not her own.

Sixth, this discussion has eaten up enough of my time, so I’m going to have to drop it at this point.

Adam and Eve would have been able to sing the Magnificat? I don’t think so.

How, exactly is it special pleading? Special pleading is criticizing another person’s position about x, and then making an exception for x when x is pointed out to be true of one’s own position.

So, I don’t see how saying that there are two ways in which a person can be saved is special pleading.

In Catholic theology, Adam and Eve were in a state of grace (and thus in a state of salvation) before they fell. They came into existence not in sin, but in a state of grace and original righteousness, and thus in a state of salvation. So Mary’s being saved by (among other things) not contracting original sin is similar to Adam and Eve’s being saved (prior to their fall) without having original sin. It is not an ad hoc definition of salvation — it goes back to the very beginning, to the fullness of grace and salvation given to Adam and Eve from the beginning of their existence.

In the peace of Christ,

- Bryan

What I find interesting is how these arguments could be applied to some of the Catholic blogs that I read. Most of them are involved in the rather Sisyphean exercise of trying to convince Protestants that Protestantism is not Scriptural. But, if we consider the premises of our sedevacantist philologist, the Christian Faith does not have its primary basis in Scripture: it resides rather in the “Mysteric Cult”, the Eucharist, and the power of God. Indeed, it has been refered to me several times that primitive Christianity may have spread not primarily through the persuasive preaching of the first followers of Christ, but rather through all of the miracles of the early Church. Early Christianity may have been more shamanistic than we would like to concede. Indeed, as Disandro points out, the primary presence of God in Israel during its Golden Age was not the presence of God in the Torah or the word, but rather in the Shekinah of the Temple, the Light of Glory:

Quam dilecta sunt tabernacula tua, Domine virtutum…

Thus, trying to persuade people that Catholicism is the true “religion of the Book” is a bit like trying to make an atomic bomb out of gum wrappers and rubber bands. The real foundation of our religion is elsewhere. (And not, as I would say, in ecclesiastical authority either, as some would wish to believe, but that is the subject of another post entirely, and it is past my bedtime.)

http://arturovasquez.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/on-the-church-and-language/#more-4770

One can be saved in two ways, either by being pulled out of the mud, or by being prevented from falling into the mud in the first place. The latter is the greater saving, explained Scotus. It is not necessary for Mary to have existed at enmity with God at some point in time in order for her to have been saved by God.

That’s just special pleading. You make up a definition of “salvation” that only pertains to one individual in the history of the world. Of course, you need to make up a definition of salvation because she has inconveniently “rejoiced in God my Savior.” So in order to reconcile the doctrine of Mary’s sinlessness with her need for a Savior Scotus must invent a weird definition of “salvation” that will include this singular case. Please.

You wrote:

First, I’m not worried about what the Fathers might have said about this passage. That may bother you, but that’s not a concern to me. I believe it’s possible to do exegesis without consulting the Fathers.

I’m quite aware that it is possible to “do exegesis” without consulting the Fathers. And there is nothing intrinsically wrong with doing so, as an exercise. But if we don’t read the Bible with the Church, we’ve swallowed ecclesial deism hook, line and sinker. Our exegesis needs to be informed by the Church, because the Bible didn’t just drop down out of Heaven yesterday. It is a book that was given to a community of faith with a two-thousand year history, and in order to be understood properly and fully, it must be approached and interpreted in its true context, i.e. in and with that community.

Second, I did consult Roman Catholic commentaries and they agreed with me

The two Jesuits don’t count; they’re Jesuits. And Heil doesn’t support your conclusion, and would reject your appealing to his words to support your conclusion.

Third, what you call “eisegesis” here, I call “exegesis”

I’ve never met an eisegete who calls his work eisegesis. They all call their work ‘exegesis’. So calling it ‘exegesis’ doesn’t prove anything.

It is the text that says that Jesus’ family came to “seize” him,

In vs. 21 it says “οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ”, which does not necessarily include His Mother.

It is the text that is structured like a sandwich, as many exegetes notice, so that the people in the first part of the story are the same as the ones in the third part,

That’s a non sequitur. A sandwich structure does not entail that the persons mentioned on one end are numerically the same persons mentioned on the other end.

It is the text that says that Jesus didn’t go out to his mother when she called him.

Actually, the text never says that. But you’re showing how easy it is to read your own assumptions into the text, without even knowing that you are doing so.

It is the text that says that Jesus did not acknowledge that the woman outside was his mother

Again, the text never says that Jesus did not do so. You are inferring from the text’s not saying x that the text says ~x. That’s a non sequitur, and a basic hermeneutical blunder.

It is the text that emphasizes that those sitting inside around Jesus who are his mother are the ones who are doing God’s will, which implies that Mary is mistaken about what God’s will is.

No it does not. That again, is a non sequitur. Jesus’ statement is fully compatible with Mary not being mistaken about God’s will.

It is the text that emphasizes that Mary is “outside,”

If the passage was merely stating it, but not emphasizing it, how would it look any different?

and it is the text that gives “outside” and “inside” pregnant meaning here.

The meaning is that there is a distinction between his natural family and his supernatural family, as I already explained. But you are [mistakenly, unjustifiably and uncharitably] reading into this passage that His Mother was [at that time] not part of His supernatural family, and hence in a state of sin.

In the peace of Christ,

- Bryan

If you had taken rhetoric you wouldn’t use your logic to such cheap effect.

Obviously, those objections you made (unique DNA, his particular experiences) are not in sight of the creed, but were you to deny that Jesus had DNA or fingerprints or sweat glands I would certainly be right to point to the creed. Your other objections about His godhead are frivolous because -as you note later- He is like us, as the creed says, in regards “to His manhood”.

Virgin birth would also fly in the face of the creed except for the fact that it is affirmed in the creed. So for me to argue what I argued would not entail that “the conciliar Fathers were denying that Christ was born of a virgin”.

Perhaps you could dissuade me of this, but it seems perfectly sensible to take the creed to mean that Jesus (in regards to His manhood) is like us in all regards (save those exceptions mentioned in the creed). Of course “all regards” being those things true of all mankind and not necessarily individually the way you (illogically) took it.

First, I’m not worried about what the Fathers might have said about this passage. That may bother you, but that’s not a concern to me. I believe it’s possible to do exegesis without consulting the Fathers.

Second, I did consult Roman Catholic commentaries and they agreed with me that (a) Mary is included in the group of Jesus’ relatives at the beginning of the story, that (b) Jesus distances himself from her, which at the least indicates some problem with her at this point, and that (c) she is left outside the house, an “outsider,” distinguished from the “insiders” who are identified as Jesus’ mother.

Third, what you call “eisegesis” here, I call “exegesis”: It is the text that says that Jesus’ family came to “seize” him, a word that’s used in the sense of “arrest” elsewhere. It is the text that says that Jesus’ family thought he was out of his mind. It is the text that associates this charge with the fact that Jesus is so busy with people that he doesn’t have a chance to eat (vv. 20-21 in order). It is the text that is structured like a sandwich, as many exegetes notice, so that the people in the first part of the story are the same as the ones in the third part, so that Mary is among those who wanted to “seize” Jesus because she thought he was insane. It is the text that says that Jesus didn’t go out to his mother when she called him. It is the text that says that Jesus did not acknowledge that the woman outside was his mother but instead identified the people sitting around him as his mother. It is the text that emphasizes that those sitting inside around Jesus who are his mother are the ones who are doing God’s will, which implies that Mary is mistaken about what God’s will is. It is the text that emphasizes that Mary is “outside,” and it is the text that gives “outside” and “inside” pregnant meaning here.

Fourth, I’m happy with Jim’s way of summarizing my point: “Mary was a model believer, and as a believer, she had times of doubts and even, as Barach pointed out, thought wrongfully at one point that Jesus needed to come home and get a rest.” I don’t think this is some huge sin on Mary’s part. I think it’s a temporary failure (probably motivated by maternal concern for him) to trust Jesus, to trust that He knows what He’s doing, to trust that what He’s doing really is God’s will, to trust that the danger He’s in really is the path to safety for all those with Him, and so on.

It’s momentary; it’s likely relatively mild. It certainly isn’t high rebellion, like the scribes claiming that Jesus has Beelzebub, but it is a lapse and Jesus responds to Mary and his brothers in a way that indicates that for them, too, God’s will is not that Jesus come outside to them (answering the claims of his natural family) but that they come inside (not necessarily literally, but in the sense of joining those who do God’s will by trusting and listening to him). And the way Mark tells the story leaves us with a warning: Even family ties to Jesus are not sufficient; a divided household can’t stand; therefore, we must respond to Jesus not with (well-meaning) doubt but with faith.

You wrote:

The fact that Mary became unclean and needed cleansing means that she did indeed possess the sin-magnet of original sin.

Where does the Bible say that having original sin is necessary in order to become ceremonially unclean? That seems like speculation on your part.

John the Baptist said, “I baptize you with water for repentance” (Mt 3:11) but that doesn’t mean that Jesus had sin (actual or original) when He received John’s baptism. (Mt 3:15) So likewise, Mary’s keeping of the law (Luke 3:22-24) for the days of her purification, is fully compatible with her not having original sin.

In the peace of Christ,

- Bryan

Here’s why your interpretation is eisegesis: because everything in that passage is fully compatible with Mary having never sinned. If you don’t agree, show one thing in the account that it is incompatible with Mary being sinless.

You write:

But at the end of the story, Jesus’ “own people” turn out to be his brothers and mother

That’s speculation on your part. Everything in the passage is fully compatible with His Mother and brothers not being among those mentioned in 3:20-21.

Again you write:

But at this point, in spite of their natural relationship with Jesus, Mary and his brothers are not that family.

Again, this is pure speculation on your part. Jesus is talking about His supernatural family (those one with Him by grace). You infer from His distinction between His natural family and His supernatural family that His natural family is not included in His supernatural family. But that conclusion does not follow. The distinction between His natural family and His supernatural family does not imply or entail that His natural family (or His Mother) are not members of His supernatural family.

You write:

They are seeking to take him away from the ones who sit around him in obedience to God,

This again is speculative eisegesis. Nowhere does it say that His mother and brothers were seeking to “take Him away from the ones who sit around Him.”

in order to take him into their protective custody, as if Jesus would be safe with them instead of they themselves being safe with him.

That’s more speculation on your part. Here you are trying to read the minds of His mother and brothers (and doing so in a way that maligns them) when the text does not say what their intentions were.

You go on:

And therefore, though they did later trust in Jesus, they are acting at this moment in unbelief.

Again, this pure eisegetical speculation on your part. Nothing in the text says they were acting in unbelief. You are reading that into the text.

There are more examples of eisegesis in your post, but there’s no need to point to them all. You get the idea.

You seem to have given no consideration to what the early Church Fathers have to say about this passage, and about Mary, when setting out to interpret this passage so as to construe Mary as sinning. Does it concern you that your interpretation is at odds with that of the Fathers?

Moreover, given the principle of charity, why would you want to smear Mary by assuming she was sinning, when nothing in the passage is incompatible with her being sinless, and nothing in the passage requires interpreting it so as to make her out to have sinned?

In the peace of Christ,

- Bryan