Tuesday, February 14, 2006

A question about Mary

I happened to flip through Lesley Hazleton's book Mary the other day (not my normal reading material, long story there) and came across the following passage that tries to make the linguistic case that concept of the virgin conception was a simple case of mistranslation and misunderstanding, and that the Holy Mother was possibly a rape victim. I've heard this argument before but don't know what the Church's response is. Something tells me it's not, "Dude, we totally missed that! Thank you, feminist author, for pointing out what some of the greatest thinkers in Western civilization have missed for 2,000 years."

Can anyone give me a summary of the counter-argument to this theory, or to a book that would address it?

Here's a passage from Hazleton's book:

The original Hebrew uses the word alma, which referred to any unmarried woman...Matthew uses the Greek word parthenos, which generally meant physical virginity. The difference in meaning was not exactly Matthew's fault. The Hebrew bible had been translated into Greek three hundred years earlier. That edition, known as the Septuagint...was the one the Matthew author would have used.

It may be convenient to argue that parthenos meant a physical virgin, but that was not always the case. The word was also used for a girl who had been raped or was an unmarried mother. Faced with an evident pregnancy and no known father, the language allowed for there having been no father at all, despite the physical evidence. In short, prthenos was an ancient euphemism.

She goes on to say that referring to unwed mothers as "virgins" was common practice back in the day.

This classic tome also includes a graphic description of what it was probably like when Mary was raped, and a mention that Mary was probably skilled in the ways of abortion and considered that as an option. (With this sort of content I'm shocked it didn't get a Pulitzer.)

5 Comments:

At February 14, 2006 10:25 PM, Blogger Morris said...

gesh you religous nuts need to keep your views to yourself.

Mr. Morris
Ask Morris

 
At February 15, 2006 9:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

hmmmmm...so the translators of the Septuagint (immenently more versed in both the Hebrew AND the Greek of the time) mucked up the translation, but Lesley Hazleton, whose qualifications include being a psychologist and journalist (nothing in her bio about expertise with ancient Greek or Hebrew) will get things cleared up for us more than 2300 years later.

Ummm.... thanks, but no thanks, I'll pass. ;-)

I would love to see what her source for the claim she's making is. I am suspicious that it's either the Jesus Seminar (which is utterly debunked in Luke Timothy Johnson's wonderful book The Real Jesus), or John Shelby Sponge (who is not even worthy of refutation).

Regardless of her sources, I am somewhat proud to say that it's highly likely that the 'official' Church position on something like this is silence. She usually only speaks to challenges that are serious enough to warrant a substantive response. Hazleton's claims fall far short of that hurdle.

If you want to see a knowledgeable response to some of this type of nonsense, I'd highly recommend adding yet ANOTHER book to your reading list and picking up Johnson's book I mention above. My copy is currently out on loan, but if I recall correctly, I think he may even address this particular claim about.

 
At December 20, 2009 2:23 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

Panthera IS a Roman name, in fact it was common for some Roman soldiers. The rape business is not a stretch and goes back to the first century.

 
At December 05, 2010 10:54 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

ok,
Some places say mary was raped around 4 or 5 b.c...so she carried jesus for 4 or 5 years? Longer gestation period than an elephant.
Also let's not forget the english language is very profound. Anyone who's taken latin will tell you such as with native american languages, there are no possessive statements in lakota souix. What Im saying is who cares what the terminology is now or what it correlates to NOW. Back then they had very few words so that claim is almost impossible to argue and win.

 
At April 21, 2011 11:51 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

@ foreverautumn skies.

Jesus wan't born at exactly 0 CE, he was born slightly before it, at around 3-4 BCE. This is actaully common knowledge (assuming he existed at all of course).

 

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