The heos hou / ἕως οὗ construction in the New Testament proves the RC Perpetual Virginity of Mary dogma wrong

Who is My Mother? by Eric Svendsen

I answered the very persistent and redundant "Guy Fawkes" / Jim, who lives in Portugal and apparently has lots of time to keep repeating himself, after being refuted many times, in a combox: (with additional comments)

Regarding Matthew 1:18 - "before they came together"
and
Matthew 1:25 - Joseph "kept her a virgin until" (heos hou / ἕως οὗ ) "she gave birth to a son"

 "but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus."


"And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, 25  but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus."  Matthew 1:24-25

24 ἐγερθεὶς δὲ  Ἰωσὴφ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕπνου ἐποίησεν ὡς προσέταξεν αὐτῷ ὁ ἄγγελος κυρίουκαὶ παρέλαβεν τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ· 
25 καὶ οὐκ ἐγίνωσκεν αὐτὴν  ἕως οὗ  
ἔτεκεν υἱόν· καὶ ἐκάλεσεν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν.  (I don't know why the Greek font gets smaller after the embolding of ἕως οὗ )

Note:  For those who don't know Greek, the mark above the letter that is like a backwards apostrophe is a breathing mark, "he" or "h" sound. (above the ε in the first word, and above the υ in the second word.)

Guy Fawkes / Jim,
I just don't have much time to keep repeating this stuff; you seem to have too much time on your hands.  You have not done research on the differences between "heos" / 'εως by itself, "heos hou" / 'εως 'ου,  and the other prepositional phrases (heos hotou / 'εως 'οτου ; and heos an / 'εως αν, and ἄχρι οὗ / axri hou - see 1 Cor. 15:25) and syntactical constructions - the Greek NT has many different ones, and all the examples that Roman Catholics bring to mean "until, but continuing on after that also" are NOT the heos hou / 'εως 'ου construction .  They are other constructions.

Guy Fawkes/Jim wrote: 
The passages from Matthew you mention are based on the words "before/until". 
It is important to stress Jesus had no human father so the word "before" says that and nothing more.

"before they came together" is in the context of marriage - so that means "having sexual intercourse" in marriage.  " [ see context: (verse 18) - "betrothed" with intention of getting married; "Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife" (verse 20); "Joseph did as the angel commanded him, and took her as his wife" (verse 24), "but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son . . . " (verse 25)]

Guy Fawkes / Jim wrote:
"Until" does not need to mean a change took place after a particular event.

But it does in this context.  As Eric Svendsen has definitively demonstrated,

"This construction [of heos hou / 'εως 'ου] is used in Matthew 1:25 and so is of special interest here.  It occurs only seventeen times in the NT, and all are temporal.  Two of these have the meaning "while" (Matthew 14:22; 26:36), whereas the other 15 occurrences are instances in which the action of the main clause is limited by the action of subordinate clause and require the meaning, "until a specific time, (but not after)".

(Svendsen, Who is My Mother?  page 52)

On page 251 he lists all the occurrances in the NT of the heos hou / 'εως 'ου construction with the English verses typed out.  It is a lot to type out, but with the verse thingy that James put in here, I can type the verse references and then you can hover over them to see:

Matthew 1:25

Matthew 13:33

Matthew 14:22 (while)

Matthew 17:9

Matthew 18:34

Matthew 26:36 (while)

Luke 13:21

Luke 15:8

Luke 22:18

Luke 24:49

John 13:38

Acts 21:26

Acts 23:12

Acts 23:14

Acts 23:21

Acts 25:21

2 Peter 1:19


You will have to go to http://biblewebapp.com/study/

or some other place to see the Greek constructions.

Svendsen also goes through all the LXX constructions; but this is enough to prove you wrong.

Resources: Eric Svendsen's Roman Catholic Debate on Authority

Ken's recent post and a few helpful links from my cyber-pal Algo have combined to prompt me to provide a link to Eric Svendsen's debate on authority. When I first began studying Roman Catholic issues, I was fortunate enough to come across Eric Svendsen's Ntrmin.org website. 

I haven't heard this debate (or if I did, I don't recall it), nor have I kept up with Eric. I look forward to checking it out.

Debate : Authority
(Video part one)
(Video Part two)

Mitch Pacwa argues the Roman Catholic position (amounting to sola ecclesia), while Eric Svendsen argues the Protestant position (sola scriptura). This debate took place in Oklahoma City on May 2007.

Thank you Eric Svendsen for NTRMin.org

I was contacted recently by a person who couldn't access my Reformation papers on Eric Svendsen's Ntrmin.org website. It appears Ntrmin.org has vanished. Ntrmin was one of the best sites for countering Roman Catholic apologetics. Dr. Svendsen graciously hosted some of my longer papers on Martin Luther and the Reformation, as well as providing numerous helpful articles on Roman Catholicism.

The Ntrmin website was around for many years. It also hosted a discussion forum called The Areopagus. It was there I became acquainted with Dr. Svendsen's work, as well as that of Jason Engwer (now of the Triablogue clan), and Pastor David King (author of Holy Scripture: The Ground and Pillar of Our Faith volume 1). I also met a number of other people, many of which I'm still in contact with today. This was all due to the Ntrmin website.

Dr. Eric Svendsen has authored of a number of books of Roman Catholicism. I highly recommend the following:

Upon This Slippery Rock: Countering Roman Catholic Claims to Authority (Amityville, NY: Calvary Press, 2002)

Who is My Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism (Amityville, NY: Calvary Press, 2001)

Evangelical Answers: A Critique of Current Roman Catholic Apologists (Lindenhurst, NY: Reformation Press, 1999)

He's also been a guest on the Iron sharpens Iron program discussing these books (free mp3 downloads here).

I'm not sure what Eric's plans are in regard to his website. Perhaps he's decided to phase it out, or perhaps he's rebuilding it. Either way, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Svendsen for the Ntrmin.org website. I've used it often during the years, and I'm grateful for all the work he put into it. It was one of the first sites that I found directly responding to the newer breed of Roman Catholic apologists. If he's decided to take the website down, it will indeed be missed.