Introduction

Mary, mother of our Messiah is probably one of the first women people would name when asked to name a woman from the Bible. Like many other women, however, not much is actually known about her. Still, Mary is one of the most exalted women of the Bible because it is through her that the Messiah was born. Due to the role she played in fulfilling God's promise to us for salvation, people have added quite abit of doctrine and tradition around her. As such, there are quite a few strong differences in doctrine concerning Mary. I did not dive deeply into these doctrine during the week (April 2-8, 2025) I studied Mary for my daily devotions, however we will be discussing some of these differences in this post.

Genealogy & Etymology

When we think of the name Mary, we think of innocence and purity. In fact, I have a friend named Maryam who once said she was glad her name wasn't Mary because Mary was "too holy." Ironically, the meaning of the name is "their rebellion" and Miriam and Mary are of the same origin. The Hebrew name is Miriam, with the Greek being Μαρία (liket the Spanish Maria), and the English translating to Mary. Most likely the people of her time called her Miriam.[1]

Mary isn't introuduced with a long sweeping history of her lineage the way many men (particularly the Messiah) of the Bible are. Or rather, if she is it isn't obvious. There is a contraversy surrounding the lineage of Christ given in Matthew 1 vs. Luke 3. Since the genealogies are not an exact one-to-one match, much time has been put into reconciling the discrepancies. Once suggestion that has been offered is that one genealogiy is for Joseph, while the other is for Mary. If we assume that to be the case, we still don't know which lineage is Mary's.

Nonetheless, there are clues about her family and origin.

Was Mary an Israelite?

For most of my life I would have answered with an unequivocal yes that Mary had to be Israelite, but now I see how there is a margin of possibilty that she could be something else. I definitely think the odds are high (like in the 90-99% range), but I can admit there is a non-zero chance that she wasn't an Israelite. The easiest way to "prove" she is Israelite is through her kinship to Elisabeth, which is explicitly revealed in Luke 1:36. Elisabeth is explicitly stated to be a "daughter of Aaron" in Luke 1:?, which means that she is from the Tribe of Levi. Based on the pattern presented in the Bible, this means Elisabeth's father is from the Tribe of Levi. If Mary and Elisabeth's kinship is through Elisabeth's father, we could conclude that Mary is also descended from the Tribe of Levi.

However, there are a quite a few possibilities. Technically speaking, the kinship could be through Elisabeth's father and Mary's mother, leaving froom for Mary's father to be from a different Tribe or not even an Israelite. Similarly, if the kinship is actually through Elisabeth's mother, Elisabeth's mother doesn't have to be an Israelite which would leave the possibility for neither of Mary's parents to be Israelites.

I am fully convinced that both Elisabeth and Mary were devout believers, the text tells us this, which means at the very least they were "grafted in" like Ruth and Rahab. However, the realization that Ruth, Rahab, and Tamar are in Messiah's lineage does lead me to believe there is a small chance that Mary could be non-Israelite. A counter point is that the way the Israelites rejected people that were not their own (like Timothy being given a hard time for only being half Israelite in Acts 16:1-3) would have dicated God to send a "pure" Israelite as His heir. While the Israelites did distrust Messiah's identity, if he was only partially Israelite, I feel like it would have come up.

What Tribe Was She From?

Considering the Israelites of the New Testament were all from the remnant that returned from Babylon, and thus descendants of the southern kingdom of Judah, Mary is would have been from either the Tribe of Benjamin, Levi, or Judah. Though Israelite tradition would list her as being from whatever tribe her father was from, it is possible she had ancestry from two or even all of the three tribes. Her kinship to Elisabeth biases people toward Levi, but as discussed above, there aren't enough details to hang our hat on that as fact.

Questions

About the Passage

1. How old was Mary when she got pregnant? How old was Joseph?
2. What was her family's (e.g., mom, dad, in-laws) reaction to the news?
3. Was she scared?
4. Was she sent to Elisabeth to get away from the gossip?
5. Is one of the lineages of Christ actually Mary's lineage?
6. How long had she known/been engaged Joseph when the angel revealed their destiny?
7. How did she feel about the wise men visiting her son?
   • Was that the first baby shower?
   • Did other people come visit?
   • Was it awkward?
8. Did she worry about how to raise God's son?
9. How did she discipline Messiah?
   • Did she discipline Him?
   • Were His brothers disciplined differently?
10. Did she know He was going to suffer and die?
11. Did she ever feel the need to defend who He was during His ministry?
12. Who was she outside of being a mom?
    • Did she have hobbies?
    • Was she quiet and reserved or loud and zany?
    • Did she have friends?
13. Did people question her parenting skills?
14. Was she offended in Matthew 12 when He placed her on the same level as everyone else in His circle?
15. Why did John have to become her son?
    • What about Messiah's brothers?
    • Were they not her sons?
    • Where was Joseph?

If I could meet her

I would want to talk about courage with Mary. Nothing can be more courageous than getting pregnant out of wedlock during a time when it was punishable by death. Her reputation would have been completely ruined, and if Joseph hadn't listened to God and stayed, she could have been in even more trouble. The Bible doesn't tell us how her family (or his family) reacted. Were they ashamed? Did she get love and support throughout the pregnancy, or were they trying to make her disappear when she went to live with Elisabeth?

Most importantly, I would want to hear from Mary what kind of support she would have wanted or needed during that time. The church is not the kindest to unwed mothers. Regardless of how they came to be in that predicament, I feel as though they are in a very vulnerable situation in which they need all the love and support they can receive. As such, I would like to hear Mary's views on how we provide that support.

Phototheology

Phototheology is a way of learning the Bible taught by Ivor Myers.[2] I am employing this technique in my weekly Woman of God study journal. The following three pormpts are the ones I drew from the card deck while studying Mary.

Meditate on the story or text to bring out hidden insight

Three ideas popped into my head as I thouhgt more deeply on the text.

First, the disconnect we often have when thinking about our purpose. We want or expect our purpose to look like the highs in the Bible—usually akin to someone like David or Paul. However, often our purpose comes with being ostracized in society. We may experience pain, loneliness, and alienation. Mary's purpose may have been one of the most important purposes in all the Bible—she birthed and raised our Messiah—but she likely endured a lot of shame when she became pregnant, and I doubt the gossip ever stopped.

Second, only a woman could birth the Messiah. In Genesis 3, God tells Eve that her seed will be the one to defeat Satan because from the beginning He knew we would need a Messiah. People are quick to blame the fall on Eve (and women) but the Bible tells us Adam was not deceived; he may have balmed everything on Eve but he ate the fruit of his own free will with full knowledge of what he was doing. Had he been without a woman, there would have been no way for man to reconcile with God after the fall. God knew even before creating Eve, that Mary would have this birth.

Finally, I thought about the fact that woman's ability to create life within us is a reflection of God and the image of God. As a woman who does not have any desire to have children, I asked myself if this says anything about how I view God or if this is a denial of God's image within me. (This is a much deeper topic that I might cover in a different post in the future.)

How does the story relate to faith?

Mary shows her faith in both the Most High and Messiah throughout the text. First, can you imagine being a virign then finding out somehow you're pregnant? God had to know she could handle it to have put that on her. We see Mary have complete trust that Messiah can "fix" the situation at the wedding when He turns the water in to wine—what had He been doing around the house that made her think He could save the day in this situation? Mary is at the cross for the crucifixion and she is mentioned as being ith the Church in the book of Acts—she still had faith after all that happened. Further, we aren't told when Mary became a widow but it is safe to say she was one by the time of the crucifixon (re: Joseph isn't there and Messiah assigns John to look after Mary). This means she braved many things without her husband or her son, and just still maintained a relationship with God.

Connect to the mathematics of the 70 year prophecy.

The 70 year prophecy was made by Jeremiah and references the length of time Israel would be in captivity in Babylon. This relates to Mary in two ways. First, it is while the Israelites are in Babylon that Daniel pens the prophecy pinpointing the birth of Messiah (and thus Mary's pregnancy). More importantly, however, is the parallel of captivity and being freed from captivity. Israel is sentenced to 70 years for not keeping the Most High's sabbaths, but from the inception of the prophecy, there is an end to the captivity—a time for reconciliation. Mary is part of the larger story of captivity, where all the Earth is in captivity and separated from God, but this too is for a finite time; God declared an end to this separation from the very beginning. In Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar makes the end of the captivity possible by allowing some Israelites go to the Promised Land. Similarly, Mary takes steps toward ending the captivity of the world by giving bith to our Savior. The common denominator for these stories is restoration.

Journal Pages

Journal pages for Mary (April 2-8, 2025)

Doctrinal Differences

There are three main teachings by the Catholic church with respect to Mary that most Protestants would disagree with. These three teachings are the Immaculate Conception, the Perpetual Viriginity of Mary, and the concept of praying to Mary.

Immaculate Conception

The Immaculate Conception is a Catholic Doctrine claiming Mary was born without original sin. The exact phrase "original sin" is not found in the Bible, but usually when people say original sin, they are referencing the sinful nature we inherited from Adam and Eve; this nature is explicitly confirmed in Romans 3:23. It appears that the root of this belief comes from writings that are not canon scripture and opinion. Personally, I disagree with the idea that Mary was or needed to be free from sin or original sin to be the mother of our Messiah. The whole point of Him living in a fleshly body was that He overcame the temptations we face on a daily basis and chose to remain sinless. If Messiah wasn't born into a body with the sinful nature of flesh, how was He tempted? If He wasn't tempted, what was the point of experiencing life as a man and how is He our example?

On the contrary, it makes much more sense that Mary was righteous (like Job or Elijah), but still a sinner who needed salvation.

Perpetual Virgin

The Catholic chrch teaches that Mary never had sex, even after the birth of Jesus. Now, we all understand the importance of Mary being a virgin when she married Joseph and for the whole 9 months of her pregnancy, lest anyone doubt the miracle and divinity of Christ. However, married couples are supposed to have sex, so it stands to reason that after she'd given birth and healed, she and Joseph would consummate thier marriage.

What about Jesus' brothers? Don't these brothers provve Mary and Joseph had more children? Not exactly; Mary could have been Joseph's second wife. there isn't anything that explicitly confirms these brothers are Jesus' full younger sibling. It is possible that Jesus' brothers are older and through Joseph and a previous wife, thus leaving them with no obligation to look after Mary.

The worst part about this doctrine is that it highlights purity culture and the weird relationship the church has with sex. The real question is why would Mary need to be a virgin her whole life to maintain the status and image we have of her? Deep within this concept is the idea that Mary is no longer the brave, innocent, and pivotal part of the gospel if she had sex. Sex is not a sin when you are married and having sex with your spouse! Furthermore, the text never suggests Mary was perfect, nor does it prophesy that the Messiah would come from a sinless person. Thus, Mary having sex with her husband Joseph after Jesus was born does nothing to the narrative. The only person in the equation required to be completely blameless is Messiah. So, what problem was the church of the middle ages trying to fix by interpretting the script this way?

Praying To Mary

Another thing you'll see is Catholics saying prayers to Mary. I believe they pray to "saints" in general, but most commonly to Mary. There are actually a few other large topics that are embedded into this. For instance, we need to discuss the state of the dead and communicating with the dead (see Deuteronomy 18:10-11 and Ecclesiastes 9:5). Another good conversation would be how elevating Mary follows the trend of pagan religions in which there is a father, son, and mother god. As such, I feel like it's a discussion that warrants its own page. In the mean time, I want to point out that this is one of the doctrinal differences between the Protestant and Catholic views of Mary.

References & Footnotes

1. "Strong's G3137. Μαρία". Blue Letter Bible; visited April 2025
2. Pastor Ivor Myers' Phototheology Game Deck
3. Christine Pinheiro. "Was Mary A Perpetual Virign?". Catholic Answers. December 1, 2005; visited April 2025
4. "Immaculate Conception". Wikipedia; visited April 2025