Notice that the revelation now comes in a dream—as in Matthew. But notice especially that in this midrashic tradition the focus is on the father, Amram, as it is on Joseph in Matthew’s parallel version.
Second, the alternative omission takes place in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, or Targum of Jerusalem I. That text has a very explicit mention of divorce and remarriage, but no revelation:
Divorce and Remarriage: And Amram, a man of the tribe of Levi, went and returned to live in marriage with Jochebed his wife, whom he had put away on account of the decree of Pharaoh. And she was the daughter of a hundred and thirty years when he returned to her; but a miracle was wrought in her, and she returned unto youth as she was, when in her minority she was called the daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived and bore a son at the end of six months.
We conclude with a final example, which is also as an indication of the endurance of these midrashic developments of Exodus 1–2. This is a very full version in a medieval collection known as the Sefer ha-Zikhronot, or Book of Memoirs. We have, once again, those same three classical structural elements of the story:
Divorce: When the Israelites heard this command of Pharaoh to cast their males into the river, some of the people separated from their wives, while others remained with them…. When, however, the word of the king and his decree became known respecting the casting of their males into the river, many of God’s people separated from their wives, as did Amram from his wife.
Prophecy: After the lapse of three years the Spirit of God came upon Miriam, so that she went forth and prophesied in the house, saying, “Behold, a son shall be born to my mother and father, and he shall rescue the Israelites from the hands of the Egyptians.”
Remarriage: When Amram heard his young daughter’s prophecy he took back his wife, from whom he had separated in consequence of Pharaoh’s decree to destroy all the male line of the house of Jacob. After three years of separation he went to her and she conceived.
In this version, even Amram follows the general divorce, then the revelation comes to Miriam, and the remarriage ensues. Furthermore, at the birth of Moses, “The whole house was at that moment filled with a great light, as the light of the sun and the moon in their splendour.”
Our conclusion is that Matthew very, very deliberately based Jesus’s conception closely on those midrashic versions of Moses’s conception already current in the first century. That explains his emphasis on divine control through dreams and prophecies, which, as you will recall, extends from the conception story in a fivefold repetition throughout Matthew 1–2. It also explains his exclusive focus on the male and paternal viewpoint, with Joseph as the new Amram even though, after those five women in the genealogy, you might have expected more mention of Mary. It explains his sequence of divorce in 1:18–19, revelation in 1:20–23, and remarriage in 1:24.
Finally, it explains the byproduct of that creative parallelism, namely, Joseph’s mistaken presumption of Mary’s adultery, with its unfortunate legacy in ancient polemics as well as modern commentaries. Matthew needed to create the suspicion of adultery in order to provide a reason for Joseph to seek a divorce, thus setting in motion that midrashic pattern of divorce, revelation, and remarriage. And all of this is part of Matthew’s “Jesus is the new Moses” motif.
“THE VIRGIN’S NAME WAS MARY”
Both Matthew and Luke agree that Mary was an engaged virgin when she conceived Jesus. And both agree that her pregnancy was not from Joseph but from “Holy Spirit,” that is, the Spirit of God. Since they agree on those two aspects of Jesus’s conception and since there is a general scholarly consensus that Matthew and Luke are independent of one another, those two details must come from earlier tradition.
(That virginal conception of Jesus should not be confused with the Roman Catholic doctrine of his virginal birth—with Jesus coming from Mary’s womb like sunlight through the glass of a medieval cathedral window. That is not found in either Christmas story. Neither should it be confused—and it is regularly confused in the media—with the “immaculate conception.” That is another Roman Catholic doctrine meaning that Mary herself was conceived without the stain [Latin macula] of original sin—as was Jesus also. That is also not found in either Christmas story.)
Mary as a Virgin. Matthew 1:18 starts with this verse: “When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” Luke also starts with “a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary” (1:26). And then Luke continues: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God” (1:35). Here is the full text of Luke 1:26–38 to compare with the one from Matthew 1:18–25 given above:
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
Why does that common pre-Matthean and pre-Lukan tradition mention that Mary was a virgin? If you respond, “Because she was,” I rephrase my question. Why was that important enough to mention? What is at stake in the claim of virginity even or especially within the protocols of a divine conception? For either Jewish or Greco-Roman tradition would a divine conception be any less divine if it involved a woman with prior children?
The answer seems quite obvious, and many Christians could probably give it immediately. Mary had to be a virgin as a fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14. That is clear and explicit in Matthew’s assertion that, “All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet [Isaiah]: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us’” (1:25). But here are some questions that need to be asked before accepting that reply. Was that claim that Mary’s virginal conception came from Isaiah 7:14 already present in the common tradition used independently by Matthew and Luke? It is certainly in Matthew, as just seen, but is it also in Luke? If not, was it Matthew himself who created that prophetic fulfillment by connecting Mary’s virginity to Isaiah 7:14?
First, there is no evidence that Luke knows any connection between Mary’s virginity and that text in Isaiah 7:14. But, you object, what about when Gabriel says to the “virgin” ( parthenos) Mary in Luke 1:31 that she “will conceive…and bear a son, and…name him Jesus”? Is that not at least an implicit reference to Isaiah 7:14, where the prophet tells King Ahaz of Judah that “the young woman ( parthenos) is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel”?
No, not at all, because that phrase is intended by Luke as one more in a long series of very deliberate parallels between the conception stories of Jesus and John the Baptizer in Luke 1–2 (as you can see in Appendix 2).
One comment on that general parallelism before continuing with the question of Mary’s virginity in Luke 1–2. As just seen, Matth
ew draws parallels between Jesus and Moses in order to exalt Jesus over Moses in Matthew 1–2. Similar parallels are drawn to exalt Jesus over John the Baptizer in Luke 1–2. But Jesus is not simply the new John for Luke as Jesus is the new Moses for Matthew. The point is that—for Luke—John is the symbol, synthesis, conclusion, and consummation of the Old Testament. John was conceived—to conclude the Old Testament—in an aged and barren mother, but Jesus was born—to start the New Testament—of a virginal mother.
We return now to Mary’s virginity in Luke. Against the general background of his Jesus/John parallelism—with fuller detail available in Appendix 2—look at this specific parallelism between the conception annunciations of Jesus and John over these five points:
John
Jesus
1. But the angel said to him
The angel said to her,
2. “Do not be afraid, Zechariah
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
3. for your prayer has been heard
for you have found favor with God.
4. Elizabeth will bear you a son
And now, you will…bear a son,
5. and you will name him John(1:13)
and you will name him Jesus.”(1:31)
In other words, Luke in 1:31 is not referring back to the birthing and naming in Isaiah 7:14, but to the birthing and naming of John from his own 1:13. And, beyond that parallelism, of course, Luke looks back before Elizabeth and John to Sarah and Isaac: “Your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac” (Gen. 17:19).
In conclusion, that reference to Isaiah 7:14 is present in Matthew, but not in Luke and, therefore, not in the tradition about Mary’s virginal conception they inherited independently of one another. It is best seen as Matthew’s own creation, a creation necessitated by his need for exactly five prophetic fulfillments (and five angelic dream messages) in Matthew 1–2 as overture to the five great discourses of Jesus in Matthew 3–28. We will see much more about those prophecies in Chapter 8.
Mary as a Model. We turn now to another striking element in that annunciation story in Luke 1:26–38, an emphasis on—in this order—Jesus and Mary. This appears clearly in the overall structure of the conversation—we use that term deliberately—between the angelic Gabriel and the virginal Mary:
Address by Gabriel to Mary
1:28
1:30–33
1:35–37
Response from Mary to Gabriel
1:29
1:34
1:38
In the address section of that dialogue, therefore, the identity of Jesus is built up over the three parallel passages:
“The Lord is with you.” (1:28)
“You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”(1:31–33)
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.” (1:35)
Jesus is “Son of God,” but that God is identified twice as the “Most High,” that is, as the God of the Jewish and biblical tradition. That would hardly have been necessary to emphasize unless there was another Son of God not so related within the general context. He is, of course, the emperor Caesar Augustus at the time of Jesus’s conception, and also the contemporary Roman emperor at the time of Luke’s Christmas story.
That triadic structure also allows Luke a secondary emphasis on Mary as the perfect Christian. She is “the favored [literally, graced] one” who has found “favor [literally, grace] with God.” And her obedient response to God’s favor/grace is this: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
Luke’s vision of Mary receiving Christ as the first and perfect Christian may be seen most clearly in the way he rephrases his Markan source concerning her in this example:
Mark 3:31–35
Luke 8:19–21
Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.” But he said to them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”
In Mark Jesus’s physical family is rejected in favor of a spiritual one of all those who do “the will of God.” But in Luke that physical family—and especially Mary from 1:38—is the model for all “who hear the word of God and do it.”
Finally, it is obvious why Luke insists that Jesus’s conception was not just from God, but from a virginal mother. That was necessitated by his parallelism and exaltation of Jesus’s conception over that of John the Baptizer, as detailed in Appendix 2. But, since a virginal conception of Jesus is both pre-Matthean and pre-Lukan, the wider question still presses. If that earlier Christian tradition did not take Mary’s virginity from Isaiah 7:14, why did it emphasize the virginity of Mary—emphasize not just a divine conception but a virginal divine conception?
As with so many of our questions about the content of the Christmas stories, we go for answers into that general context of their first-century Jewish and Roman world. And here we look specifically at what we might have expected about divine conceptions from that contemporary matrix.
DIVINE CONCEPTION IN JEWISH TRADITION
What about divine conception in Judaism? And since we have just seen in great detail the Old Testament model behind Matthew 1–2, what about the Old Testament model behind Luke 1–2?
In biblical tradition a transcendentally predestined child is conceived and born to barren and/or aged parents. Actually, such an event is far more manifestly miraculous and clearly divine than any sort of virginal conception outside of marriage or prior to it. The claim of virginal conception could be a simple mistake or even a lie. But clearly postmenopausal conception and birth are open—at least in theory and even in story—to overt verification.
Luke 1:6–7 says of Zechariah and Elizabeth, “Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years.” Luke’s major models for that situation are the classically Jewish stories about Isaac’s conception by Sarah and Abraham in Genesis 17–18 and Samuel’s conception by Hannah and Elkanah in 1 Samuel 1–2.
Sarah. The birth of Isaac is the archetypal story of a divinely created conception in the biblical and Jewish tradition—from a barren wife and aged parents. Abraham says, “I continue childless” in Genesis (15:2). His wife, Sarah, “bore him no children” since, as she says, “the Lord has prevented me from bearing children” (16:1–2). Then follow twin accounts of the conception of Isaac in Genesis. The earlier one is the Jahwist tradition (or J) from around 900 BCE, now in Genesis 18; the later one is the Priestly (or P) tradition of around 500 BCE, now in Genesis 17. But they both agree on these four sequential elements as the core of the story.
First, the apparition: “The Lord appeared to Abraham” is present in both accounts. But in 17:1 Abraham heard a voice saying, “I am God Almighty,” while in 18:2 he “looked up and saw three men standing near him.”
Next, the promise, and even though it is made to the father, the mother at least gets mentioned: “As for Sarah your wife…I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her” (17:15–16); and �
��I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son” (18:10).
Then, comes the objection—the laughter. In the Priestly version: “Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’” (17:17). But the Jahwist version gives that laughter—more against Abraham than God?—to Sarah:
Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’”…But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh”; for she was afraid. He said, “Oh yes, you did laugh.” (18:11–13, 15)
The point of the objection and of all that laughter is, of course, to underline the miraculously divine intervention involved in this conception by extraordinarily aged parents.
Finally, there is the repetition, as God repeats the divine covenantal promise: “No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac” (17:19); and again: “At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son” (18:14). That promise is fulfilled when “Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age” (21:2).
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