From mistranslations to prophecies in the Old Testament, the story surrounding the virginity of Jesus Christ’s mother has many twists and turns.
On March 25, exactly nine months before Christmas, an angel appeared to Mary, then a young woman betrothed, and announced that she would be the mother of the son of God.
“But how will this happen if I don’t know any man?” he asked the angel, according to the Gospel of Luke.
According to the sacred text, Maria had not had any sexual relations that would justify her pregnancy.
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
That is why the Saint who will be born will be called Son of God”, explained the angel, emphasizing that “For God nothing is impossible“.
Biblically, this is what happened, even though the process defies the logic of biology.
Recent research, however, understands that the idea of Mary’s virginity was not something contemporary. In other words, those who lived with Jesus Christ They didn’t seem concerned about this issue..
The idea of a virginal conception was built by History and Theology over the following centuries and there are variations in understanding this, according to the religious denomination practiced.
Analyzing this evolution, what appears is that for the first followers of Christ, those who lived with him and possibly knew his mother, this issue did not appear to be relevant.
As, however, doubts began to arise regarding his biological paternity, an explanation became necessary to justify Maria’s pregnancy.
And the explanation then began to rely on the transcendental.
“Whether as a Christian or a non-Christian, the point about accepting the virgin birth has to do with the belief in the possibility of miracles“, historian Philip C. Almond told BBC News Brasil, in an email conversation.
“If you do not accept the possibility of miracles, that is, of God intervening in the natural world directly to do X or Y, then you will not believe in the virgin birth.”
Professor emeritus at the University of Queensland, Australia, and author of dozens of books on the history of religion, Almond points out that, “apart from the New Testament, we know nothing [sobre quem foi Maria]”.
In other words: the mother of Jesus is a personality without historical ballasts that are not compromised by their own religious bias.
When it comes to biblical characters, this is not exactly an exception. Joseph, Mary’s husband, is also someone with few references.
It appears at times, it’s true. In the account of the first miracle, when Jesus would have turned water into wineit is Maria who makes the request — to save a wedding party.
In other situations, Maria is mentioned, but always in a reduced role, which can be justified by the sexist structure of society.
The question of translation
There is a terminological issue that, it seems, precedes the theological explanations regarding Marian virginity. And historian Philip Almond is one of those who has already dealt with the topic.
The Gospel of Matthew is clear in highlighting that Mary became pregnant before she and Joseph had any sexual relations. The reference is that the pregnancy was work “of the Holy Spirit”. And, to support this, the author of the biblical text uses a prophecy from the Old Testament, more specifically from the book of Isaiah.
This book was written about 700 years before the birth of Jesus.
“The Lord will give them a signa virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call his name Immanuel”, wrote the prophet.
What the gospel authors were doing was very similar to what pastors and priests do today: look for explanations in the Bible for the present time.
What no one could imagine, of course, is the fact that they themselves were writing the more modern half of the Bible.
But Almond remembers that there is a rubbish in this reference. Matthew used the Greek version of the Old Testament, not the original Hebrew of the work.
Originally, the prophecy referred to this pregnant young woman as almah. In the Greek version, the word was converted to parthenos. Almah means “young woman”. Parthenos goes a little further: “young intact“, that is, a woman never touched sexually.
For the historian, it was an accident of translation that created the idea of Mary’s virginity, which turned “young” into “virgin”. And the Greek Bible was the basis for the Latin translation, when parthenos became virgo — and from there for all modern languages, the meaning has always been maintained.
This issue of translation was noticed as early as the 2nd century. The theologian and philosopher Flávio Justino (100-165), in his work Dialogue with Tryphon, mentions the way in which a “young man” became a “virgin”.
“You, even in this passage [citando a profecia de Isaías]you have the audacity to change the interpretation given by your elders who worked alongside Ptolemy, king of Egypt. And you say that what they interpreted does not appear in the original text, but ‘behold, a young woman will conceive’, as if it were a sign of a great work that a woman conceives through carnal intercourse, something that all young women do, except sterile ones”, he writes.
“Tryphon [a quem Justino se dirige] It was a rabbi who tells Justin that the passage from Isaiah does not speak of a virgin, but of a young woman. And Justin counter-argues: who translated It wasn’t the Christians, it was the Jewsso when doing the translation they knew exactly what they were translating”, contextualizes historian André Leonardo Chevitarese, Professor of the Postgraduate Program in Comparative History at the History Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
The historian points out that this already demonstrates how the debate was set, that there was a semantic discussion around the topic.
There is no consensus on whether the possible translation error was intentional or accidental. Justino, in his argument, seems to understand that there was a motivation, as he emphasizes that the translators knew what they were doing.
Biological paternity of Jesus
What seems to be beyond doubt, when analyzing ancient texts, is that Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus.
Chevitarese remembers that in the Gospel of Mark there is mention that Jesus is the son of Mary, in the passage “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary?“.
“[Na época] That wasn’t how a son was classified”, points out the historian. “He is always the son of a father.”
In the puzzle of interpreting a text as old as the gospel, these are important clues. The lack of mention of the father and the unusual emphasis on the mother indicate that, already at that time, the Jesus’ biological paternity was unknown.
For the historian, in that context of the first two or three centuries of Christianity, with the Church in formation, it was not even the “problem” to substantiate Mary’s virginity or not. The question was cleanse the reputation of Jesus.
“The concern was this: after all, can we expect Jesus to be the Messiah having a birth whose father we don’t even know?”, he explains.
Chevitarese remembers that there was even theories that Jesus was the son of a Roman soldier.
Dogmas
Given this entire context, it seemed interesting to early Christians, those from the first three centuries of religion, to justify a virginal conception of Jesus. Labeling Mary as a virgin, after all, conferred greater suitability for someone who presented herself as “mother of God”.
There was even compatibility with the religious understanding of the time. Jesus was celibateit’s worth remembering.
“In the first centuries of Christianity, the virginity was recognized as more desirable than married status. This made it inevitable that Mary would be idealized as a perpetually virgin,” comments Almond.
There was an understanding, both among some groups of Jews and early Christians, that abstaining from sexual life was a sacrifice to God. And that the celibate was more likely to receive divine revelations.
According to the researcher, around the year 400 the doctrine of Mary’s virginity was already consolidated in Christianity.
Gradually, Mary’s virginity was reaffirmed in other Catholic councils and popes, gaining new contours and new layers.
“There is no specific date for the construction of the dogma, but a accumulation of information that were being sedimented”, explains historian, philosopher and theologian Gerson Leite de Moraes, professor at Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, to BBC News Brasil.
With important similarities and also great differences between Christian creeds.
“Both Protestants and Roman Catholics accept the article of the apostolic creed that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. This is a peaceful point and is based on the scriptures that say that she is the mother of our Lord, blessed among women”, says Moraes.
The theologian refers to the set of principles of faith, the basis of Christianity. The first version originated shortly after Jesus’ death, possibly around the year 50 of the first century. But several amendments and adjustments were made in the following centuries.
“The Catholic vision, constructed by dogma, is because historically there is very little information about Maria. According to biblical tradition, she was called to be the mother of the son of God and this conception occurred in a virginal way”, adds the professor.
“Both Catholics and Protestants do not disagree with this.”
