I’ve wasted wayyyyy too much time in my Facebook group making the case for a “plain reading” hermeneutic of Scripture vis a vis the question of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary.
I’ll admit it: I get frustrated when individuals require scripture to be obtuse in order to make room for their pet doctrines. Were the writers (under inspiration, no less) writing to be understood? Can language be allowed to carry its natural meaning, even when we don’t like the implications it may carry?
Not for the dogmatic Semper Virgo adherent.
I had in mind to post some selections from my go-rounds with such people, but that would be to waste even more time on this subject.
Rather, the whole thing was pretty well captured in this debate between James White and Jerry Matatics. To my delight, my arguments mirrored Dr. White’s opening statement even before I watched the video. To my amusement, my opponents’ arguments mirrored those of Mr. Matatics.
I’ll let any interested parties watch for themselves.
Funnily, I’ve been accused of using bad exegesis to support my position that Mary did not remain Semper Virgo — this even though my opponents use the exact same exegetical framework for passages on Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the extent of Christ’s salvific work, and prayers to the saints.
Ah, well, I’ve been inconsistent on my fair share of thinking too. Such is the human condition.
Nevertheless, to the (self-contradictory and hypocritical) charge of “bad exegesis” I simply say:
At least I’m not using bad eisegesis.
And, with that, I’m done with the matter.
And, while I am done, I do want to mirror some comments made by Adam Blauser on the subject of hermeneutics and exegesis that deserve to be “rebroadcast,” as it were. This is from the comments section of an article on the heos hou construction found in Matthew 1:25, the plain reading of which contradicts Semper Virgo.
To quote Adam at length:
I am familiar with the argument from εως ου, and I think that one thing that must be brought up is the Sassurian distinction between diachrony and synchrony. Synchrony refers to the use of language at a particular time, and diachrony refers to the way in which language is used over time. The strength of the argument from εως ου is that it relies heavily upon synchronic language usage. For example, “meat” originally referred to food in general at the time of the King James Bible. Although “hound” is now used to refer to a hunting dog, in the Old English period it originally referred to a dog in general. “Wife” in the Old English period originally referred to a woman in general. In the Old English period, the verb “to starve” originally meant “to die.” You see, language changes in its meaning, and that is why going back to the LXX is not helpful, because of the fact that language changes in its meaning. Hence, while diachrony is helpful, you have to combine that with synchronic analysis, and the importance of Svendsen’s work is in documenting the contemporaneous usage of εως ου as indicating a termination of the action of the main clause. Hence, quotations from the LXX would be irrelevant.
However, I think something that clinches the argument even stronger is the concept of conversational implicature. This goes back to Paul Grice, who argued that meaning in language must take into account the fact that speakers and interlocutors cooperate with one another when they speak. This is what lead to what is famously known as the “cooperative principle,” which states that speakers and interlocutors are to cooperate with one another in conversation. Grice then laid out four different examples of how speakers and interlocutors cooperate, and important one for our purposes is the Quantity principle [aka the Q-Principle]:
(i) Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).
(ii) Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. [cited in Huang, Yan. Pragmatics; Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics. Oxford University Press. New York, NY. 2007. p.25]
The Q-Principle allows for statements like this:
I started cleaning the kitchen.
To conversationally implicate:
I didn’t finish cleaning the kitchen.
The reason is that, although finishing a task semantically entails starting that task, starting a task does not entail finishing the task. Hence, the use of the weaker “start” will conversationally implicate “did not finish.”
One further important point, before returning to Matthew 1:25 is that conversational implicature such as the Q-implicature, is defeasable or cancelable by context, background assumptions, and metalinguistic negation. Consider the following:
I started cleaning the kitchen. Then, when I finished, I went to the store.
Here, very clearly, the idea that someone started cleaning the kitchen does not mean that they did not finish, as the context indicates that they *did* finish.
Now, back to Matthew 1:25. Temporal conjunctions like “until” divide the timeline up at a particular point-the point indicated by the subordinate clause. At this point, the timeline is divided up into two sections. The action of the main clause goes on up until that point. Following the Q-principle, this would mean that we are giving sufficient information, and hence, we can assume that the action of the main clause is terminated at the point on the timeline. Hence, words like “until” will elicit conversational implicatures that state that the action of the main clause stops at the point of the “until.” Usually it helps to gloss a Q-implicature with the word “only:”
He did not know her *only* until she gave birth to a son.
However, such implicatures can be defeated by context and background assumptions. Someone has already given the example of Michal:
Michal had no children until the day of her death.
will not conversationally implicate:
Michal had no children *only* until the day of her death, but started afterwards.
However, this is because of our background assumptions about death, namely, that it is impossible to have children after you are dead. Thus, it will cancel the implicature that her inability to have children lasted only to the point of death and not after.
Another important thing to note is that words such as “until” ellicit what are called “generalized” conversational implicatures. That is, unless defeated by context or background assumptions, words like “until” seem to carry this conversational implicature. If you see a recipe that says:
Mix in the flour until you get a thick sauce.
You would not want the person to keep mixing in flour beyond that. You understand the author to mean that you are to mix in flour *only* until you get the desired thickness. Or, take someone who says:
I played chess until the ninth grade.
No one would argue that he means to say that he played chess beyond the ninth grade.
Because of the generalized nature of these conversational implicatures, the only way they will not apply is due to background assumptions and context. The context actually *strengthens* this interpretation because, in verse 18, “before they came together” presupposes that they came together. And all of this is in the context of the virgin birth, namely, that Mary was found to be with child, and Joseph knew he was not the father. Hence, really the only way out of this is to say that there is something in our background assumptions about reality. Some have tried to argue that the tradition of the church provides this basis, but the problem with this argument is that this tradition doesn’t enter into orthodox thinking until the third or fourth centuries. Heretical groups such as the gnostics held to it, but that was due to their neo-Platonic views of reality which the Christian church was fighting actively against in the sexual realm. Also, you have Judaism which forbade celibate marriage, and the emerging Christian movement which forbade celibate marriage [1 Corinthians 7:1-5]. Hence, the background assumptions at this point are wholly against the interpreter who wants to say that this generalized conversational implicature is defeated by background assumptions, as the normal expectation of marriage of both Jewish and Christian circles was that marriage entailed sexual relations.
I think this also explains the semantic data that Svendsen uncovered. Εως ου appears to have, for a time, been the construction that was used during the time of Jesus and the Apostles for cases in which you absolutely meant to indicate that the action of the main clause was terminated by the action of the subordinate clause. However, due to the fact that there are many constructions in Greek which indicate until [including εως alone], there was no corresponding word to use for actions in which the action of the main clause *did* continue, and this unique usage of εως ου didn’t stick, and thus, eventually came to be used in cases where the action of the main clause continued just like the rest of the construction came to be used just like all of the rest of the constructions in that regard.
In other words, both the semantics and the pragmatics of εως ου will not allow for this interpretation. The way in which the semantics and pragmatics have worked together in history seems to slam the door on the relevance of other passages where such conversational implicatures are defeated. Grice’s work on conversational implicature shows that sometimes looking at individual words and phrases is not enough. Human beings use words, and they intend things with their words. Putting this along side of word meaning is a powerful way to make language a *human* phenomenon, and not the study of mere chemicals or physical objects.
The inevitable rebuttal by someone who asserts that the Church Fathers knew how language works better than us moderns (and couldn’t possibly have an axe to grind that made them defend an obtuse hermeneutic for Matt 1:25):
Adam,
Who are you addressing? I hope it isn’t me as I don’t read Greek. You are wasting your erudition on me.
If you want to continue talking over my head after having been told I don’t read Greek so, EA and I just might conversing in Portuguese again.As I already told Ken, I will go with Chrysostom’s Greek rather than yours. He addressed both the “brothers’ business and the “until” issue. Being a major Greek Father, speaking Greek every day of his life, he probably had a better handle on the language than you or Mr. Svensen.
And Adam’s response:
Goes back to the issue of diachrony and synchrony. Chrysostom lived three hundred years after the writing of the NT. Languages can change in huge ways in 300 years. More than that, Grice didn’t write his paper until the twentieth century. Why would you expect Chrysostom to address issues in Grice relevant to Matthew 1:25 if Grice hadn’t written yet?
Adam’s response to another, subsequent comment:
Guy,
The point you Protestants miss is this; The Catholic Church has been consistently teaching the PVM since the beginning. She has also been interpreting the Greek for as long. She did not decide to go back and start reading Greek last week to learn what the passages dealing with Heos Hu and Adelphe mean or if May was really a Virgin.
Prove it. Show this belief in orthodox Christian writings before the third century. The only people you can cite are the Gnostics who, as I said, believed in it for a totally different reason [their neo-platonic dualism]. There is no evidence that *anyone* in the early church believed this, and, in all likelihood, when it did come into the church, it came in from the Gnostic writings.
First of all, with regards to the second half of your post about the reformers and Biblical interpretation, to expect Luther and Calvin to have dealt with Paul Grice is absurd, since Grice wrote in the 20th century, and they wrote in the 16th century. Also, isn’t it rather ironic that one thing all of us agree on is the central elements of the gospel. They may have believed that Mary remained a virgin, but they did not make it an element of the gospel, and, in fact, criticized the “Papists” for doing so. We all believe in Sola Fide, and we would all be telling you the same thing in regards to your denial of the gospel. Isn’t it amazing how, on the central issues, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Arminian Protestantism tell Roman Catholicism pretty much the same thing?
More than that, the problem with this argument is that it basically says that there is only one factor involved in interpretation: the interpreter. However, that is profoundly *not* the case. You also have the author, who has left an artifact of his thinking in the text. More than that, you have God himself, in whose image the author and us are created, and in whom both the author and us live and move and have our being, and who communicates perfectly. Therefore, we know what perfect communication looks like, because of our covenant relationship with him. It is this standard of covenant relationship with God that gives us a standard outside of ourselves in which to judge whether interpretations are correct. We have used those standards to show that Luther, Calvin, and Chrysostom were wrong. We stand upon God himself, and not upon a limited and finite church.
…Guy, also, since when is “implicature” Greek? Conversational implicature is something that a philosopher of language by the name of Paul Grice discovered in the twentieth century. Look up Paul Grice and Conversational Implicature, and you will see examples from all languages, as conversational implicature is detachable.
Also, you missed the point about the brothers of Jesus. Go back and read the verse again:
Matthew 12:47-50 Someone said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.” 48 But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” 49 And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! 50 “For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.”
Notice, Jesus says this in response to the claim that his mother and brothers are standing outside waiting for him. Jesus clearly says that, whatever the physical relationship is between these brothers and him, it is the same with those who do the will of his Father. Again, unless you are going to argue that those who do the will of God are Jesus’ spiritual cousins, the biological nature of these brothers is established.
And more from Adam (to see his interlocutor’s comments in full beyond what Adam quotes, visit the above link):
Ha! The onus is on you to prove the contrary.
If this teaching was an innovation, where was the outcry from the faithful when it was foisted on them by the “Romish whore”?Nonsense. The reason there was no outcry is because it was something that developed slowly over time. And I said it came from Gnosticism initially, and, over time, worked its way into orthodox Christian thinking.
Also, you are the one who bears the burden of proof, because you are making the positive assertion that this existed in the days of the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers. I simply say that there is no evidence for that whatsoever. Not one church writer even begins to allude to the PV in that time period. And yet, the first time we see it is in Gnostic writings, consistent with their worldview, and then we only see it in orthodox writings much later??????? Seems to indicate that this came in from Gnosticism-not that it was the universal belief of the church from day one.
At the end of the day, it’s really a simple question of to what extent tradition is allowed to interpret Scripture. Especially if an alternative is available that makes more plain sense of the text.
I know where my convictions lead me. But, each man must decide this for himself.
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