Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary

This is a must-read for anyone interested in the interplay of the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The author, Brant Pitre, situates the various Marian doctrines that have been with the church from the beginning within the Christian scriptures, except that the scriptures are found in the Old Testament and not in the New Testament. This makes sense because, according to Christian belief, the New Testament is the fulfilment of the Old Testament and we would expect that early Christians would expect the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies about both the Messiah and the mother of the Messiah.

However, thanks to selective education, many - including myself - are unaware that there are prophecies about the mother of the Messiah, apart, perhaps, from the prophecy that a virgin will give birth to the messiah, which is often, wrongly, described as “merely” a mistranslation of the Hebrew source.

But there were more prophecies than that. For example, there was the prophecy that the mother of the Messiah would not experience birthing pains in Isaiah:

“On the one hand, the Old Testament seems to suggest that the mother of the Messiah will not suffer pain in childbirth. In a very important (but often ignored) prophecy, the book of Isaiah speaks of a woman who will give birth to a son without experiencing any pain: Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she was delivered of a son. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth her sons. (Isaiah 66:7–8)”

Pitre has an insightful discussion of the birth pains sequence of the woman clothed with the sun in Revelations, but his argument is that the birth pains there are associated with the crucifixion, which is well-argued and is certainly consistent with Christian testimony concerning the pain that Mary experienced during the Passion, found in both the New Testament and the writings of Church Fathers, such as St. Maximus the Confessor. Pitre's discussion of the significance of Revelations as encoding teachings concerning Mary are repeated from different angles during the book and are worth repetition.

Pitre discusses the historic teachings that compare Mary to the New Eve and the New Ark of the Covenant. In bringing together the different strands in this area, Pitre shows himself to be a virtuoso in seeing, weaving and explaining some deep and complicated material. Thus, Pitre points out that there was an expectation that the Ark of the Covenant would not be revealed until the appearance of the Messiah. Pitre surprisingly points to Second Maccabees which is often overlooked by Protestants and Catholics which states:

“It was also in the writing that the prophet [Jeremiah], having received an oracle, ordered that the tent and the ark should follow with him, and that he went out to the mountain where Moses had gone up and had seen the inheritance of God. And Jeremiah came and found a cave, and he brought there the tent and the ark and the altar of incense, and he sealed up the entrance. Some of those who followed him came up to mark the way, but could not find it. When Jeremiah learned of it, he rebuked them and declared: “The place shall be unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows his mercy. And then the Lord will disclose these things, and the glory of the Lord and the cloud will appear, as they were shown in the case of Moses, and as Solomon asked that the place should be specially consecrated.” (2 Maccabees 2:4–8)”

So, where was the Ark? In heaven, perhaps?

At least, that seems to be the understanding of the author of Revelation, who has the Ark in heaven. Significantly, though, in the same passage, the Ark transitions to the Woman who is the mother of the Messiah:

Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant appeared within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail. And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. (Revelation 11:19–12:2)28

Pitre observes:

“Third and finally, the heavenly Ark is being associated with the heavenly woman. As the Protestant New Testament scholar Craig Koester points out in his commentary on Revelation, the repetition of the word “appeared” (Greek ōphthē) clearly “links the manifestation of the Ark” to the vision of the woman in the very next verse. Just as the Ark “appears” in heaven, so too the woman “appears” in heaven (Revelation 11:19, 12:1).”

Pitre notes that the Ark-Mary connection was observed by many great theologians, including St. Athanasius:

“O noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness. For who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word?...O [Ark of the New] Covenant, clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the Ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which divinity resides...You carry within you the feet, the head, and the entire body of the perfect God...you are God's place of repose. (Athanasius of Alexandria, Homily from the Papyrus of Turin [4th century A.D.])”

Pitre also provides the best discussion of the understanding that Mary as the mother of the Messiah would play the role of Queen Mother for her son. HIs discussion of this commonplace understanding of Jewish theology/politics is first rate and well worth the read. Again, it is worth noting that the surprising thing here is that Pitre's support for his concluions rest on things that were in front of us the whole time:

“In order to grasp the significance of Elizabeth's words, it's important to keep in mind that she was Mary's elder “cousin” (Luke 1:36). In an ancient Jewish context, it would have been unheard of for an older relative to honor a younger cousin in this way—unless of course the younger person was royalty. Indeed, Elizabeth's expression “the mother of my Lord” (Greek kyrios) (Luke 1:43) clearly echoes the biblical custom of referring to the Davidic king as “my lord” (Hebrew 'adon; Greek kyrios) (2 Samuel 24:21; Psalm 110:1).28 In light of this background, more than one scholar has concluded that Elizabeth is addressing Mary with a “royal title” rooted in “the queen mother tradition of the Old Testament.”29 Perhaps even more striking, the Jewish scholar Amy-Jill Levine suggests that Elizabeth's reference to my “Lord” (Greek kyrios) is in fact a “divine title.”30 If this is right, then for Luke, Mary is not just the mother of the messianic king; she is also the mother of the divine Lord.”

This is a first-rate book and essential for Catholics/Orthodox who are often jeered at for the “unscriptural” beliefs. As I like to point out, the theologians and church leaders who formulated these doctrines were intimate with scripture. What Pitre points out is that they were far more intimate with scripture than we are today, and they didn't limit their scriptural analysis to the texts that everyone knows means what everyone knows but also on texts that we might find obscure.