Who Is the “Married Virgin Girl”: Biblical Mariology

Below we post an excerpt from the book “Maria, filha de Israel: O Antigo Testamento na Mariologia” by Prof. Dr. Rita Torti, so that you may enjoy a few drops of what will be the great ocean of the COURSE ON THE BIBLICAL MARIOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT!

Who is Mary? The oldest testimony about her is, without a doubt, Galatians 4:4-5: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, born of woman [a periphrasis commonly used at the time to denote a human being], born under the law, to redeem those who were subject to the law, and so that all might receive the dignity of sons”.

“The New Testament concept of ‘the fullness of time,’ states Romano Guardini, does not mean only that the time determined by God had come, but also that the history of revelation was inwardly pressing toward its fulfillment” (La Madre del Signore, 25).

Chapter VIII of Lumen Gentium begins with the quotation from Galatians, and this chapter invites us to see Mary’s greatness above all in her dignity as Mother of the Redeemer: she is immediately placed in the position that is historically hers, in the carrying out of the divine plan of salvation, and is presented as an essential element of its unfolding. At the same time, the expression underscores the reality of Jesus’ humanity: He was fully a man of His time and of the milieu in which He lived, and He was also the Messiah awaited for centuries. He Himself says that the Scriptures bear witness to Him (Jn 5:39).

But we know nothing about the environment in which Mary grew up, nor about her youth, up to the moment of the angel’s announcement. Her upbringing and outward way of life were certainly the same as those of all the girls of her social class. “Our only source, the Gospel, does not report any kind of prodigious event. […] Above all, we must keep before our eyes the influence of the writings and, upstream of it, of the apocryphal gospels. Many distortions and flattenings of the image of Mary must be attributed to these factors. The exposition must show, not merely in order to say it, but to make it visible, how the genuine reality is more piously religious, greater, and more mysterious than all the legendary miracles” (Guardini, La Madre del Signore 22).

The evangelist Luke tells us that the angel Gabriel was sent by God “to a city of Galilee called Nazareth, to a ‘virgin promised in marriage’ (pròs parthénon emnēsteuménēn. In the Vulgate: ad virginem desponsatam) to a man of the house of David named Joseph. The virgin’s name was Mary” (Lk 1:26-27). At the moment of the angel’s announcement, she must have been 12 or 13 years old.

In general, virgins are rarely spoken of, but here Luke repeats twice in the same verse that she was a virgin, placing the noun in the climactic position, at the conclusion: “the virgin’s name was Mary”. He describes the legal situation with the Greek verb mnēsteúō, which also occurs in Mt 1:18 (“his mother Mary, having been given in marriage [mnēsteutheísēs] to Joseph”) and in Lk 2:5 (“[Joseph] had to be registered together with Mary, his wife (emnēsteuménēi autô), who was with child”).

The expression in Lk 1:27 occurs in the Greek version of the LXX in Deut 22:23 (parthénos memnēsteuménē), as a translation of the Masoretic text na’ărâ betûlâ me’ōrāśâ (root ‘rś): “a married virgin girl”. A young girl (the na’ărâ is a girl between 12 years and 1 day and 12 and a half years of age) of whom it is specified that she was the wife of someone (‘iššâ) (Deut 22:24). Of Mary, too, it is clearly said in Mt 1:24 that she was Joseph’s bride: “When he awoke, Joseph […] took his bride with him” (tēn gynaîka autoû. Vg: Accepit coniugem suam).

The LXX always translates the root ‘rś with the verb mnēsteúō, which in Mt 1:18 and Lk 2:5 is used to indicate Mary’s legal position. Only in Deut 28:30 (“you shall take a wife, and another shall have her”) and 2 Sam 3:14 (“Give back my wife Michal, whom I took for a hundred foreskins of the Philistines”) do they use the verb lambánō (“to take”, “to receive”) (Küttlewein, DTAT I, 210-212).

The Hebrew root ‘rś indicates something that has no counterpart in our cultures:

• it certainly does not refer to engagement (Hebrew: šîddûkîn), the phase that preceded the marriage and consisted of the preliminaries conducted by the engaged couple themselves or by their parents or relatives (obligatory preliminaries, which concerned the agreements on the date and place of the celebration and the financial obligations, such as, for example, the amount of the dowry).

• but neither does it mean to marry, as we understand it today.

It is utterly misleading to translate the biblical term ‘rś (in its various forms) as “to get engaged”, “engagement”: it indicates, rather, the essential act that constitutes the first phase of the marriage procedure. A binding and public legal act, which initiates the marriage from the legal standpoint.

We find the root ‘rś in Hos 2:21-22, where the prophet reveals to us the mystery of God’s love for His people, a love that leads Him not only to forgiveness but to a new marriage forever. “I will make you my wife” (‘ērastîk lî: root ‘rś), YHWH repeats three times, speaking in the first person to His people, with whom He wants to establish a communion of life, a stable and exclusive relationship, typically spousal…

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