Did St. Luke "interview" the Blessed Mother?

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I was watching one of the cartoons on EWTN (forgot the name) and in it, one of the parents said that Luke had Mary tell her memories of Christ and he wrote them down and this is how we have the stories of Christ’s youth.

I find this very interesting if true, but I had never heard this before and can’t find any information regarding this. I have read that Luke’s Gospel pays more attention to Mary than the others, but that’s it. The introduction to the Gospel in the NAB makes no mention of it either.

Just curious if anyone has ever heard of this before and can point me to some reading on the subject.
 
As Mary was so close to Our Lord, and was a living witness of so many important events in the life of Christ, especially his childhood, and lived among the early Church after His death, she was the source of a lot of the stories that came to be included in the Gospels. As for Luke’s in particular, or any reading on the subject, hopefully someone with more knowledge on the subject will help you out.

Pax et caritas,
Frank
 
The simple answer is Yes.

He had to, the Gospel describes in the first chapter how he interviewed eyewitnesses, if he can describe how Mary felt and the personal experiences she had at the time of the nativity, we have to conclude that he interviewed her.

In Christ,
Scylla
 
Even in Baptist Sunday School, I was taught that St. Luke got his information about the Nativity and infancy of the Christ from the Theotokos.
 
That particular question brings to mind the fact that the Blessed Mother spent more time with St. John at Ephesus. Thus, St. John would be more qualified to talk about the childhood life of Jesus. May be (guessing only), St.Luke got his information from St.John?
 
scylla said:
The simple answer is Yes.

He had to, the Gospel describes in the first chapter how he interviewed eyewitnesses, if he can describe how Mary felt and the personal experiences she had at the time of the nativity, we have to conclude that he interviewed her.

In Christ,
Scylla
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👍
 
rstegeman said:
I was watching one of the cartoons on EWTN (forgot the name) and in it, one of the parents said that Luke had Mary tell her memories of Christ and he wrote them down and this is how we have the stories of Christ’s youth.

I find this very interesting if true, but I had never heard this before and can’t find any information regarding this. I have read that Luke’s Gospel pays more attention to Mary than the others, but that’s it. The introduction to the Gospel in the NAB makes no mention of it either.

Just curious if anyone has ever heard of this before and can point me to some reading on the subject.
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Just curious or does it matter doctrinally? I don’t see why it matters one way or the other.
 
scylla said:
The simple answer is Yes.

He had to, the Gospel describes in the first chapter how he interviewed eyewitnesses, if he can describe how Mary felt and the personal experiences she had at the time of the nativity, we have to conclude that he interviewed her.

In Christ,
Scylla
Click to expand...
It has been noted elsewhere that Saint Luke focuses more on the women than the other Evangelists. It is my theory that men’s activities involve a lot of moving around while women are often stationary in their work - laundry, preparing meals, etc. Thus it was easier for Saint Luke to sit and chat with them.
 
rr1213 said:
Just curious or does it matter doctrinally? I don’t see why it matters one way or the other.
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Mostly I am just curious. Nothing wrong with a little more information and knowledge. When we are living in a time that so many are bent on disproving our faith, it’s nice to have as much information as possible. Helps me to be mentally and spiritually stronger.

I always understood that of the synoptic Gospels, Mark’s was written first and that the other two were based of his (or the source material for his). Granted Luke has other information in his that the others don’t, perhaps this is from the talks he had with the eyewitnesses.
 
rstegeman said:
I was watching one of the cartoons on EWTN (forgot the name) and in it, one of the parents said that Luke had Mary tell her memories of Christ and he wrote them down and this is how we have the stories of Christ’s youth.

I find this very interesting if true, but I had never heard this before and can’t find any information regarding this. I have read that Luke’s Gospel pays more attention to Mary than the others, but that’s it. The introduction to the Gospel in the NAB makes no mention of it either.

Just curious if anyone has ever heard of this before and can point me to some reading on the subject.
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Re: Did St. Luke “interview” the Blessed Mother?

Probably not. No way to tell definitively.
 
There is no evidence for or against the theory that Luke received information from Mary. We must remember that Mary could have told Luke some of the infancy stories or that she shared them with other people. The reason is this. By the time that Luke writes his Gospel, the infancy narratives were being transmitted by word of mouth. In other words, they were part of the Tradition of the first generation Christians. Luke could have used those sources just as well.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
Joe_Kelley said:
Note that he says he got his information from eyewitnesses. Mary would be the primary eyewitness
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Agreed. And it makes the most sense and it just knocks out those wacky ideas about the infancy narratives that the modernists put forward.

Soon Pope BXVI"s next volume will be available. It will include the infancy narratives.
 
Joe_Kelley said:
Note that he says he got his information from eyewitnesses. Mary would be the primary eyewitness
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That’s why I said that he could have used many sources. I’m not leaving Mary out. I’m just broadening the possibilities. There are other writings about the infancy of Jesus that did not make it into the bible, but are from other sources. They are very similar to those of Luke. The apocryphal gospels have similar writings. It is pretty obvious that the story of Jesus’ genesis was well known by the first generation Christians. Luke, being a man of science would have checked and double checked his information.

There is one interesting feature about Luke’s writing. He tries to preserve chronology, whereas the other synoptics are not too concerned with chronology. It shows that he wrote with the intent to evangelize, but also the intent to record history as accurately as he could, given the little information that he had. It is very likely that he would try to get the order of events as correct as possible and that would include many interviews, not only Mary, but also those who had received the oral tradition and maybe Jesus’ peers. These people would have known what was happening in their time, even if they had not known Jesus personally. I believe that he uses many sources, including Mary, if they ever met. We really don’t know. We just don’t have the information. No one seems to have thought of writing these things down at the time. I wish they had.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
Joe_Kelley said:
Note that he says he got his information from eyewitnesses. Mary would be the primary eyewitness
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Mary would of course be a primary eyewitness to the events associated with Jesus’ birth. Whether or not she would have been as reliable/fundamental witness to the events of his ministry is inconclusive. It strikes me as interesting…and perhaps significant…that Luke, while noting his reference to eyewitnesses, does not mention Mary specifically as one of the eyewitnesses he relied upon. So, what to make of that omission?

Anyway…what’s your point?
 
rstegeman said:
Mostly I am just curious. Nothing wrong with a little more information and knowledge. When we are living in a time that so many are bent on disproving our faith, it’s nice to have as much information as possible. Helps me to be mentally and spiritually stronger.

I always understood that of the synoptic Gospels, Mark’s was written first and that the other two were based of his (or the source material for his). Granted Luke has other information in his that the others don’t, perhaps this is from the talks he had with the eyewitnesses.
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Per Father Kenneth Baker, S.J., author of Inside the Bible, the book of Luke was written about A.D. 64, before the death of Saint Paul, and is attributed to Luke by Church tradition. Matthew’s Gospel was written between about A.D. 43 and 70, (70 would have been just after the Roman sacking of Jerusalem). Mark was written about A.D. 60, by John Mark, a cousin of Barnabas, who was a companion of Saint Paul as well as interpreter and translator for Saint Peter. Thus, it would likely contain information which only Simon Peter could provide. John’s Gospel is generally agreed as the last to be written, probably between about A.D. 70-90.

The point being that Apostolic tradition is relied upon by all Christians in the case of Luke and Acts, as well as Mark - not only for their attribution, but for the entire content of the three books. The writers (certainly Luke, and probably John Mark) were not eyewitnesses, and so had to rely on the oral tradition for the transmission of both Gospels as well as the events in Acts. Neither Luke nor Mark claim Divine revelation of content - the other option being the collection of that history from eyewitnesses, which naturally included Mary. She would have been well along in years then - but only if the books were produced at that time. The facts in them could easily have been collected much earlier and written for posterity only in Luke’s own later years.

The more the Catholic Church is attacked (specifically Church tradition), the more the bible, which is inseparable from the Church, is also attacked. The accusers stand on the very sand which is the foundation of their arguments.

p.s. Inside the Bible is an excellent resource, and provides information on each of the 73 books of the bible, with known information on writers, dates and places, as well as summaries and theological content. It is a practical book - a quick reference. I highly recommend it to all Christians.
 
diggerdomer said:
Mary would of course be a primary eyewitness to the events associated with Jesus’ birth. Whether or not she would have been as reliable/fundamental witness to the events of his ministry is inconclusive. It strikes me as interesting…and perhaps significant…that Luke, while noting his reference to eyewitnesses, does not mention Mary specifically as one of the eyewitnesses he relied upon. So, what to make of that omission?

Anyway…what’s your point?
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Of note is that Luke chose to omit the names of all of his sources. I see nothing remarkable in that.
 
po18guy said:
Per Father Kenneth Baker, S.J., author of Inside the Bible, the book of Luke was written about A.D. 64, before the death of Saint Paul, and is attributed to Luke by Church tradition. Matthew’s Gospel was written between about A.D. 43 and 70, (70 would have been just after the Roman sacking of Jerusalem). Mark was written about A.D. 60, by John Mark, a cousin of Barnabas, who was a companion of Saint Paul as well as interpreter and translator for Saint Peter. Thus, it would likely contain information which only Simon Peter could provide. John’s Gospel is generally agreed as the last to be written, probably between about A.D. 70-90.

The point being that Apostolic tradition is relied upon by all Christians in the case of Luke and Acts, as well as Mark - not only for their attribution, but for the entire content of the three books. The writers (certainly Luke, and probably John Mark) were not eyewitnesses, and so had to rely on the oral tradition for the transmission of both Gospels as well as the events in Acts. Neither Luke nor Mark claim Divine revelation of content - the other option being the collection of that history from eyewitnesses, which naturally included Mary. She would have been well along in years then - but only if the books were produced at that time. The facts in them could easily have been collected much earlier and written for posterity only in Luke’s own later years.

The more the Catholic Church is attacked (specifically Church tradition), the more the bible, which is inseparable from the Church, is also attacked. The accusers stand on the very sand which is the foundation of their arguments.

p.s. Inside the Bible is an excellent resource, and provides information on each of the 73 books of the bible, with known information on writers, dates and places, as well as summaries and theological content. It is a practical book - a quick reference. I highly recommend it to all Christians.
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Good research. I have not read this particular book. But that’s the same thing that we learned in the seminary in biblical history. Mary obviously must have contributed to the oral tradition. How much contact Luke had with her is unknown.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
po18guy said:
Of note is that Luke chose to omit the names of all of his sources. I see nothing remarkable in that.
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There is also some conflict between Luke’s names of the Roman leaders and those in Roman history. It appears that the names that he provides in the infancy narratives were not accurate. But it is unknown why the discrepancy. I had one professor that had a hypothesis that maybe the difference between the Roman calendar and the Jewish calendar threw off the years and Luke places the wrong emperor in the slot.

It would be like saying that the year 2000 on our calendar is the year 1980 on someone elses calendar. If you ask who was president in 1980 someone will answer Ronald Reagan and someone else would say George Bush. Both are right, because they are operating out of different calendars and the person asking the question is does not know what point of reference the speaker is using.

That was just his hypothesis. I found it interesting.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
JReducation said:
There is also some conflict between Luke’s names of the Roman leaders and those in Roman history. It appears that the names that he provides in the infancy narratives were not accurate. But it is unknown why the discrepancy. I had one professor that had a hypothesis that maybe the difference between the Roman calendar and the Jewish calendar threw off the years and Luke places the wrong emperor in the slot.

It would be like saying that the year 2000 on our calendar is the year 1980 on someone elses calendar. If you ask who was president in 1980 someone will answer Ronald Reagan and someone else would say George Bush. Both are right, because they are operating out of different calendars and the person asking the question is does not know what point of reference the speaker is using.

That was just his hypothesis. I found it interesting.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
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Most certainly, if the Apostles had known that the Lord would not return in their lifetime, a lot more would have been contemporaneously written for posterity. It could have prevented innumerable subsequent disputes. Let’s take that up with them one day…
 
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