This
is my second post on Scott Hahn’s book, Joy
to the World. You can find Part 1
here:
Part 1 addresses chapters 1 thru 4.
Part 2 addresses chapter 5 thru 7.
Summary
Chapter
5: “Mary: Cause of Our Joy”
Hahn
provides a historical and theological justification for the Virgin Birth, for
Mary’s role in salvation history and her continued importance in our lives as
Christians.
Chapter
6: “Silent Knight, Holy Knight”
Hahn
shows the importance and significance of Joseph’s fatherhood to Christ.
Chapter
7: “Angels: Echoing Their Joyous Strains”
Throughout
the Christmas story, angels supply guidance, wisdom, prayer, and protection,
and the holy family is open to it.
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Hahn
seems to think the “most controversial aspect” of Mary is her virginity. Would that be because of her conceiving a
child without “knowing man” or that it would be unlikely she maintained her
virginity throughout her life? Neither
strike me as that controversial in my mind.
I think this is the key passage regarding her virginity. Hahn is looking at the Isaiah prophecy of a
"virgin" bearing a son.
We cannot read Isaiah’s
mind, but we can read his context. The passage opens with the challenge: “Ask a
sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven” (Isaiah
7:11). He seems to be talking about a momentous sign, something indisputably
miraculous. A virgin bearing a son would indeed be such a singular event. A
“young woman” bearing a son would be unremarkable and underwhelming, as signs
go.
Thus we can probably
trust the authority of the Septuagint—which enjoyed a semi-official status in
the Jewish diaspora and was uninfluenced by later Christian-Jewish disputes.
Mary’s virginal
motherhood is a sign. It is not, however, a statement against the goodness of
sex, as some heretics later claimed it was. It is rather a guarantee of God’s
fatherhood—God is the only possible father of Jesus—and at the same time it is
recognition of Mary’s special status as the mother of the Messiah. She was, as
such, a vessel of the divine. Her body was, in a sense, like the golden vessels
dedicated for Temple service. It was forbidden to use such chalices and plates
at even the most dignified royal banquet. Likewise, her womb, having borne the
Savior, could not return to ordinary activity, no matter how good, no matter
how blessed.
Her perpetual virginity
was fitting and proper to her unique role in the history of salvation. It is
interesting to note that for the early Christians she was “the Virgin”—as if
she had a special claim on the noun and required the definite article. It is
the same grammatical construction found in the earliest Hebrew manuscripts of
Isaiah 7:14. (p. 56-7)
That
is an interesting comparison, Mary’s body as holy chalices and plates. Knowing what I know of Judaism strict dietary
and purity laws, that comparison is perfect.
But was Mary’s virginity
chosen? Had she already committed her life to God before the angel visited her?
Mary’s dialogue with the angel is indeed curious. In the sixth month the angel
Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin
betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the
virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace, the
Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered
in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do
not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will
conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. “He
will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God
will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the
house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary
said to the angel, “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” And the angel
said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most
High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy,
the Son of God.” (Luke 1:26–35) A more literal rendering of Mary’s question
would be: “How shall this be, since I do not know man?” “To know” is the common
Hebrew idiom for sexual union. In the book of Genesis we read: “Cain knew his
wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch.… Adam knew his wife again, and she
bore a son and called his name Seth” (Genesis 4:17, 25). Still today we use the
phrase “carnal knowledge” as a kind of polite phrase for sexual intercourse.
The connection between “knowing” and “conception” was clear in the Torah as it
was in life. So what could Mary have meant by her question? The angel had told
her she would conceive a son, and she did not understand how that could be. She
had not carried out what she knew to be the requisite act for pregnancy. It’s
not that Mary was ignorant of the facts of life. She genuinely wanted to know how
the angel Gabriel’s announcement could be true. Reading this passage, Saint
Augustine noted: “Surely she would not have said this unless she had already
vowed herself to God as a virgin.… Certainly she would not have asked,
how, being a female, she should give birth to her promised son, if she had
married with the purpose of sexual intercourse.”4 According to Christian
tradition, Mary remained perpetually a virgin—before Jesus’s birth and after.
Even before his conception, she may have discerned a special call to
consecrated virginity. We have already seen that such commitments, though rare
in Judaism, had ample precedent.
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I
found this passage incredibly insightful on St. Joseph’s fatherhood.
Joseph’s vocation is to
be an earthly image of Jesus’s heavenly Father.
God is more Father than any man on earth, though he fathers without
gender, without body, without sexual organs or a sexual act, and without a
spouse. God’s fatherhood is not
primarily physical, but rather spiritual. The fatherhood of Joseph is spiritual and
real, though virginal, just as the fatherhood of God is spiritual and
nonphysical.
Saint Joseph then serves,
then, as an icon of God the Father, and even Jesus would have thought of him in
that way… (p. 69-70)
One
certainly realizes that St. Joseph is Jesus’ foster father, but in being a
non-bearing father he emulates God’s Fatherhood to us all. What’s also fascinating is that studies show
that it’s the father’s faith in a family that tends to get passed onto the
children. If the father of a family is
devout, the children have a much higher chance of retaining the faith,
especially the sons. So this notion of
the father as being an icon of God the Father is important to all our lives.
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I
was really surprised to find three theories as to why Joseph decides to divorce
Mary. (1) The suspicion theory: Joseph
suspects Mary of adultery. (2) The perplexity theory: Joseph couldn’t figure
out how Mary got pregnant but couldn’t attribute adultery. (3) The reverence
theory: Joseph knew of the Holy Spirit’s impregnating her and didn’t consider
himself worthy. Hahn finds the third
theory the most satisfying.
I
had never heard of the other two theories, and I don’t find the perplexity and
reverence theories all that plausible.
The support for those theories is rather tenuous. The suspicion theory is the only one that
seems to fit. Anyone think differently?
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