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White_Peony
Guest
…at the Annunciation do you think?
I suppose like 16-17
I suppose like 16-17
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Bezant
Guest
In truth we don’t know, but considering the life expectancy was very short in those days, girls could expect to be married with children by age 17. I think she was about 12-14, but that’s my two cents.
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Wisely
Guest
Probably 14.
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Jeanne_S
Guest
I have always heard that Mary was approximately 14.This leads to another question re St.Joseph.How old was he? He has. always been depicted as being middle age.
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grasscutter
Guest
I believe he was and a widower.I have always heard that Mary was approximately 14.This leads to another question re St.Joseph.How old was he? He has. always been depicted as being middle age.
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Jeanne_S
Guest
Thanks!
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Usagi
Guest
The older tradition (and still the leading one in the East) is that Joseph was an older man who had already been married and widowed once. (The “brothers of the Lord” mentioned in Scripture are, under this explanation, held to be Joseph’s kids with his first wife, all older than Jesus.) That tends to go along with the explanation that Mary was a sworn virgin and that Joseph married her to serve as a protector, with no intention that they would be husband and wife in the usual sense even before Jesus was conceived. We have this in written form from the early 2nd century, in the Protevangelium of James. Being later than the Gospels and not inspired, there’s no guarantee that work reports the truth, of course, but it does show that this take on the story is at least that old.
It has become more popular in the West (especially among Protestants, who have no particular reason to assume ongoing virginity for Mary or anything unusual about the marriage after Jesus’ birth) to picture Joseph as being only a few years older than Mary, old enough to provide for her and her Child/their children. Under this explanation Jesus’ “brothers and sisters” are either later children of Mary and Joseph (to Protestants) or slightly more distant relatives, such as the cousins produced by Mary’s sister who is mentioned as having been at the Cross and possibly as being the mother of a couple men with the same names as some of the brothers (to Catholics).
Usagi
It has become more popular in the West (especially among Protestants, who have no particular reason to assume ongoing virginity for Mary or anything unusual about the marriage after Jesus’ birth) to picture Joseph as being only a few years older than Mary, old enough to provide for her and her Child/their children. Under this explanation Jesus’ “brothers and sisters” are either later children of Mary and Joseph (to Protestants) or slightly more distant relatives, such as the cousins produced by Mary’s sister who is mentioned as having been at the Cross and possibly as being the mother of a couple men with the same names as some of the brothers (to Catholics).
Usagi
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grasscutter
Guest
I greatly admire and am in awe of the trust and maturity that Our Blessed Mother displayed, in her acceptance of what was being asked of her. I remember the way I was between 12-14 yrs…
What a wonderful example she is for us all!
What a wonderful example she is for us all!
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Steady_Eddy
Guest
Hello everyone below is an extract from the Mystical City of God. I had a condensed version of this on tape some years ago, and just this evening found it online again.
If you want to read the complete story Google (Sacredheart.com)
There’s also a video explaining The Mystical City of God.
The Mystical City of God, The Divine History and Life of The Virgin Mother of God
**The whole of this holy life of Mary is divided, for greater perspicuity, into three parts. The first treats of all that pertains to the fifteen years of her life, from the moment of her most pure Conception until the moment when in her virginal womb the eternal Word assumed flesh, including all that the Most High performed for Mary during these years.**The second part embraces the mystery of the Incarnation, the whole life of Christ our Lord, his Passion and Death and his Ascension into heaven, thus describing the life of our Queen in union with that of her Divine Son and all that She did while living with Him. The third part contains the life of the Mother of grace during the time She lived alone, deprived of the companionship of Christ our Redeemer, until the happy hour of her transition, assumption and crowning as the Empress of heaven, where She is to live eternally as the Daughter of the Father, the Mother of the Son and the Spouse of the Holy Ghost. These three parts I subdivided into eight books, in order that they may be more convenient for use and always remain the subject of my thoughts, the spur of my will and my meditation day and night.
2 Cor 13:13
Eddy Barry
If you want to read the complete story Google (Sacredheart.com)
There’s also a video explaining The Mystical City of God.
The Mystical City of God, The Divine History and Life of The Virgin Mother of God
**The whole of this holy life of Mary is divided, for greater perspicuity, into three parts. The first treats of all that pertains to the fifteen years of her life, from the moment of her most pure Conception until the moment when in her virginal womb the eternal Word assumed flesh, including all that the Most High performed for Mary during these years.**The second part embraces the mystery of the Incarnation, the whole life of Christ our Lord, his Passion and Death and his Ascension into heaven, thus describing the life of our Queen in union with that of her Divine Son and all that She did while living with Him. The third part contains the life of the Mother of grace during the time She lived alone, deprived of the companionship of Christ our Redeemer, until the happy hour of her transition, assumption and crowning as the Empress of heaven, where She is to live eternally as the Daughter of the Father, the Mother of the Son and the Spouse of the Holy Ghost. These three parts I subdivided into eight books, in order that they may be more convenient for use and always remain the subject of my thoughts, the spur of my will and my meditation day and night.
2 Cor 13:13
Eddy Barry
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Evan
Guest
Given that adults tended to live to be 60-70 years old, she certainly may have been older.
The idea of a short life expectancy comes from the high rate of child mortality. If you lived beyond your 5th year, you could expect a long life.
We have no information of anyone who knew her. It is all speculation based on non-cononical books (in some cases) or trying to find explanations for some of the things found in the new testament (like brothers of the Lord).
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thistle
Guest
We don’t know that. The document saying that is the Protoevangelium of James written around the middle of the second century or later and this is not accepted by the Church as an inspired writing.
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Bezant
Guest
I don’t dispute that she might have been older, or that people did reach age 60 or 70 in those times, but I wouldn’t say that was a tendency. You also have to take into consideration who was probably living to age 60 and 70. If you were aristocratic, or if you did what would be our equivalent of professional work (e.g., scribe, tax collector), then as now you are more likely to reach that age. If you were a tekton (usually we call it carpenter, but it could have meant much less skilled/specialised work) like Joseph, then I wouldn’t expect it likely that people lived as long. Further, women probably had a lower average life expectancy than men because of higher maternal mortality rates.
True that.
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grasscutter
Guest
I understand, I was merely saying what I believe… peace!
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patrick457
Guest
To supplement this comment, I quote from Peter Bolt’s Jesus’ Defeat of Death: Persuading Mark’s Early Readers (pp. 27-29). I’ve omitted the lengthy footnotes which accompany this passage in the original.
First-century people lived perpetually under ‘the shadow of death’. Estimating their average life expectancy is fraught with problems: no study of mortality survives from that period, if one ever existed; acquiring accurate statistics is impossible, given that so much of what would be relevant evidence has not survived; and the evaluation of the evidence that has survived is not a simple matter. Estimates have depended heavily on the evidence gleaned from extant tombstones, but this evidence cannot be relied upon to give a full and accurate picture. Nevertheless, a working figure emerges from the discussion of the surviving tombstones that sufficiently illustrates the point to be made here. None of those discussing the inscriptional evidence puts the figure higher than 30 years of age, some have worked with a figure as low as 20. Wiedemann, for example, while stressing that figures must remain ‘highly approximate’, states that people in the first-century Roman world probably had an average life expectancy of around 20-25 years.
Even those who are cautious about estimates based on tombstones alone come up with the same kind of figure. Despite applying a more rigorous method which utilized UN model life tables, and concluding that ‘ancient inscriptions cannot be used as the basis for calculations of mortality, absolutely or even relatively’, Hopkins still agrees that ‘life expectancy at birth was also probably under 30.’
A low average life expectancy does not mean that some did not live into old age, for indeed the evidence clearly shows that there were those who did. In fact, their survival through the early years indicates a stronger constitution that may have well taken them through to a fairly grand old age. Instead, a low average life expectancy correlates with a high infant mortality. Infant mortality is itself difficult to estimate, even from the tombstones, where infant deaths are underrepresented. Burn and Hopkins suggest an infant mortality of above 200 per thousand, and Durand assumes a 30 or 40 per cent death rate in the first year of life. According to Wiedemann, only 50 percent of children reached their tenth birthday and only 40 per cent of the population reached 20-25. (For comparison, see tables 1-4).
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Evan
Guest
If we look to an estmate made in OT times we see Ps 90:10
The length of our days is seventy years–or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
The length of our days is seventy years–or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
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Bezant
Guest
What does a prayer about realising God’s purpose and living it, have to do with precise statistics for life expectancy in ancient times?
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Evan
Guest
I assume you read my quote.What does a prayer about realising God’s purpose and living it, have to do with precise statistics for life expectancy in ancient times?
It said our years (lifespan) is 70 years, 80 for those who are strong. SO I would look at that psalm as saying that it is not uncommon for people to live in that time to 70 years, 80 for those who are strong.
If most adults died at 30 or younger, the psalm would make no sense. But if tribal elders are often 70+ years old, there you go, a life expectancy from biblical times.
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Bezant
Guest
With all due respect, but that doesn’t make any sense.
The psalm about realising God’s power and eternalness, in contrast to mankind’s fleeting existence and impact, and turning towards God once you make that realisation:
“3 Thou turnest man to contrition; and sayest: ‘Return, ye children of men.’ For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.”
When you take the entire psalm’s meaning into account, and even when you look at the full verse, verse 10 isn’t saying that it was common for people in its age to age 70-80. The point of the verse is to reinforce the idea that even the greatest of us, even those of us blessed with longevity, have to realise that our greatness means nothing to God’s greatness: “…yet is their pride but travail and vanity; for it is speedily gone, and we fly away.”
But it doesn’t make a difference even if Psalm 90:10 is saying it was common for people to live up to age 70, or indeed, if such a thing was true. This is not how we make an accurate estimate of average life expectancy today–we have records, and we take enough of them to represent a given population, taking into account that over time life expectancy might change.
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patrick457
Guest
I would like to add my two cents. Even if the quote DOES prove that ancient Israelites lived up to 70-80 years, it still doesn’t tell us anything as to how the situation was in Roman Judaea and the Galilee by the 1st century AD. Psalm 90 is ascribed to Moses by the text, but even if we take the identification as apocryphal and fix its actual compostion slightly later, the point still stands.
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Bezant
Guest
Good call, I wanted to make this point as well.
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