One of the primary objections that modern Christians have to the ancient Christian Faith, is the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity - held by Catholics, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and the remnants of the Church of the East. The objection is quick and confident: Matthew 1:25 says Joseph “knew her not until she had borne a son.” With know being the more intimate knowing, if you know what I mean. So — the argument runs — after Jesus was born, Joseph did. Because “Until” implies the situation changed afterward. Doesn’t it?
In English, usually yes. After all if I said I wasn’t an alcoholic until I was married - it implies I am one after I was married. But this sentence wasn’t written in English, and the word used actually wasn’t until.
What “until” does in Greek.
The word is heōs (like in Matthew 1:25, heōs hou). It fixes attention on the time leading up to a point. It makes no claim at all about what happens after — that simply falls outside the job the word is doing. Our English “until” often smuggles in an extra implication (“I didn’t eat until noon” → so I ate at noon). Biblical Greek heōs carries no such freight, and neither did the Hebrew idiom standing behind it.
So in summary:
I wasn’t an alcoholic until I was married -> in English means I wasn’t before AND I am now after.
I wasn’t an alcoholic heōs hou I was married -> using the Greek used in Matthew 1:25 means I wasn’t before I was married, without any implication of a change after.
The clearest way to see this cultural and linguistic usage is to watch where the Bible uses the same word in other places where and then it changed is impossible.
The same author. The same word.
Matthew closes his Gospel with the risen Christ promising:
“I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)
That is the very same word, heōs, but translated here as to the close of instead of until the close of. We wouldn’t read that as Christ will be with His church and then stop being with His church at the close of the ages?
Same concept in Hebrew
“And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death.” (2 Samuel 6:23)
The Hebrew is ʿad — “until.” Did Michal begin bearing children after she died? The sentence obviously implies nothing of the kind. Here it’s not translated as until, it’s translated as to the day of. It simply says: no children, all the way to the end.
One more, from Saint Paul:
“For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” (1 Corinthians 15:25)
Paul isn’t implying that Christ will stop reigning at some point. The Greek word, here translated as until is simply used to set up the storyline. Christ has to reign because He must put all His enemies under His feet, not implying temporally He will stop once He’s put all His enemies under His feet.
So why did Matthew write it at all?
Because he is answering the more relevant question — the one his whole chapter is built around, the one we now take for granted: who is this child’s father? The point of verse 25 is that Joseph had nothing to do with Jesus’s conception — the child is conceived of the Holy Spirit, of a virgin. The line is a statement about the miracle before the birth, not a hint about the marriage after it.
To understand the Bible, you have to read the word the way its own language uses it, and the objection quietly dissolves when read in the original language instead of English — this verse is no proof that Joseph and Mary ever did anything.
Scripture. As the apostolic Church read it.
