Mary of Nazareth
- James Collazo
- Jan 18, 2020
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 19
Introduction
Mary of Nazareth (Hebrew: Miryam ha-Notzrit / Greek: Maria hē Nazо̄rēnē) was born around 18 BC in the Roman district of Galilee. Mary is traditionally understood to have descended from the royal house of David. God chose Mary to be the mother of the promised Messiah, Jesus.
Mary may have had a relative named Mary of Clopas (John 19:25). The only relative we know by name is her cousin Elizabeth, who gave birth to John the Baptist. Elizabeth was married to Zechariah, a priest from the Abijah division, and she came from the priestly line of Aaron and Levi (Luke 1:5, 36). This family connection suggests that Mary may also have descended from Israel's old religious leaders. Some scholars associate Luke's genealogy with Mary, tracing Jesus' ancestry through David's son Nathan (Luke 3:31), whereas Matthew traces Joseph's legal ancestry through Solomon (Matt. 1:6–7).
When Mary visited Elizabeth in the Judean hill country near Hebron, she traveled about 100 miles (161 kilometers) south from Nazareth (Luke 1:39–40). Hebron had been a city of priests since the time of Joshua, who entered the Promised Land and helped establish the kingdom of Israel (Josh. 11:21; 21:11, 13). Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months before returning home to Galilee.
Consenting with God
Too often, we assume that Mary obeyed God without hesitation. The text, however, shows otherwise. Luke explains that she felt troubled when the angel Gabriel greeted her, saying, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you" (Luke 1:28). Some commentators today suggest that people in ancient times were more superstitious, or more religious, than we are today. Yet doubt and skepticism have always been fundamental aspects of human consciousness. Faith, by contrast, comes as a gift from God (Eph. 2:8). The New International Version translates Luke 1:29 as "She was greatly troubled," reflecting the original Greek word dietarachthē (G1298), which conveys extreme agitation.
Mary carefully considered Gabriel's message, as the Greek verb dialogizomai (G1260) suggests, meaning she "wondered what kind of greeting this might be" (Luke 1:29). When Gabriel reassured her, saying, "Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus" (Luke 1:30–31), Mary continued to question him. She understood that virgins could not naturally give birth—a challenge to the laws of nature (Luke 1:34). She could not have imagined that this debate over her virginity and God's plan would echo through generations, eventually influencing the divide between Jews and Christian Gentiles. Gabriel answered her: "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. . . . For no word from God will ever fail" (Luke 1:35–37). In other words, God would act beyond the ordinary laws of nature to enable Mary to conceive without sexual intercourse. To confirm this extraordinary plan, God also caused her elderly cousin Elizabeth to conceive a child well beyond the normal age of childbearing (Luke 1:36).
Consent plays a central role in intimate relationships today. Many contemporary readers of the New Testament assume that Mary had no choice in giving birth to Jesus. In reality, God always respects human freedom (see "God's Sovereignty & Human Freedom"). As he says, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock" (Rev. 3:20), he approaches us gently rather than forcing his will on us. God revealed his will to Mary in a spirit of respect and dignity, and her response demonstrates her consent: "I am the Lord's servant. May your word to me be fulfilled" (Luke 1:38). In response, Mary praised God through a hymn of devotion, which we now call the Magnificat, derived from the Latin translation of its opening words:
My soul glorifies the Lord [Magnificat anima mea Dominum], and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on, all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors (Luke 1:46–55).
Mary: Virgin or Young Woman?
The virgin birth of Jesus has long been a point of controversy between Jews and Christians. This debate is not recent. In AD 90, Judea's leading rabbis convened in the coastal city of Jamnia (Hebrew: Yavneh, H2996) to discuss which biblical texts held authority for the Jewish people. After the destruction of the temple in AD 70, Jewish religious life shifted from the temple to the synagogue and from the priesthood to the rabbinical system. Discussions associated with Jamnia formed part of the broader movement toward emphasizing the Hebrew text within emerging Rabbinic Judaism.
According to tradition, around 200 BC, Jewish scholars in Alexandria translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, producing the Septuagint—the version widely used throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Christians continued using the Septuagint, whose rendering of Isaiah 7:14 became an important point in debates over Jesus' birth.
The Septuagint renders the Hebrew almah (H5959) with the Greek parthenos (G3933). Christian interpreters have traditionally argued that the Septuagint translators understood almah to imply virginity and therefore rendered it with the Greek word parthenos. Matthew follows this rendering in his application of Isaiah's prophecy to Jesus' birth (Matt. 1:21–23). By interpreting Scripture carefully in this way, the translators and Matthew show that the doctrine of the virgin birth rests on historical and linguistic evidence, linking Jewish prophecy directly to Christ's arrival in history.
Mary the God-Bearer
Nearly everything we know about the historical Mary comes from the New Testament. After Jesus' birth, she had other children—James, Joseph, Simon, Jude, and daughters whose names are not recorded (Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3; 15:47; 16:1; Gal. 1:19). Matthew confirms that she and Joseph continued to live as husband and wife after Jesus' nativity (Matt. 1:25). Mary appears in Jesus' life at key moments and, at times, seems not to have fully understood his ministry. At the wedding in Cana, however, she demonstrates understanding of his mission, instructing the servants to follow his directions (John 2:3–5). Despite this insight, she still endured a mother's grief at the crucifixion. More importantly, she came to believe fully in Jesus as her firstborn son and the only-begotten Son of God. Luke records that the apostles "were all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers" in an upper room (Acts 1:14).
All generations have indeed called Mary blessed. While some of this honor has drifted into exaggeration and false teaching, Christians can rightly admire her servant heart toward God, which persisted throughout Jesus' life and beyond. Roman Catholic tradition suggests that the Lord assumed Mary into heaven after her death, and others have called her the "Queen of Heaven," a title that many Protestant interpreters reject because of its association with the pagan "queen of heaven" condemned in Jeremiah (7:18; 44:17–25). In reality, Mary experienced death, as do all people. Mary remained with the believers in Jerusalem, where one of her other sons, James, later emerged as the leader of the Jerusalem church. Christians may rightly describe Mary as the "God-bearer" (Greek: Theotokos, G2316 / G5110), affirming that the one she bore was fully God and fully man (see "Definition of Chalcedon").
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Pietersma, Albert, and Benjamin G. Wright, eds. A New English Translation of the Septuagint. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Commentaries
Green, Joel B. The Gospel of Luke. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.
Monographs
Athans, Mary Christine. In Quest of the Jewish Mary: The Mother of Jesus in History, Theology, and Spirituality. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2013.
Brown, Raymond E. The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Updated ed. New York: Doubleday, 1993.
McKnight, Scot. The Real Mary: Why Protestant Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus. Brewster, MA: Paraclete, 2016.
Perry, Tim. Mary for Evangelicals: Toward an Understanding of the Mother of Our Lord. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006.
Shenton, Andrew. Arvo Pärt's Resonant Texts: Choral and Organ Music 1956–2015. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Reference Works
Fredericksen, Linwood et al. "Biblical Literature."↗ Encyclopedia Britannica. November 3, 2025.
Gottheil, Richard, and M. Seligsohn. "Jabneh or Jamnia."↗ Jewish Encyclopedia. 1906.
Online Resources
Bard, Mitchell G, ed. "Jabneh."↗ Jewish Virtual Library.
Shirokov, Peter, and Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg. "Council of Jamnia and Old Testament Canon."↗ Israel Institute of Biblical Studies (blog). March 8, 2014.
