Notes and Scripture Index
Chapter 2: Listening to an Angel
1Origen, the church father, puts this claim in the mouth of a man named Celsus (Contra Celsum 1.32), quoted in Robert Stein, Jesus the Messiah: A Survey of the Life of Christ (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996), p. 33.2The Roman Catholic prayer based on this passage says, "Hail, Mary, full of grace." The translation "full of grace" is drawn from the Latin Vulgate, which reads gratia plena. The phrase "highly favored" is a more accurate translation of the Greek text of Luke's Gospel. Stephen Benko, Protestants, Catholics and Mary (Valley Forge, Penn.: Judson, 1968), p. 19. The full text of the Ave Maria or Hail Mary prayer reads: "Hail, Mary, full of grace; / the Lord is with thee. / Blessed art thou among women, / and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. / Holy Mary, Mother of God, / prayer for us sinners, / now and at the hour of our death. Amen." Forms of this prayer date from the eleventh century in the Western church and from as early as the sixth century in the Eastern church. The form of the prayer said today was not popular until the sixteenth century. Most Catholics are familiar with the Hail Mary from its use in praying the Rosary (The Encyclopedia of Catholicism [San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995], p. 602.
3Traditionally, Elizabeth has been referred to as Mary's cousin, but Luke describes their relationship with a very general word meaning any female relative.
Chapter 3: Amazed in God's Presence
1Tradition places the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth at Ain Kerem, a village in Judea, five miles west of Jerusalem, about eighty miles from Nazareth. Darrell Bock, Luke, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1994), 1:140.2The term theotokos is more accurately translated "God-bearer." It is a combination of the Greek words theos ("God") and tokos (from the verb tiktein, "to bear, give birth to").
Chapter 5: Dusting Off the Nativity Set
1See Paul Maier, In the Fullness of Time (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), pp. 6-7.2Many more details about the Church of the Nativity and modern-day Bethlehem can be found in ibid., pp. 34-42.
Chapter 6: Holding God in Our Arms
1See, for example, Numbers 24:2; Judges 6:34; 14:6; 1 Samuel 10:10; 2 Chronicles 24:20; Ezekiel 11:5.
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Chapter 8: Finding the Path
1A collection of these apocryphal stories can be found in J.K. Elliott, ed., The Apocryphal Jesus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). This story is on pp. 28-29.
2Ibid., p. 25.
3Ibid., p. 26.
4One way to cultivate a deeper appreciation for the faith and the freedoms we enjoy is to read the stories of those who have died for their loyalty to Christ. James and Marti Hefley have written a powerful book about Christian martyrs in the twentieth century called By Their Blood (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1996). In her book In the Lion's Den Nina Shea writes about areas of the world where Christians are persecuted today (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1997). Another resource focused more on individual martyr's is Sudan Bergman, ed., Martyrs (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996).
5Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 17.6.4; 17.9.3) placed the death of Herod shortly after an eclipse of the moon and before a Passover celebration in Jerusalem. In 4 B.C. there was a lunar eclipse on the night of March 12/13, one month before Passover. There are other possible years in which the same events coincide, but the best evidence favors March/April, 4 B.C., as the date of Herod's death. The date of 6-5 B.C. for Jesus' birth also fits with Luke's statement (Luke 3:23) that Jesus was "about thirty years of age" in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar (Luke 3:1), which was A.D. 27/28.
A mistake in calculation resulted in Jesus' being born "before Christ." In A.D. 533 Dionysius Exiguus (Denis the Short) proposed changing the calendar to mark years from the birth of Christ (A.D. or Anno Domini, "in the year of our Lord") rather than from the founding of the city of Rome (A.U.C. or Anno Urbis Conditae, "in the year from the foundation of the city"). He chose 745 A.U.C. as A.D. 1. Modern chronologists can more accurately place Herod's death 750 A.U.C. or 4 B.C. See Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah (New York: Doubleday, 1993), pp. 166-167, and Maier, In the Fullness of Time, pp. 24-25 and notes 1 and 2, p. 340.
Chapter 9: Raising God's Son
1These accounts can be found in Elliot, Apocryphal Jesus, pp. 20-23. Elliot dates the writing of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas in the second or third century.
Chapter 10: A Life in the Shadows
1Some scholars have used the statement of some Jews in John 6:42 to argue that Joseph was alive during Jesus' ministry: "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?" The statement of the crowd, however, simply shows their acquaintance with Joseph. It says nothing about whether he was alive or dead at the time.The apocryphal book The History of Joseph the Carpenter (fourth century A.D.) claims that Joseph was forty years old when he married Mary, was married to her forty-nine years and survived her by one year!
2In the papal encyclical Redemptoris mater, issued in 1987, Pope John Paul II points
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to this passage as evidence for Mary's role as mediatrix, one who intercedes with her son for the needs of others. Most Catholic Mariology makes this leap from biblical narrative to a broad theological precept. The passage in John's Gospel, however, points to Jesus' glory, not Mary's.
3For a discussion of the purpose of biblical miracles, see my book Miracles: What the Bible Says (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997).
4Some Catholic theologians (beginning with Thomas Aquinas) propose a third level of devotion, a hyperveneration above saints but below God, reserved for Mary alone (Victor Buksbazen, Miriam, the Virgin of Nazareth [Philadelphia: Spearhead, 1963), pp. 210-11).
5Margaret Bunson, comp., John Paul's Book of Mary (Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, 1996), p. 17. John Paul II is a devotee of Our Lady of Czestochowa, the patroness of his native Poland. His motto is "I am wholly yours, Mary" (totus tuus sum, Maria), and he has added an M to his papal coat of arms in honor of Mary.
Chapter 11: When Answers Don't Come
1Mark 3:31-35, 6:3; John 2:12; 7:3-5, 10; Acts 1:14; 1 Corinthians 9:5; Galatians 1:19.2The apocryphal History of Joseph the Carpenter (written about A.D. 400) gives the names of Joseph's sons as Judas, Justus, James and Simon, and his daughters as Assia and Lydia (Benko, Protestants, Catholics and Mary, p. 114).
3Stein, Jesus the Messiah, pp. 82-84.
4Actually the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary states: (1) Mary was a virgin before the conception of Jesus, and his conception occurred without a sexual encounter with a man. (2) Mary remained a virgin during the birth of Jesus. In the process of giving birth, the hymen of Mary remained unperforated and intact. (3) Mary had no sexual relationship after the birth of Jesus and, of course, bore no other children. This doctrine was declared to be the official teaching of the Catholic Church at the Lateran Council in A.D. 649 under Pope Martin I. It was reaffirmed at the Council of Trent in 1555.
The first part of the doctrine is supported entirely by Scripture. The argument for the second part comes entirely from what Catholic theologians view as the teaching authority of the Catholic Church. Support for the third element of the doctrine comes from the church tradition and the view of some church fathers that Jesus' brothers and sisters were not children of Mary.
5Raymond Brown, a noted Roman Catholic theologian, has pointed out that Mary chose marriage over celibacy. In his view Mary's virginity is stressed as evidence that Jesus had no earthly father, not as an ideal for Christians to embrace. R.E. Brown, The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus (New York: Paulist, 1973), pp. 38-40.
6On another occasion a woman in the crowd around Jesus shouted, "Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you." Jesus' reply again seems to leave Mary out: "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it" (Luke 11:27-28). When Luke lists the women who followed Jesus during his ministry, several are mentioned by name but not Mary. Even though Luke includes "many
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other" women, we would expect Mary to be listed if she had been part of those considered Jesus' disciples (Luke 8:2-3).
Chapter 12: To the Cross and Beyond
1"Jews were all too familiar with crucifixion, for even Jewish leaders used it. In the first century B.C. the high priest Alexander Jannaeus crucified eight hundred Pharisees who had revolted against him. In 4 B.C. the Syrian governor crucified two thousand Jews. During the Jewish revolt in A.D. 66-70 Josephus refers to Titus' crucifying five hundred Jews a day! . . . Crucifixion remained the primary form of capital punishment in the Roman Empire until A.D. 337, when Constantine banned it" (Stein, Jesus the Messiah, pp. 244-45).2It is possible that Peter witnessed Jesus' death, but from a distance. In 1 Peter 5:1 he calls himself "a witness of Christ's sufferings."
3Some translators and scholars find only two other women in this passage: (1) Mary's sister, also named Mary and the wife of Clopas, and (2) Mary Magdalene. This view brings two women into the same family as sisters, both of whom are named Mary! The preferable view is to see a total of four women in this scene: (1) Mary, Jesus' mother, (2) her sister (unnamed), (3) Mary, wife of Clopas, and (4) Mary Magdalene.
4Since Paul lists James separately from "all the apostles," most scholars conclude that this is not a reference to James the son of Zebedee or to James the Younger, both members of the original group of twelve apostles, but a reference to the half-brother of Jesus named James (Mark 6:3). This James became a leader in the early church (Acts 15:13; 21:18; Galatians 1:19) and is considered by most evangelical scholars as the author of the New Testament letter of James. Another brother of Jesus, Judas, is probably the author of the small New Testament letter of James. Another brother of Jesus, Judas, is probably the author of the small New Testament book of Jude.
5These traditions are discussed in Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary (New York: Vintage, 1983), pp. 86-90.
6See the survey of early references to Mary in Raymond Brown et al., eds., Mary in the New Testament (New York: Paulist, 1978), pp. 253-57.
7Nestorius, the bishop of Constantinople, wanted to refer to Mary as Christotokos, the mother of Christ. His opponent Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, insisted on the term theotokos, the mother of God.
Evangelical Christians (following Martin Luther and John Calvin) would agree that Mary's child was fully human and fully God, and in that sense Mary is the mother of God. Roman Catholic Mariology goes beyond that point, however, and says that this belief is merely the starting point for a whole doctrine of Mary's divine motherhood. Another idea drawn from the concept of theotokos by Catholic theologians is that Mary is the mother of all Christians or the mother of the church since, in a spiritual sense, she gave birth to the body of Christ. For a complete discussion of this dogma and its implications, see Benko, Protestants, Catholics and Mary, pp. 26-30.
8Ibid., p. 41
9The traditional Roman Catholic interpretation of the woman "clothed with the sun" in Revelation 12 is that she represents Mary, who gave birth to Jesus ("a male child"). Evangelicals (and an increasing number of Catholic interpreters) have identified the woman in John's vision as either the nation of Israel or the believing community. For a survey of the various views, see Alan Johnson, "Revelation," in The Expositor's Bible
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Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1981), 12:512-14.10For a sympathetic but thorough study of the development of doctrines surrounding Mary, see Jaroslav Pelikan, Mary Through the Centuries (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996).
11Kenneth Woodward has written an excellent article on the contemporary controversy over Mary's place in Catholic belief: "The Meaning of Mary: A Struggle over Her Role Grows Within the Church," Newsweek, August 25, 1997, pp. 49-55.
12This is Woodward's explanation of the teaching in ibid., p. 49.
Chapter 13: Living a Legacy
1Karen Karper's perceptive and challenging story is told in Where God Begins to Be: A Woman's Journey into Solitude (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994). The account of the check in the mail comes from pp. 90-91.2Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Mary: Glimpses of the Mother of Jesus (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995), p. 130. I am indebted to Gaventa for her insights into this particular facet of Mary's character.
3The NIV Quiet Time Bible (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996) is a wonderful resource that links serious Bible study with reflection and personal application. InterVarsity's LifeGuide Bible Study series takes a similar approach in a more expanded format.
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Subject Index
Anna, 58 Caesar Augustus, 42-45 care of the elderly, 109-10 Elizabeth, Mary's relative, 16, 21-22, 26-27 Egypt, 69-70 Gabriel, 18-22 God's will, 118-19 Herod the Great, 64, 72-74 Holy Spirit 55, 76 inn, 45-46 Jesus brothers and sisters of, 99-101 genealogy of, 35-36 humanity of. 80, 84-85 opposition from family, 102-3 presentation in temple, 52-54 virgin conception of, 21, 37-40 magi, 60-68 Magnificat, 28 |
Mary
appearances of, 114-115 bodily assumption of, 112 death of, 111-12 immaculate conception of, 113-14 perpetual virginity of, 100-101 prayer to, 92-94 meditation, 49, 120-21 Mother of God, 27, 112 Orthodox churches, teaching on Mary, 13, 27, 93, 100, 112 persecution of Christians, 71-72 queen of heaven, 113 Roman Catholic Church, teaching on Mary, 13, 27, 92-94, 100, 112, 113-14, 116 shepherds, 57-50 Simeon, 54-56 star, 63-65 Worship, 30
|
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Scripture Index
| Genesis
17:10-12, 52 Exodus 13:2, 53 Leviticus 12:1-8, 52 Numbers 24:2, 125 24:17, 19, 63 Judges 6:34, 125 14:6, 125 1 Samuel 2:1-5, 29 10:10, 125 2 Chronicles 24:20, 125 Jeremiah 31:15, 74 40:1, 74 Ezekiel 11:5, 125 Daniel 8:15-16, 18 9, 55 9:21, 18 9:25-26, 62 |
Hosea
11:1, 73 Micah 5:2, 44, 46 Matthew 1:1-17, 35 1:19, 36 1:22-23, 38 1:25, 100 2:1, 61 2:2, 63 2:5-6, 64 2:9-11, 65 2:12, 69 2:13, 69 2:14, 70 2:15, 73 2:18, 74 5:3-6, 31 10:37, 105 12:47, 101 13:54-56, 99 27:56, 109 Mark 3:21, 98, 102 3:31-35, 127 3:32, 101 6:2-3, 99 6:3, 36, 127, 128 6:17-26, 75 6:34-35, 102 10:29-30, 105 15:40, 109 |
Luke
1:19, 18 1:28, 19 1:29, 20, 22 1:30, 19 1:31-33, 20 1:34, 21 1:35, 21, 38 1:38, 22 1:41-45, 27 1:46,-55, 29-32, 111 1:67-79, 28 2:1, 42 2:7, 47 2:8-9, 47 2:14, 48 2:18, 49 2:19, 49 2:20, 50 2:21, 52 2:24, 52 2:25, 54 2:27, 55 2:29-32, 28, 56 2:32, 57 2:34-35, 57 2:36-38, 58 2:40, 79 2:46, 82 2:48, 82 2:49, 84 2:50, 85 2:51-52, 86 3:23, 37 4:21, 86 4:29-30, 86 |
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| 8:2, 109
8:2-3, 128 8:21, 102 11:27-28, 104 23:6-12, 75 23-34, 108 23:43, 108 John 2:1-2, 89 2:3, 4, 90 2:5, 91 2:12, 127 6:42, 126 7:2-4, 101 7:3-5, 127 7:5, 101 7:10, 127 8:42, 23 8:44, 20-21 15:18-19, 72 16:33, 72 19:25, 15, 109 19:26-27, 108 19:27, 111 Acts 1:14, 111, 127 2, 111 |
15:13, 128
18:3, 37 21:18, 128 1 Corinthians 9:5, 127 15:7, 111 Galatians 1:19, 127, 128 4:4, 116 Ephesians 3:14-16, 93 5:17-18, 119 6:5-6, 119 6:18, 94 Philippians 2:6-7, 85 Colossians 1:18, 93 1 Thessalonians 4:3, 119 5:18, 118 1 Timothy 2:5, 94 |
Hebrews
5:8-9, 75 9:24, 94 10:21-22, 94 13:15-16, 94 James 1:17, 93 1 Peter 2:5, 94 5:1, 128 5:7, 94 Revelation 1:6, 94 12:1-2, 113, 128 Apocryphal Books Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, 70 Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, 70-71 History of Joseph the Carpenter, 126 Infancy Gospel of Thomas, 78 Protoevangelium of James, 15 |
