How old was Mary

[Evan]

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.

That’s true, but I think it reflects on the attitude that if there is a 40 year life expectancy at birth, that people tend to die around 40.

My family settled in the west 150 years ago. Looking at the graveyard you see 5 in 6 people died before reaching their 1st birthday. One family had 24 children, most died before reaching their 5th birthday. I estimated the life expectancy to be around say 60-65. Of the 34 who had children only 7 died before 60 and 7 lived beyond 90 (2 of those exceeded 100 years of age: 101 and 108). The median life span of those who had children is 78 (but they are strong).

So given a life span of 40 years, does not imply that Mary, or most women in Roman times, must give birth at a very young age. She could have waited til 16, or 18, or even possibly 19

 

[bmonk]

We don’t really know, but a teen would not have been out of the normal range for marriage in those days.

However, according to the ages of the actors in “The Passion of the Christ”, one might think that Mary was only about 5-10 years older than Jesus.