The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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rgprice
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The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by rgprice »

Let's step back and take a look at the central elements that deal with the family of Jesus across the canonical Gospels:

Mark 3:
31 Then His mother and His brothers *came, and while standing outside they sent word to Him, calling for Him. 32 And a crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You.” 33 Answering them, He said, “Who are My mother and My brothers?” 34 And looking around at those who were sitting around Him, He said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God, this is My brother, and sister, and mother.”


Mark 6:
1Jesus went out from there and *came into His hometown; and His disciples followed Him. 2 And when the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue; and the many listeners were astonished, saying, “Where did this man learn these things, and what is this wisdom that has been given to Him, and such miracles as these performed by His hands? 3 Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are His sisters not here with us?


Matthew 12:
46 While He was still speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him. 47 Someone said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak to You.” 48 But Jesus replied to the one who was telling Him and said, “Who is My mother, and who are My brothers?” 49 And extending His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Behold: My mother and My brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother, and sister, and mother.”


Matthew 13:
53 When Jesus had finished these parables, He departed from there. 54 And He came to His hometown and began teaching them in their synagogue, with the result that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man acquire this wisdom and these miraculous powers? 55 Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is His mother not called Mary, and His brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? 56 And His sisters, are they not all with us?


Luke 4:
22 And all the people were speaking well of Him, and admiring the gracious words which were coming from His lips; and yet they were saying, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” 23 And He said to them, “No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! All the miracles that we heard were done in Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’” 24 But He said, “Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown.


Luke 8:
19 Now His mother and brothers came to Him, and they were unable to get to Him because of the crowd. 20 And it was reported to Him, “Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, wishing to see You.” 21 But He answered and said to them, “My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.”


John 6:
41 So then the Jews were complaining about Him because He said, “I am the bread that came down out of heaven.” 42 And they were saying, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” 43 Jesus answered and said to them, “Stop complaining among yourselves. 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.

Some observations: In Luke 3-23, which is recognized as a separate layer of Luke that was produced prior to canonical Luke, the mother of Jesus is never given the name Mary. In addition, he is called a son of Joseph. The name Mary is never given to the mother of Jesus either in Marcion's Gospel or the Gospel of John. The name Mary is also not used for the mother of Jesus in Luke 3-23.

If we put ideas about Markan priority aside for a moment and forget about trying to figure out the order in which things may or may not have been written, consider this proposition:

Some earliest narrative existed in which a "mother of Jesus" had no name. She was just the "mother of Jesus". But this "mother of Jesus" was actually denied to be his mother, indeed in the earliest narrative the only point of the mention of his family was for him to deny that he had a family. In addition, early narratives existed in which there was a female companion named Mary. Now this Mary was a sort of Gnostic wisdom figure, who became Mary Magdalene. In later narratives, Mary Magdalene was conflated with the "mother of Jesus", thus giving rise to the name of Mary as Jesus' mother.

Now, the details of all this I make no claim to having worked out, and it throws a wrench into my concept of Gospel origins, but it does seem to have something going for it.

Thoughts?
Last edited by rgprice on Fri Sep 24, 2021 4:29 am, edited 2 times in total.
Giuseppe
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by Giuseppe »

rgprice wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 3:21 am
Some earliest narrative existed in which a "mother of Jesus" had no name. She was just the "mother of Jesus".
why do you assume this earliest narrative as an hypothesis? We have effectively "an earliest narrative in which a "mother of Jesus" had no name". It is the Book of Revelation. What do you think about it and its relation with Mark?

Volkmar thought that Mark was written against Revelation.
gryan
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by gryan »

Re "Some earliest narrative..."

That sounds like Galatians:

1) "born of a woman (name not given), born under the law" (said of Jesus, and arguably, "James, the Lord's brother")

2) "But Jerusalem above (allegorical, but unnamed "Sarah") is free, and she is our mother..."

Plenty of room for Gnostic speculation about allegorical representations of the true, spiritual mother.
rgprice
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by rgprice »

@Giuseppe That may be (or not) but what I'm talking about is a Gospel narrative. Even with your proposal, it would require the development of independent narratives from Revelation, which isn't supported.

Here is what we know:

Marcion's Gospel: Did mention a mother of Jesus, did not give her a name. Did not mention Joseph as a father of Jesus. Did not mention Mary Magdalene. Did mention Lazarus.

Luke 3-23: Mentions a mother of Jesus, but never uses her name. Does mention Joseph as a father of Jesus. Does mention Mary Magdalene. Does mention Lazarus.

John: Mentions a mother of Jesus, but never uses her name. Does mention Joseph as a father of Jesus. Does mention Mary Magdalene. Does mention Lazarus.

Matthew: Names Mary as the mother of Jesus. Names Joseph as the father of Jesus. Does mention Mary Magdalene. Does not mention Lazarus.

Mark: Names Mary as the mother of Jesus. Does not mention a biological father of Jesus. Does mention Mary Magdalene (but only at the very end and might be a later revision). Does not mention Lazarus.

So Marcion, the core of Luke, and John don't name the mother of Jesus. The birth narrative of Luke names Mary the mother of Jesus, as do Matthew and Mark.

It doesn't make sense that the name of Jesus' mother would be dropped. This makes me think that narratives in which Jesus' mother had no name were first. But, we find the name Mary assigned to Jesus' mother in Mark, which is presumably the first Gospel.

Of course, Matthias Klinghardt proposes that's Marcion's Gospel was first. But I find other reasons to reject this. I can't help but think that Mark 6:3 presents us with a significant problem. This is the only place in Mark that the mother of Jesus is called Mary. And the names of his brothers are also listed out.

It seems that the issue of these names is a point of favor of Klinghardt's proposal, but I just don't see how you get from Marcion's Gospel to Mark. Mark to Marcion is simple, but Marcion to Mark is not because of the literary complexities.

It could be that Mark 6:3 is a later interpolation, and that originally Mark 6:3 said simply: "Is this not the carpenter's son?" But I don't know of any other evidence to support that. something is not right here, but I can't put my finger on it.

Is there a case for Mark ending at Mark 15:39, with "And when the centurion, who was standing right in front of Him, saw that He died in this way, he said, 'Truly this man was the Son of God!'"?

It seems like a suitable ending point, but then again, it also seems that Mark needs a resurrection of Jesus since it was already predicted.

Still, the introduction of Mary Magdalene at 15:40 seems contrived and like a later revision to bring the ending in line with other narratives.

If that's the case then one can propose a version of Mark's Gospel in which the name Mary didn't exist at all, neither assigned to his mother nor anyone else. Now, a Mark without any Mary may certainly warrant revision by a later orthodox editor. Right now that's the best I can come up with.
Giuseppe
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by Giuseppe »

It is not a serious problem for Mark's priority the presence of the name 'Mary' differently from Marcion.
Numbers 12 has Miriam and Aaron who opposed Moses, so, since Mark had to find a name for the opposers of Jesus, he copied Miriam from Moses' story by making her not the Jesus's sister but only his mother.

In Marcion, the mother had to be unknown, since the reader knows that 'it was to attempt him that they talked about his mother and his brothers wanting to receive him'.

To say to Jesus (with intention to attempt) "Mary your mother wants to receive you" is different from saying: "your mother wants to receive you". In the first case, Jesus could answer: 'I don't know a Mary who is my mother' hence eluding the temptation but not confuting the belief at the origin of the temptation (the belief that Jesus was only a mere man). In the second case, he can answer: "Who is my mother? implicit: I have no mother", hence not only eluding the temptation, but also confuting the belief of his human origin.

Frankly, threats to Mark's priority are the "too much perfect" incipit with John the Baptist, the presence of Barabbas, the possibility for Peter to see the Risen one, surely not the name 'Mary'.
davidmartin
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by davidmartin »

Mary Magdalene was conflated with the "mother of Jesus", thus giving rise to the name of Mary as Jesus' mother.
Yep. That's the figure of 'the church' in the Shephard, the spiritual mother of the church. In this scenario she'd be the first pope

Paul is running up against this figure in his epistles.
"A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. In my judgment, she is happier if she stays as she is—and I think that I too have the Spirit of God" (Spirit of Christ in earlier MS). What an odd snarky comment at the end or am I foolish to read that into this?

In the late 1st century the early orthodox leaders (who were estranged from the original group via Paul or whoever) met an old lady. She could hardly tell them the truth but she didn't lie. She was his mother in the sense that she was the mother of the church, and they listened to her for a while. Tried to correct their misunderstandings.

But orthodoxy raged ahead and became set in it's ways. So too did the gnostics stray, don't you think they responded as violently as the orthodox did to them? So Mary became Sophia whose mistake led to orthodoxy and a false God. The Gnostic myth is partly the story of the church. But none of this could have been original.

"For those who were in the world had been prepared by the will of our sister Sophia—she who is a whore .. and she did not ask anything from the realm of all, nor from the greatness of the assembly, nor from the pleroma, when she previously came forth to prepare lodgings and places for the son of light and the fellow workers. She took materials from the elements below to build bodily dwellings from them. But having come into being in an empty glory, they ended in destruction in the dwellings in which they were" 2nd Trt. of the Great Seth
This describes a person not an aeon - Mary and the birth of the orthodox church as the gnostics saw it from their one sided vantage point. They describe her as whore because she engaged with material people when she should have stuck to the spiritual people they are saying.

But some gnostics thought Mary was unfairly represented in this myth and defended her
"Now he is called 'Saklas', that is, 'Samael', 'Yaltabaoth', he who had taken power; who had snatched it away from the innocent one (Sophia); who had earlier overpowered her who is the Light`s Epinoia who had descended, her from whom he had come forth from originally.
Now when the Epinoia of the Light realized that he (Yaltabaoth) had begged him (the Light) for another order, even though he was lower than she, she said, "Give me another order, so that you may become for me a dwelling place, lest I dwell in disorder forever." And the order of the entire house of glory was agreed upon her word. A blessing was brought for her and the higher order released it to her. And the great Demon began to produce aeons in the likeness of the real Aeons, except that he produced them out of his own power." Trimorphic Protennoia
Here Mary is innocent and the victim of injustice and in this telling receives the great assemblies consent for her work only to run up against an opponent who creates his own churches
rgprice
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by rgprice »

What we do know is that many Gnostics taught about a female figure, which often personified Wisdom. This figure was sometimes named Sophia. Also Apelles apparently consorted with a female prophetess.

I can't help but think that the accounts of Mary Magdalene are rooted in Gnostic teachings about Wisdom/Sophia.

Now, this may sound a little crazy, but consider this:

John 19:
25 Now beside the cross of Jesus stood His mother, His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 So when Jesus saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He *said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” 27 Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own household.

Consider this this comes from a story that originally went something like this:

Now beside the cross of Jesus stood Mary and Mary's sister (Martha). So when Jesus saw Mary and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to Mary, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own household.

So we know that the Valentinians taught something about how Sophia tried to give birth by herself in order to imitate the highest God, but only the Highest God was capable of creating life on his own because he was uncreated, whereas Sophia was an Aeon, who had come from God, her Father. (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050106.htm)

I won't pretend to be able to make sense of the reported teachings regarding how the world and Jesus were made according to Valentinian, and who can say if they are even recorded correctly. But anyway, I could envision some story about Jesus and Wisdom giving rise to narratives that morphed into Jesus giving Wisdom a child. This female Wisdom figure was called Mary at some point. Then, in some versions of these stories, Mary was replaced with the "mother of Jesus". This then conflated Mary and the mother of Jesus, so the mother of Jesus was given the name Mary, and the other Mary was distinguished by calling her "Mary Magdalene" in order to differentiate between the two.

So what I would imagine is a earliest layer of narratives in which Jesus had an unnamed mother and a Wisdom consort named Mary. Then stories in which "Mary" was replaced with "mother of Jesus" in some places. Then, stories in which the mother of Jesus was given the name "Mary". Then stories in which "Magdalene" was added to the original Mary in order to distinguish her from the mother of Jesus named Mary.
yakovzutolmai
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by yakovzutolmai »

Mary's mother was Anne, but only by tradition. Anne's story matches that of Elizabeth, so I'd assume a common tradition.

Elizabeth comes from Ĕlîšéḇa / Ĕlîšāḇa, meaning - ostensibly - "El" "Shava", "God is my oath". Doubtful. The Sabians have the word Sabi, meaning to baptize. The root meaning: to rise up. This is obviously the source of Elizabeth.

As for Anne, Islamic tradition identifies her husband as Imran (Amran). Amran is also important to the Dead Sea Scrolls community. Based on my work, I would identify Amran as a title meaning (vaguely), "Patriarch of the Egyptian Community". That is, House of Onias, Beit Honiyyo, Bethaniyeh, Bethany. Or, Boethus (Boethus seems to be the name they purposely chose for themselves in Egypt).

Anne and Elizabeth both are invoking the Old Testament's Hannah. Hannah's role, in addition to being mother of the prophet, is to have a prophetic or mystical role herself.

Altogether, there is little basis for historical identification here.

Maybe a very stretched identification of an Judeo-Egyptian background. Hannah's nazarite vow reminds of Helena of Adiabene, but that means nothing in and of itself.
yakovzutolmai
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by yakovzutolmai »

rgprice wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:50 am What we do know is that many Gnostics taught about a female figure, which often personified Wisdom. This figure was sometimes named Sophia. Also Apelles apparently consorted with a female prophetess.

...

So what I would imagine is a earliest layer of narratives in which Jesus had an unnamed mother and a Wisdom consort named Mary. Then stories in which "Mary" was replaced with "mother of Jesus" in some places. Then, stories in which the mother of Jesus was given the name "Mary". Then stories in which "Magdalene" was added to the original Mary in order to distinguish her from the mother of Jesus named Mary.
The virgin and whore are equivalent in some versions of the Goddess of the Orient. There's even a triplet form (both in Arabian and Slavic tradition). The virgin, the mother and the crone. I strongly suspect these are the "Three Marys".
davidmartin
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Re: The family of Jesus across the Gospels (origin of Mary as mother?)

Post by davidmartin »

So what I would imagine is a earliest layer of narratives in which Jesus had an unnamed mother and a Wisdom consort named Mary
Just such a narrative in the g. Philip
"As for the Wisdom who is called "the barren," she is the mother of the angels. And the companion of the Lord is Mary Magdalene"

"There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary"
A roundabout way of saying there was only one?

"Sophia suffered after her son ascended from her" and yet Sophia says " "Granted that I have renounced my consort." Valentinian exposition
How could he ascend if not from earth, leaving behind Mary but this was mythologised where the mother/consort thing isn't a problem

So yeah, i think your on the right track here, keep going dude
But I think Mary Magdalene was the source of the Sophia myth not the other way round. Try reading the Gnostic myths like that and they make more sense. They're accounts of church history but 'as above so below' - they saw the same pattern in the pleroma

If you really want to confirm this, grab a 6 pack of beer and trawl through The Tripartite Tractate - all of it! - tell me it's not describing the history of the church. That's how these myths work. It's quite obvious really once it clicks
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