Blog (3) Morgan Whittler

                  Matthew 1:18-23/The Virgin Mary: Ancient Mid-East Marriage

                   The Birth Narrative in each of the fours gospels is very different and a key element in communicating what kind of Jesus the gospel author is trying to portray. In Matthew 1:18-23 we have the conception narrative of Matthew where the divinity of Jesus is supposed to be clear based off of the royal Jewish lineage and mythological conception. One key element in this is Mary becoming with child by ‘the Holy Spirit’ and fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14, “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” [1]. Though this has been taken on as a historical fact and testament to the power of god by many Christians, the true literary purpose and the historical stand point of the (mostly) Jewish audience of Matthew should examined.

              Before identify the purpose behind the virgin birth in the gospel of Matthew you have to examine the purpose of the Gospel of Matthew itself. In Ehrman’s book The New Testament: A Historical Introduction, he states “An ancient reader [of Matthew] would have expected the book to describe Jesus’ life according to some kind of chronology, highlighting those sayings, actions, and experiences that reveled his essential character.” [2] By identifying Matthew as a type of Greco-Roman biography with the aim of reveling the moral fiber of its characters--not give a historically accurate account of their lives.

                    Matthew wanted his majority Jewish audience to understand his Jesus as the Son of God—Israel’s long awaited Messiah. To communicate the divines of Jesus and portray his as the Son of God, Matthew gave him a miraculous birth story. Although this narrative is not exclusively claimed as Jesus’ the other figures in Greco-Roman culture described in this way were also said to be divine. A reader in Matthew’s time would understand the virgin birth as a sign of Jesus’ divine character and knowledge since the time of birth. To portray Jesus as the divine Messiah of the Jews he constantly refers to the Old Testament and frames Jesus as a figure that fulfills the predictions of the Jewish Prophets.

                     The idea of the ‘Virgin Mary’ is a good example of the text being adapted overtime to aid in understanding of Jesus’ identity to increasingly diverse audiences. In both Matthew and Luke Mary, mother of Jesus is explicitly said to be a virgin. While this could be attributed to the author in Luke, because of his mostly Greek audience who would have understood the Jesus’ birth from a virgin as an allusion to divine children in Greek mythology, in Matthew the matter is different entirely. Because all the quotes in Matthew are from the Septuagint, or the Hebrew version of the Old Testament, the verse he references in Matthew 1:23, is a quotation of Isaiah 7:14. In Matthew it is quoted as, “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”, but Hebrew Matthew would have been quoting would not said the virgin, as it is translated in the Greek, it would say young woman [3]. This means that in Matthews account of Jesus’ birth it is very likely that ‘young woman’ was changed to ‘virgin’ overtime. This now begs the question of how Matthew’s Jewish audience would have taken his original writing, and if there was anything miraculous about it through their eyes (save Jesus’ convenient fulfillment of all Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah).

                       For the Ancient Israelites the marriage ritual is simple and the symbolic nature of the coming together occurs after the marriage has become legally binding. “Ancient Jewish marriages had two significant moments: the betrothal or signing of the wedding contract…” [4]. This means that there would have been nothing out of the ordinary when Mary would have been discovered to be pregnant because Mary and Joseph would have already been legally married. In fact a consummation at this point was expected and a pregnancy would have been seen as God blessing; a religious confirmation of the marriage. In Matthew’s birth narrative the only stipulation that is necessary to prove Jesus’ birth to fulfill Old Testament prophecy would have been being born by a young woman—this means a Jewish girl between 12 and 14 that had never been married before (which fits Mary perfectly). “It is true that the Hebrew text says only that a ‘young girl’ will conceive, and that the LXX, which does indeed use ‘virgin’, seems only to mean that one who is now a virgin will later give birth” [5] 

                        At this point in the marriage if Mary were to have sexual relations with any one other than Joseph she would have shamed her family, but because the marriage had been legally agreed upon already the “all sexual rights from that moment on to the household of the bridegroom.” [6]. This far into the ceremony the two most likely ways that Jesus could have been conceived was through an adulterous act or rape [7] and neither of these scenarios seem ideal for the conception of the Messiah. In Fact in recent years attention has been brought to the translation of this particular passage in the translation of Matthew’s Greek text about the word parthenos, which is used to refer to Mary, traditionally translated as virgin, is also a word used to mean young married woman or even possibly “girl who had been raped or was an unmarried mother” [8].

                         The REAL important aspect of the birth narrative in Matthew is Joseph’s claiming of Jesus as his son. In doing this Joseph connects the Line of David to Jesus—which puts him in a royal line—and gives him his Jewish faith. The Virgin Birth, although it is very exposed upon, is not important in creating a divine Jesus to the author of Matthew. 

                          In summation it is clear that the miraculous conception of Jesus is simply a device added in over time to Matthews narrative of the birth story. The addition could be to make it clear to a widened Greco-Roman audience of Jesus as Son of God or it may have been added later to enhance Jesus’ credentials as the Son of God. There are a number of possibilities.  Even well known New Testament scholar Raymond Brow acknowledges that the birth of Jesus was a natural biological event, [9]; even so I don’t think there we’ll be tossing nativity scenes or hear a televangelist expose on the Jewish arranged marriage that Jesus came out of any time soon. 

Works Cited
[1] NRSV

[2] B.D. Ehrman, The New Testament (4). New York. Oxford, (2008), 102.
[3] NRSV
[4] T.A. Lenchak, Bible Today, (2012), 55.
[5] Oxford Bible Commentary
[6] V.H. Matthews, Marriage and Family in the Biblical World. (2003), 10.
[7] V.H. Matthews, Marriage and Family in the Biblical World. (2003), 10.
[8] L. Hazleton. Mary: A Flesh-and-Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother, (2004), 144
[9] J.M. Swomley. The Virgin Mary and Magic. (2000), 16.

_________________________________________________________________________________Bibliography 

Ehrman, Bart D. The New Testament. Fourth Edition. New York, 2008: 101-120.

Hazleton, Lesley. "Part Two: Her Womb." Mary: A Flesh-and-blood Biography of the Virgin Mother. New York: Bloomsbury, 2004. 75-148. Print.

Lenchak, Timothy A. "What's Biblical About...A Wedding?" Bible Today (2012): 55-56.Matthews, Victor H. "Marriage and Family in the Ancient Near East." Marriage and Family in the Biblical World. Ed. Ken M. Campbell. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003. 1-32. Print.

Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford Biblical Studies. Oxford University. Web.     <http://www.oxfordbiblicalstudies.com/article/sidebyside/bibref/NRSV-AB/commref/OBC/Mt/1?verse=#verse>.

Swomley, Johm M. (2000). "The Virgin Mary and Magic." Human Quest, 214 (5), 15-18.