Virgin mary why is she important

Many Protestants believe that after Jesus was born Mary no longer remained a virgin and had children with Joseph the normal way. They were all born after Jesus, making the virgin birth more plausible.

Catholics and Orthodox Christians believe that Mary was virgin her entire life. Matthew tells us a little bit, Luke tells us some different things, Mark doesn't tell us very much, John tells us some different things again.

It's not one big coherent story that takes you from her birth to her death. We just have little spotlights of certain parts of her life. The place that we find most about Mary from is Luke's gospel. Luke thinks that Mary is one of the key characters in the drama so he tells the whole story of Jesus' birth from Mary's perspective.

In particular, Luke writes about the time of the conception of Jesus and exactly what Mary was thinking, what she was doing, what her reactions were when the Angel Gabriel talked to her.

Matthew tells the story from a traditional male perspective. He sees the whole story from Joseph's perspective. Mark's gospel tends to lump her together with Jesus' family and regards her as being someone who stands in the way of Jesus and his gospel and his message. The gospel writers don't actually want to tell very much about Mary unless the action is really revolving around something important about Jesus.

The best source for her is a document from the second century called the Proto-Evangelium of James. It's a parochial text and it talks in great detail about her parents, her upbringing, her age when she conceived Jesus and so on. The disappointing thing about it is that most of it is probably made up. The New Testament tells us very little about his father Joseph so the fact that she's prominent shows that there was some interest in Mary in the early church years.

Matthew and Luke, who do refer to Jesus' birth, were probably written almost a century later than his birth. Each of the gospels was composed in a different environment at a different time with particularly different interests in mind.

Each one of them has a slightly different theological overtone, each of them is writing for slightly different purposes and thus each has its own particular traits. Later Jewish writings refer to her by her Jewish name, Miriam, and say that she's a hairdresser and that Jesus is the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier called Panthera.

The problem with these references is they are at least from the s - quite possibly as late as the s - so they're substantially later than the New Testament and probably reflect a lot of the hostility between Jewish and Christian groups at that late date. This is something that was invented by later Christians to extend the idea of her holiness. The purity, the perpetual virginity, all of those kind of themes end up with Mary as well as Jesus having to be conceived immaculately.

One of the difficulties that many people today have with the virgin birth is not so much historical, the idea that it couldn't happen, but theological; the idea that it must have happened in order for Jesus not to have had any sin. Theologically people now have more problems with the Virgin Birth than they would have done in the past. In the past it was almost necessary to have a virgin birth in order to get Jesus out of this rather sticky difficulty of having been born with ordinary human parents who'd had sex.

Mary's sinless conception is the reason why Catholics refer to Mary as "full of grace". They are not the same thing. In fact Mary had ordinary human parents who conceived her in the usual manner. According to the Bible, Mary became mysteriously pregnant while a virgin betrothed to Joseph, who considered divorcing her.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall give the him name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever.

And Mary said, 'Behold, I am a handmaiden of the Lord, let it be me according to your word. In Matthew an unnamed angel brings news to Joseph. In Matthew "an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. According to the BBC: Mary received God's grace from the first moment of her existence, and was totally and completely redeemed by this grace.

Because she was redeemed, Mary spent her whole existence in a perfect relationship with God. God did this so that Mary would be worthy to be the mother of God. Christians believe that God's redeeming grace is available to all believers: those who accept the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception regard Mary as the perfect example of the redeeming action of God's grace, and believe that Mary was only able to receive this grace because Christ would later redeem all humanity through his death on the cross.

The grace of Christ the Redeemer acted in her in anticipation, preserving her from original sin and from any contagion of guilt. This is an ancient teaching, but it remains controversial to some Protestants because it is not explicitly referred to in the Bible. Early Protestant thinkers were more devoted to Mary than some of their successors. Martin Luther, for example, was a firm believer in the Immaculate Conception. From the first moment she began to live she was free from all sin.

This is not contrary to the teaching of Scripture, and can only be understood in the light of Scripture. Roman Catholics can recognize in this what is affirmed by the dogma - namely 'preserved from all stain of original sin' and 'from the first moment of her conception.

Bernadette's vision at Lourdes in , where Mary revealed herself as the Immaculate Conception, put the stamp of God's approval on the doctrine.

And Mary falls into the category of being holy and pure and absolutely without sin; and she carries on in that trajectory right through the tradition so that she gets more and more holy and her virginity is stressed more and more and her holiness throughout her whole life is stressed, so that she too becomes sinless. She is assumed into heaven rather than having to die, she herself gets born of an immaculate conception; so you get a development in the idea of the perpetual virginity, because she's begun a journey to becoming ever more holy, ever more pure which in the end can only end up with those concepts of perpetual virginity.

To what extent it's historical is much more difficult to analyse. One of the difficulties is that we hear nothing at all of a virgin birth tradition, until late in the first century.

Only in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, which were probably written in the 80s or 90s of the first century, is there a mention of the virgin birth. They're evocative of the typical Old Testament annunciation narrative: the angel going down to one or two of the parents; the insurmountable problem, which usually in the Old Testament is the fact that the parents are elderly or barren; the angel proclaiming that the problem is going to be surmounted; and the birth ensues.

It's very similar to the stories about the birth of Isaac or the birth of Samson or Samuel. The story of the birth of Jesus has to be even better. Mary can't be an elderly barren woman: instead she's a young girl who's also a virgin. The idea of a virgin birth was nothing new. The Romans used the idea in a story about birth of Caesar and his conception by the God Apollo. The notion of Immaculate Conception, that Mary was preserved from original sin by virtue of a special grace from God, is a Catholic concept made infallible dogma by Pope Pius IX in Famous figures tended to attract these stories as people speculated on what it would have been like to be present at the birth of such a person.

Astrology was also important, so it was felt that if a person was going to be very prominent their fate was already preordained, that in their horoscope one would see how wonderful they were going to be.

It's not surprising they began to think that perhaps their birth was miraculous and wonderful. Athene and Artemis were regarded as virgins.

They gave birth and then dipped themselves into the rivers so their virginity was renewed. They differ in that there's a male god and a human mother and the male god comes down to earth and impregnates the mother in a very graphic way. In the gospel stories there's no mention of God or the Holy Spirit taking the form of a human being and actually coming down and impregnating Mary.

But virginity in Jewish society at the time that we are talking about was about ensuring that the new husband wasn't getting second hand merchandise.

Virginity was only important for the moment of the first marriage. The first marriage was more important; for example, in the Jewish marriage contract for a first marriage they paid twice as much as for a second marriage.

Virgins went out on the wedding procession with their hair open and flowing so that everyone could see and it would then be remembered that she had been a virgin when she entered her husband's house at that event. In fact after a while, instead of being a prize, virginity became a burden. We know this from several Jewish burial inscriptions where women were buried and the messages of mourning on their tomb say how sad it was that she died a virgin.

They even gave us the name of the Roman soldier who was supposed to have carried out this rape: a man called Panthera, which apparently was quite a common name for Roman soldiers. Some say that perhaps it isn't so impossible as previously we thought. There are certain clues in the New Testament to suggest that Mary was in quite a terrible state after the beginning of the pregnancy.

The fact that she went in great haste to see Elizabeth. The fact that she talks about herself as a "lowly handmaid": why is she lowly? Some people believe the lowliness was because she was actually the victim of a crime. The problem of the theory is that Jesus could have been the son of a Roman soldier, which is even more unpalatable for people than the idea that Mary wasn't a virgin.

The idea that Jesus was somehow genetically dependent upon a rapist is more difficult to swallow and it would take a tremendous radical leap of faith to accept that kind of theory. It led to later speculation that Mary remained a virgin throughout her life, before her pregnancy, during the birth of Jesus, and after.

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In what way is the Blessed Virgin Mary the eschatological icon of the Church? Why does Mary have such a preeminent place in the communion of saints Mary is the Mother of God. This is what the Church Fathers say. Related tweets. At night they might have heard the soldiers march by with their swords clanging, and they would have been afraid.

One can imagine there was talk about trusting in God and that maybe in their lifetime he would send a Messiah. The Jews, as they became more and more oppressed, may have became more and more obsessed with God. They may have thought that this could be the time for the Saviour to come. And it was in this highly charged theological atmosphere that Mary wove her way to the well, perhaps holding in her arms the infant Jesus.

The immaculate conception of Mary has no historical basis at all. This is something that was invented by later Christians to extend the idea of her holiness. The purity, the perpetual virginity, all of those kind of themes end up with Mary as well as Jesus having to be conceived immaculately.

One of the difficulties that many people today have with the virgin birth is not so much historical, the idea that it couldn't happen, but theological; the idea that it must have happened in order for Jesus not to have had any sin.

Early Christians like Augustine tended to think that Adam's original sin was passed on in the act of sex and that therefore in order for Jesus to be holy and sinless it was necessary for him not to have been born from parents who had had sex. Theologically people now have more problems with the Virgin Birth than they would have done in the past. In the past it was almost necessary to have a virgin birth in order to get Jesus out of this rather sticky difficulty of having been born with ordinary human parents who'd had sex.

In the New Testament, many of the women characters are either so holy and pure that it's unrealistic, or they're prostitutes. And Mary falls into the category of being holy and pure and absolutely without sin; and she carries on in that trajectory right through the tradition so that she gets more and more holy and her virginity is stressed more and more and her holiness throughout her whole life is stressed, so that she too becomes sinless.

She is assumed into heaven rather than having to die, she herself gets born of an immaculate conception; so you get a development in the idea of the perpetual virginity, because she's begun a journey to becoming ever more holy, ever more pure which in the end can only end up with those concepts of perpetual virginity. The virgin birth is a very powerful story which explains the theological truth that Jesus is the son of God - not just the son of God from his resurrection or from his baptism, as perhaps the gospel of Mark might suggest, but the son of God from the moment of his conception.

To what extent it's historical is much more difficult to analyse. One of the difficulties is that we hear nothing at all of a virgin birth tradition, until late in the first century. Only in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, which were probably written in the 80s or 90s of the first century, is there a mention of the virgin birth.

Another difficulty with the virgin birth idea is that the texts in Matthew and Luke are clearly overlaid with references to the Old Testament.

They're evocative of the typical Old Testament annunciation narrative: the angel going down to one or two of the parents; the insurmountable problem, which usually in the Old Testament is the fact that the parents are elderly or barren ; the angel proclaiming that the problem is going to be surmounted; and the birth ensues.

It's very similar to the stories about the birth of Isaac or the birth of Samson or Samuel. The story of the birth of Jesus has to be even better. Mary can't be an elderly barren woman: instead she's a young girl who's also a virgin.

There were lots of stories of miraculous births in Greco-Roman society. Famous figures tended to attract these stories as people speculated on what it would have been like to be present at the birth of such a person.

Astrology was also important, so it was felt that if a person was going to be very prominent their fate was already preordained, that in their horoscope one would see how wonderful they were going to be.

It's not surprising they began to think that perhaps their birth was miraculous and wonderful. In the Greek and Roman system of gods and goddesses, the goddesses themselves could be said to be virgin mothers. Athene and Artemis were regarded as virgins. They gave birth and then dipped themselves into the rivers so their virginity was renewed. The Greek and Roman stories are not quite the same as the virgin birth stories in the gospels.

They differ in that there's a male god and a human mother and the male god comes down to earth and impregnates the mother in a very graphic way. In the gospel stories there's no mention of God or the Holy Spirit taking the form of a human being and actually coming down and impregnating Mary.

There was an ancient legend from the Jewish side that Mary was the victim of a rape. They even gave us the name of the Roman soldier who was supposed to have carried out this rape: a man called Panthera, which apparently was quite a common name for Roman soldiers.

Recently some scholars looked at this theory and decided it was simply an ancient slur, anti-Christian slander made up in the second century to try to prevent belief in Jesus.

Some say that perhaps it isn't so impossible as previously we thought. There are certain clues in the New Testament to suggest that Mary was in quite a terrible state after the beginning of the pregnancy. The fact that she went in great haste to see Elizabeth. The fact that she talks about herself as a "lowly handmaid": why is she lowly? Some people believe the lowliness was because she was actually the victim of a crime.

The strength of the idea is that just as Jesus in his crucifixion identifies with those who suffer , Mary, as victim of rape, is somebody that women who suffer can identify with. The problem of the theory is that Jesus could have been the son of a Roman soldier, which is even more unpalatable for people than the idea that Mary wasn't a virgin. The idea that Jesus was somehow genetically dependent upon a rapist is more difficult to swallow and it would take a tremendous radical leap of faith to accept that kind of theory.

The book of James establishes that Mary was a virgin during the birth of Jesus - in other words she remained intact, physically, despite the birth, which is miraculous. It led to later speculation that Mary remained a virgin throughout her life, before her pregnancy, during the birth of Jesus, and after. The book of James begins to speculate on the birth of Jesus in quite graphic detail. The idea that Mary is intact comes from the idea that she suffers no pain.

This is theologically important to the early Christians because of the curse, mentioned in Genesis, of the two human beings who are responsible for the fall. Adam's curse is to work in sweat in the fields and Eve's curse is to bear children in pain. The idea that Mary and Jesus are free of sin, that they are immaculate, leads us to think that Mary wouldn't suffer the pain of Eve, that she would have a painless birth. Some would argue that this makes her rather distant from the ordinary woman.

The way that the tradition has dealt with that is to say she had a painless birth but she wasn't without pain because she saw her son die on the cross. The great tradition of Mary as the "Mother of Sorrows" comes into being and there are often depictions of Mary as a woman in tears, of a woman laid low by grief.

John's gospel refers to the crucifixion as a laborious birth, so if Mary does have a painful birth in the Christian tradition she has it at the crucifixion. The word virgin developed in western culture has become a synonym for purity and good behaviour. But virginity in Jewish society at the time that we are talking about was about ensuring that the new husband wasn't getting second hand merchandise. Virginity was only important for the moment of the first marriage.

The first marriage was more important; for example, in the Jewish marriage contract for a first marriage they paid twice as much as for a second marriage.