Mary and Anna of Penuel

[Randy_Carson]

In chapter 2, Luke tells us this:

36 There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38 Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

This is from the account of Jesus’ presentation in the temple, and the event it records, the meeting with Anna, would have occurred 50 years earlier. Anna would have been long dead at the time that Luke wrote. And Jesus would have been too young to have remembered this story at all. Joseph, Jesus’ adoptive father was dead. Who does that leave to tell the tale and why?

Only a mother would remember a moment like this from her son’s presentation. And how did Mary know all the details of Anna’s life? She has no other mention in the gospels, and even though she is a “prophetess” she gives no prophecy here. Only Simeon does. So, why does this woman appear at all in Luke?

It is my belief that Mary consecrated herself to God from a very early age. She took a vow of perpetual virginity, and she lived in the Temple until she reached the age of menstruation. Then, because this made her ceremonially unclean, it became necessary for her to be married to someone who would honor her vow; Joseph was a widower chosen for this purpose. This is why he disappears from the gospels after Jesus is found in the Temple at age twelve.

Now, if Mary was consecrated to God, did she live in the Temple? And if she did, who cared for this young girl all those years? Could it have been Anna, herself a widow who “never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying”? I think so.

Sure, Jesus could have learned of this from His mom and later told it to the disciples, but is this the most likely source of the material? Jesus had other things on his mind besides telling stories about his childhood to the apostles.

I think Mary lived with Anna, a woman whom she undoubtedly loved like a mother, for many years in the Temple, and she mentioned Anna to Luke in the course of her recounting of the earliest events of Jesus’ life to him during the course of his investigations.

 

[Gorgias]

This is from the account of Jesus’ presentation in the temple, and the event it records, the meeting with Anna, would have occurred 50 years earlier. Anna would have been long dead at the time that Luke wrote. And Jesus would have been too young to have remembered this story at all. Joseph, Jesus’ adoptive father was dead. Who does that leave to tell the tale and why?

Could have been Mary. Could have been someone who had heard the story from Mary. Could have been someone who had heard it from Anna. (Why would we presume that Anna wouldn’t have told this story herself to anyone who would listen?)

 

[Randy_Carson]

Could have been Mary. Could have been someone who had heard the story from Mary. Could have been someone who had heard it from Anna. (Why would we presume that Anna wouldn’t have told this story herself to anyone who would listen?)

Anna was 84 at the time she met Jesus in the Temple. He wasn’t anybody yet. Not publicly.

Did she live to 96 and see Him teaching in the Temple? He still had no public persona.

So, anyone she told this story would have had to wait 20-30 years before He emerged from obscurity, and then remember it.

It’s plausible, but is it more likely than the idea that Mary remembered the event and recounted it to Luke when he asked her about the Annunciation, the flight to Egypt, etc?

 

[Mintaka]

Anna and Simeon were both prophets, at a time when prophecy had disappeared from Israel (according to Scripture), and thus their very existence was a sign that God had relented in punishing Israel, and the Messiah was coming.

They lived at the Temple, which everybody Jewish was supposed to visit at least once a year. They would have been well-known characters, especially after their public proclamation of the Messiah’s birth; and everybody in the land would have been interested in their business. They would also have been in political danger, which was part of why they lived in the Temple, probably.

However, it is of course true that there is an old story that Mary had lived at the Temple, and Mary would have known her even better, in that case.

 

[patrick457]

Anna and Simeon were both prophets, at a time when prophecy had disappeared from Israel (according to Scripture), and thus their very existence was a sign that God had relented in punishing Israel, and the Messiah was coming.

They lived at the Temple, which everybody Jewish was supposed to visit at least once a year. They would have been well-known characters, especially after their public proclamation of the Messiah’s birth; and everybody in the land would have been interested in their business. They would also have been in political danger, which was part of why they lived in the Temple, probably.

However, it is of course true that there is an old story that Mary had lived at the Temple, and Mary would have known her even better, in that case.

There were still people from time to time in the final centuries before Christ who seemed to have a sort of prophetic gift or at least claimed to. Josephus mentions some of them; for example Manaemos/Menachem the Essene who foretold to a young Herod the Great that he would be king. (In fact, he mentions that there were Essenes who claim to have the gift of foretelling the future, and names a few such people - for example Judas the Essene or Simon the Essene. He also claimed that the Hasmonean king and high priest John Hyrcanus had the gift - in fact, John Hyrcanus is the only Second Temple-period individual in Josephus’ writings to be mentioned as having the gift of propheteia.)

 

[patrick457]

This is just my personal opinion.

(1) I personally don’t really subscribe to the Protoevangelium of James’ picture of Mary as literally living in the Temple as a sort of consecrated virgin. What we do have historical evidence for is a group of girls and young women who had a job weaving textiles for the Temple (say the Temple curtain) and were under its payroll. They were part of the Temple’s maintenance staff (which included the bakers, incense makers, etc.), but they did not live in the Temple Mount itself (they only went there when they worked), nor are they apparently some kind of cloistered proto-nuns: they went to Jerusalem when they were needed, did their job, was paid from the Temple coffers; otherwise they lived with their families across the land. (It’s kind of like many Temple priests, who only went to Jerusalem when they were on duty.)

We don’t know for sure, but it’s not completely impossible that Mary might have been one of these young girls (which could explain Anna). I think historically this is a more likely possibility.

(2) I don’t think that there’s only two options here: either it’s Mary or not. I mean, Mary is not the only family member Jesus had. He also had ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ (whether cousins or step-siblings or whatever) and uncles - Clopas is one - and aunts, doubtless. Who’s to say that it couldn’t have been some other member of the family - some uncle, aunt or cousin / ‘sibling’ or their offspring - that passed down this detail to Luke. Maybe he or she did hear it from Mary, who knows?

We often picture Jesus, Mary and Joseph living by themselves in Nazareth - just the three of them. I mean, that’s how it’s depicted in holy cards, so it must be right. But the concept of ‘family’ in ancient societies was not a nuclear one, it was an extended one. It wasn’t odd for different members of the extended family to live near each other, heck even in the same house.

In fact, joint tenancy was one solution to the dilemma of land inheritance. As per Jewish inheritance laws, the eldest son inherited the family home and a double share of the land, while the rest was divided among the other sons. (Deuteronomy 21:15-17) Dividing the property was fine in theory, but as you go further down the family line, the land that will be inherited will get smaller and smaller until the individual plots become too tiny to support even one person.

In those cases, the younger siblings had no other choice but to either (1) sell their land for cash and consider other options: work and live someplace else, rent, beg, steal, or (2) continue to live together and keep a smallholding undivided as the joint property of the ‘father’s house’, rather than divide it. (cf. Psalm 133:1 “How good and pleasant it is that brothers dwell together in unity” - the term “dwell together” there is actually the legal term for joint tenancy.)

The two grandsons of Jude, one of Jesus’ ‘brothers’, Zoker/Zechariah and James, were actually said to have practiced joint tenancy: they were farmers who jointly owned thirty-nine plethra (depending on how you interpret plethra, it could either be something as small as nine to ten acres or at the maximum, around twenty-five acres) of land with which they supported themselves.

We know from Julius Africanus that the Desposynoi (“the Lord’s people;” the descendants of Jesus’ ‘brothers’) in the late 2nd century were based in Jesus’ home village of Nazareth/Nazara and another village named Cochaba. (They also had a base in Jerusalem: cf. James the Just.) So apparently, the family still had a foothold in the Galilee even after Jesus.

 

[patrick457]

(2) I don’t think that there’s only two options here: either it’s Mary or not. I mean, Mary is not the only family member Jesus had. He also had ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ (whether cousins or step-siblings or whatever) and uncles - Clopas is one - and aunts, doubtless. Who’s to say that it couldn’t have been some other member of the family - some uncle, aunt or cousin / ‘sibling’ or their offspring - that passed down this detail to Luke. Maybe he or she did hear it from Mary, who knows?

Aside from Mary and Joseph, Jesus also had ‘brothers’ like James, Joses (Joseph), Jude (Judas), Simon, some unnamed ‘sisters’, uncles and aunts like Clopas and the other Mary (maybe also Salome), and the kids and grandkids of these ‘siblings’. Many members of Jesus’ family went on to become leading figures in early Jewish Christianity. It could have been any one of these people who relayed the information to Luke, not necessarily Mary herself (supposing that she was still alive when Luke was composing his gospel).

It’s true that Luke’s infancy narratives are somewhat told from Mary’s perspective, but that in itself is not an automatic guarantee that he did literally hear the story out of Mary’s mouth. It could be that Luke was just a very good storyteller and used Mary as a literary voice. (In fact, some people have suggested something along these lines: they point out that while the Lukan infancy narrative looks like a feminine story - female characters like Mary, Elizabeth, and Anna take the lead - upon closer inspection it seems to be actually drawn from a male perspective.)

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

Aside from Mary and Joseph, Jesus also had ‘brothers’ like James, Joses (Joseph), Jude (Judas), Simon, some unnamed ‘sisters’, uncles and aunts like Clopas and the other Mary (maybe also Salome), and the kids and grandkids of these ‘siblings’. Many members of Jesus’ family went on to become leading figures in early Jewish Christianity. It could have been any one of these people who relayed the information to Luke, not necessarily Mary herself (supposing that she was still alive when Luke was composing his gospel).

It’s true that Luke’s infancy narratives are somewhat told from Mary’s perspective, but that in itself is not an automatic guarantee that he did literally hear the story out of Mary’s mouth. It could be that Luke was just a very good storyteller and used Mary as a literary voice. (In fact, some people have suggested something along these lines: they point out that while the Lukan infancy narrative looks like a feminine story - female characters like Mary, Elizabeth, and Anna take the lead - upon closer inspection it seems to be actually drawn from a male perspective.)

You forgot Zebedee.

 

[Gorgias]

Anna was 84 at the time she met Jesus in the Temple. He wasn’t anybody yet. Not publicly.

Did she live to 96 and see Him teaching in the Temple? He still had no public persona.

So, anyone she told this story would have had to wait 20-30 years before He emerged from obscurity, and then remember it.

“Hey, Bob… remember that really holy lady who always hung out at the temple, back in the day? Remember that time we were there, and she was going absolutely apoplectic about that family who had brought their baby? The one she claimed was the Messiah? Yeah… doesn’t that look like that mother – yeah, the one over there with that guy they’re calling the ‘Son of Man’?”

“Hey, Sally… remember Anna from the temple? She used to tell the story of the ‘Messiah’ who came to the temple and about whom she prophecied? Yeah… do you remember what she said the names of his parents were? ‘Mary’ and ‘Joseph’, eh? Aren’t those the names of the parents of this Jesus guy?”

It’s plausible, but is it more likely than the idea that Mary remembered the event and recounted it to Luke when he asked her about the Annunciation, the flight to Egypt, etc?

Probably. But, that doesn’t lead us to the conclusion that “Mary lived with Anna”, I don’t think…

 

[patrick457]

They lived at the Temple, which everybody Jewish was supposed to visit at least once a year. They would have been well-known characters, especially after their public proclamation of the Messiah’s birth; and everybody in the land would have been interested in their business. They would also have been in political danger, which was part of why they lived in the Temple, probably.

I think you don’t even have to infer from the statement that Anna “did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day” that she literally lived in the Temple Mount and was there 24/7. It could be just like saying, “that old lady’s at church all the time.” Which doesn’t necessarily mean that the old lady sleeps on the pews, just that she’s always to be seen at church - even if she doesn’t really live there.