virgin birth in Matt and Luke?

by peacefulpete 45 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Narkissos

  Very interesting debate about the prehistory of the "virgin birth" tradition.

  One thing I am wondering about is the actual implication of ek tou pneumatos in Matthew 1:18,20. The best parallels I found are Johannine (Jn 3:5ff; 1Jn 3:24; 4:18):

  Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit (ex... pneumatos). What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit (ek tou pneumatos) is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (ek tou pneumatos)."

  And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit (ek tou pneumatos) that he has given us.

  By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit (ek tou pneumatos autou dedôken hemin).

  Now what do such parallels suggest? That the Matthean expression can be understood in some "spiritual" way, not implying a physical begetting? Or that the Johannine expression is spiritualizing the already well-known story of the miraculous virgin birth? It seems difficult to be affirmative at this point.
• 

  Leolaia

  Ooooh, very good point. I hadn't noticed the similar wording in John, where there is a more mystical or spiritual concept (cf. the contrast with Nicodemus' literalizing point-of-view in John 3:4). But such a spiritual concept appears to be foreign to Matthew which concerns itself with the literal conception and birth of Jesus. The phrase ek tou pneumatos in 1:20c is related by the connective gar to 1:20b as logically dependent on Joseph's fear of taking Mary as his wife, which arises from the "shame" of v. 19 that he found himself in regarding Mary's pregnancy (v. 18). So in the historicizing frame of Matthew 1, the birth is a literal one. And though the begetting in John 3 is spiritual, like Matthew there is still the semantic force of the Spirit as the source of the child, though in a spiritual frame: "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit" (John 3:6). So I think the concept of the Spirit as the source (as in John) of a literal conception and birth (as is historicized in Matthew) is the most likely interpretation, for the context at least of Matthew. But the kinship between the terminology of Matthew 1:20 and John 3:5 (as well as 1 John) is quite intriguing and possibly there was a common origin to the two. I can also note that the Spirit is feminine in John (giving birth), which is more appropriate to the female nature of the Sophia/Wisdom/Spirit than the quasi-male concept of Matthew. Might John have a more original Wisdom or proto-gnostic concept that is then appropriated by Matthew to historicize his conception story?
• 

  Narkissos

  I can also note that the Spirit is feminine in John (giving birth), which is more appropriate to the female nature of the Sophia/Wisdom/Spirit than the quasi-male concept of Matthew.

  Actually with the verb gennaô, common to Matthew and John, the metaphor is male (begetting) rather than feminine (although the difference is generally lost in translation).
• 

  Narkissos

  What about the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript which in Matthew 1:16 reads: "Joseph, to whom was betrothed Mary the virgin, begot Jesus who is called the Christ"?
• 

  A Paduan

  If Jesus was born of a virgin; I ask what is the purpose of giving JOSEPH'S bloodline?

  It's a spiritual thing - jws do not know 'spiritual'

  They answered him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did.."

  "He is not God of the dead, but of the living."
• 

  Leolaia

  Yup, you're right....never trust an interlinear! I guess the relevant word would've been tiktô if it was a female giving birth. It's amazing how this passage is generally translated as concerning being "born again" when really it concerns being "begotten from above" (3:3).

  That's also a very good point about the wording of Matthew 1:16, which has solid manuscript testimony (cf. also P.Oxy 2, which dates to the third century) and is accepted in the W&H text. It makes quite a different claim than what we find in v. 20 on the begetting of Jesus. I haven't examined what has been published on form criticism of this text, but I wonder what the feasibility is of designating 1:18-2:23 as an early interpolation into the text of Matthew. The wording of v. 18 (hé genesis houtós én "the birth was thus") has the ring of a paranthetical digression, and excising the passage makes the time reference in 3:1 more sensical. In its present context, the deictic hémerais ekeinais "those days" fits poorly with the time frame of v. 22-23, namely the days of Archelaus in Jesus' infancy or early youth, when 3:1 concerns events of Jesus' early adulthood. But if we excise the highlighted passage, 3:1 would follow 1:17 which ends with the generation of Christ. "Those days" could simply refer to the "time of Christ". Moreover, the whole point of the geneology in v. 1-17 is to stress Jesus' lineage from Abraham and David through Joseph, which is undermined by what follows in 1:18-2:23. I think I agree with Price et al. that the geneology did not draw on the virgin-birth tradition and was possibly aware of other traditions, and I could also note that the strictly human parentage of Jesus in 1:1-17 is perfectly aligned with the adoptionist christology of the Ebionites who specifically denied the virgin birth tradition and whose favorite gospel was that of Matthew.

  Another thing I forgot to mention that is while Luke appears to draw largely on the tradition of Hannah from 1 Samuel, Matthew seems to be indebted to the extracanonical haggada on Exodus 1-2 which concerned the slaughter of the innocents by Pharaoh. In the Jewish legend, this story was developed into four scenes consisting of (1) a portentous sign witnessed by the tyrant, (2) panic on the part of the tyrant, (3) consultation with the tyrant's advisors on how to resolve the impending crisis, and (4) the massacre. This is directly mirrored in Matthew 2:1-20. What is remarkable about the story of the infanticide, however, is that it also has a theme about the Israelite husbands divorcing their wives, which Amram, father of Moses, joins in with -- until Miriam (or "Maria", in Pseudo-Philo) has a dream vision and prophesies that her mother will give birth to a great leader who will save the Israelites (cf. also the Sefer ha-Zikronot). Then, as a result of this revelation to Miriam, Amram remarries his wife and she gives birth to Moses. This parallels Matthew 1:18-25, which similarly has (1) husband divorcing the Savior's mother, (2) reassurance in a dream vision that emphasizes the greatness of the future child, (3) remarriage. Furthermore, the legend also furnishes the name Maria -- though in a slightly different role in the context of Matthew. What is interesting is that the material in the elaboration of the Exodus episode has nothing to do with a miraculous birth -- the only supernatural elements consist of the omen witnessed by Pharaoh and the dream vision. This raises the possibility of a "pre-history" of the Matthean nativity story which lacked the virgin-birth motif and which construed Joseph's divorce as a response to Herod's edict (with Joseph changing his mind when the dream vision announced the importance of Mary's future child). However, it is also possible that Matthew's nativity story did not originally follow the plot of the Amram-Miriam legend so closely.
• 

  peacefulpete

  I can't dispute th logic leolaia that vs 34 does seem to be essential to the motif. If it was that only later that the miraculous natureof the birth was altered to be a virginal one then perhaps the substance of Mary's objection was altered. This may be what you were saying, I can be a little thick headed. Another related item in the book is the possibility that Jesus' having been called "son of Joseph" may be another historicizing reinterpretation of an obsolete messianic title, namely, that of Messiah ben-Joseph, the northern Messiah. Genesis tradition had Joseph as one day destined to rule all the tribes (Gen. 37:5-10).

  We have discuseed before how Mark represents an early stage in which Christians regarded Jesus as a non-Davidic Messiah. He was thought to have been a Galilean, so presumably at this stage of belief he would have been Messiah ben-Joseph. We might even have a fossil remnant of that Joseph-messianism surviving in one of the Christian interpolations (as most scholars reckon it) into the Testament of Benjamin, one of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha:

  "Jacob cried out, 'My child Joseph, you good child, you have won your father's heart.' And he embraced him and kissed him for two hours, and said, 'In you shall be fulfilled the prophecy of heaven about the Lamb of God and Savior of the world?

  that one without blemish shall be offered up on behalf of sinners, and one without sin shall die on behalf of the ungodly, in the blood of the covenant, for the salvation of the Gentiles and of Israel, and he shall destroy Beliar and those who serve him'" (3:8)

  . But what would have happened once Christians abandoned the non-Davidic messiahship notion and sought instead to secure a Davidic genealogy for their Lord? Obviously, Jesus' earlier status as Messiah son of Joseph would have to be reinterpreted. It came to be imagined that Jesus was the son of a man named Joseph.
• 

  Leolaia

  There's some more rather interesting stuff in the Infancy Gospel of James. It is clearly dependent on both Matthew and Luke; for instance, it attempts to resolve the ill fit between the Zechariah-Elizabeth-John thread from Luke with the slaughter of the innocents from Matthew (e.g. why didn't John, born only months apart from Jesus, fall victim to Herod's infanticide). It also significantly develops the theme of Mary's spontaneous generation of Jesus, with guidance from the Holy Spirit. But it isn't just derivative of the present text of Matthew and Luke. It also draws on independent traditions (such as the birth of Jesus in a cave, which reflects Mithraism), and significantly, it betrays an acquaintance with the exegetical traditions that underlie the narratives in Matthew and Luke. As I mentioned in my last post, Matthew depends on the Moses-Amram-Miriam haggada of Exodus 1-2 to develop the story of the slaughter of the innocents, Joseph's dream vision about Mary, and his divorce of Mary, whereas Luke depends on the Samuel-Hannah traditions of 1 Samuel. Well, there are more details in the Infancy Gospel of James that parallel both these traditions.

  In the haggada tradition on Exodus 1-2, Mary is the daughter of Amram, the father-figure (who fathers the Savior-figure, Moses). Mary is thus the sister, not the mother of Moses. In the Infancy Gospel of James, Joseph is an old man with grown sons who adopts young Mary and takes care of her (9:11). When the time comes for the census, Joseph agonizes over his ambiguous relationship with the girl -- is she his daughter or his wife?

  "And Joseph wondered, 'I'll enroll my sons, but what am I going to do with this girl? How will I enroll her? As my wife? I'm ashamed to do that. As my daughter? The people of Israel know she's not my daughter" (Infancy Gospel of James 17:2-3).

  This tension between roles may thus arise from Matthew's casting a daughter-figure from the source traditions into the role of a wife. Another motif that seems cognate to the exegetical tradition of Exodus 1-2 is that of how Jesus is saved from infanticide. In Matthew, the family merely escapes to Egypt (an interesting reversal of the exodus traditions). But like Jochebed, Mary in the Infancy Gospel saves her son from the slaughter by hiding him in a water course:

  "When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile" (Exodus 2:2-3).

  "When Mary heard that the infants were being killed, she was frightened and took her child, wrapped him in strips of cloth, and hid him in a trough used by cattle" (Infancy Gospel of James 22:3-4).

  The parallels between 1 Samuel and the first portion of the Gospel (dealing with Mary's birth) are even more striking. Here, the material from 1 Samuel is appropriated again to construct yet another miraculous birth story -- this time concerning Mary. The name of Mary's mother in the story is Anna -- surely derived from the OT Hannah (Infancy Gospel of James 2:1). Like Hannah, she is barren and mourns and laments her infertility, wearing mourning clothes and praying to God for his help. She is taunted by her servant in a similar manner to Hannah, and her daughter Mary is sent to live in the Temple in God's service, as God's gift, just as Hannah's son Samuel did. In all these respects, the story in the Infancy Gospel is closer to that of 1 Samuel than the older narrative in Luke. Here are some of the more salient parallels:

  "Now [Joachim's] wife Anna was mourning and lamenting on two counts: 'I lament my widowhood and I lament my childlessness....And Juthine the slave replied, 'Should I curse you just because you haven't paid attention to me? The Lord God has made your womb sterile so you won't bear any children for Israel. Anna too became very upset....Anna began to lament, saying to herself: 'Poor me! Who gave birth to me? What soft of womb bore me? For I was born under a curse in the eyes of the people of Israel.'....Suddenly a messenger of the Lord appeared to her and said: 'Anna, Anna, the Lord God has heard your prayer. You will conceive and give birth, and your child will be talked about all over the world.' And Anna said, 'As the Lord God lives, whether I give birth to a boy or a girl, I'll offer it as a gift to the Lord my God, and it will serve him its whole life'....Many months passed, but when the child reached two years of age, Joachim said: 'Let's take her up to the temple of the Lord, so that we can keep the promise we made, or else the Lord will be angry with us and our gift will be unacceptable' " (Infancy Gospel of James 2:1, 6; 4:1-2; 7:1).

  "He [Elkanah] had two wives; one was called Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none....And because Yahweh had closed her womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of Yahweh, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. Elkanah her husband would say to her, 'Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons?'....In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to Yahweh. And she made a vow, saying, 'O Yahweh Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant's misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Yahweh for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head'....When the man Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to Yahweh and to fulfill his vow, Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, 'After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before Yahweh, and he will live there always' (1 Samuel 1:2, 6-8, 10-11, 21-22).

  So it looks like there was more to the exegetical traditions underlying the nativity stories of Matthew and Luke that crop up in other writings. I also wonder if the story of the presentation of Jesus to the Temple in Luke 2:21-40 is a remnant of an older story modeled on that of Samuel, in which Jesus was consecrated as a gift to God (note also how the name "Anna" pops up in v. 36, as someone who had consecrated herself to Temple service).

  Another early nativity story is that of the Ascension of Isaiah, which dates likely to the early second century:

  "And I indeed saw a woman of the family of David the prophet, named Mary, and Virgin, and she was espoused to a man named Joseph, a carpenter, and he also was of the seed and family of the righteous David of Bethlehem Judah. And he came into his lot. And when she was espoused, she was found with child, and Joseph the carpenter was desirous to put her away. But the angel of the Spirit appeared in this world, and after that Joseph did not put her away, but kept Mary and did not reveal this matter to any one. And he did not approach May, but kept her as a holy virgin, though with child. And he did not live with her for two months. And after two months of days while Joseph was in his house, and Mary his wife, but both alone. It came to pass that when they were alone that Mary straight-way looked with her eyes and saw a small babe, and she was astonished. And after she had been astonished, her womb was found as formerly before she had conceived. And when her husband Joseph said unto her: "What has astonished thee?" his eyes were opened and he saw the infant and praised God, because into his portion God had come. And a voice came to them: "Tell this vision to no one." And the story regarding the infant was noised broad in Bethlehem. Some said: "The Virgin Mary hath borne a child, before she was married two months." And many said: "She has not borne a child, nor has a midwife gone up (to her), nor have we heard the cries of (labour) pains." And they were all blinded respecting him and they all knew regarding him, though they knew not whence He was. And they took Him, and went to Nazareth in Galilee....In Nazareth he sucked the breast as a babe and as is customary in order that He might not be recognized" (Ascension of Isaiah 11:2-17).

  This version seems to be totally independent of the idiosyncracies of Luke, and knows some of the features of Matthew's plot (such as Joseph's desire to "put Mary away," the appearance of the angel to him, and the lack of union between Joseph and Mary before the birth), yet it seems totally ignorant of other features of Matthew's story such as the slaughter of the innocents and the family's residence in Egypt. The birth itself is also miraculous -- as a birth without childbearing (a motif absent in the two canonical stories). Moreover, there is direct mention to rumors and confusion among the residents of Bethlehem....possibly evoking the Jewish rumors on Jesus' questionable parentage. This part of the story seems to reflect the heifer from the Apocryphon of Ezekiel.

  The early birth traditions of Jesus thus appear to have been pliable, amorphous, complex, and drew on different exegetical traditions.
• 

  Leolaia

  PP....Yeah, I forgot about the stuff about Joseph.....Also, note that 1 Chronicles 5:1 claims that "rights as firstborn" were given from Reuben to "the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel," so a northern tradition about a coming Messiah may well posit a "son of Joseph" as having firstborn rights over Israel. Verse 2 goes on to say: "Though Judah was the strongest of his brothers and a ruler came from him [i.e. David], the rights of the firstborn belonged to Joseph". Thus, at least in one interpretation, Joseph maintains supremacy over Judah, and the rights of the "sons of Joseph" are greater than the legacy of David.
• 

  peacefulpete

  Anna, as a mother character, may in fact derive from Hannah story, yet her Roman goddesss counterpart Anna Perenna (from which we get 'annual'?) may have popularized the associations with solar Savior Jesus. Just as the use of the name Mary/Maria/Marium as the mother had great similarities with the mother goddesss names like Maya/Maia/Ma....

  Dr. Pritchard says, "The beneficient form of Bhavani, termed Devi or Anna Purna, is doubtless. As Sir W. Jones remarked, the Anna Perenna of the Romans." Again, "Anna Purna is, however, also the counterpart of the Egyptian Isis. She is figured as bent by the weight of her full breasts, and reminds us of the statues of Isis Multimammia." Again, "Bhavani is invoked by the name of Ma, as was Demeter among the Greeks by that of Maia."* * Anal. Egypt. Mythos. p.280.