Birth Of Christ Research Articles

Migration and Identity: A Rereading of the Child in Matthew 2:13-23

Abstract Naming is a personal and powerful action, often tied to the identity of an individual. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus’ name is chosen with great care, only to be almost immediately cast aside in favor of the generic form “the child” throughout his childhood in exile. This article reads Matthew 2:13-23 through a childist lens, combining migration theory with attention to the obfuscation of the child Jesus’ identity to elucidate both the experiences represented in the Gospel account, as well as its enduring significance for generations of migrant communities living into their identities today. Seeking to read Matthew 2 together with refugee communities today, this reading highlights the limits of constructed identities such as borders, nation states, and even names, while tracing the child Jesus’ development in the infancy narrative of Matthew.

Nomina anatomica-unde venient et quo vaditis?

As the title indicates, this article deals with the origins of anatomic terminology and its development up to the present day. The first attempt to name anatomical structures in animals and humans date back to Alkmaion, i.e. to the fifth century BC. Further work has been done at the same time by the Hippocratics and about 100years later by Aristotle. As the Alexandrians Erasistratos and Herophilos first in history dissected human bodies, they expanded the anatomical terms. Until Celsus (around Christ's birth) and even later on, anatomical terminology was almost exclusively based on the Greek language. Thus, Celsus and not-as frequently done-Galenos has to be called the father of Latin-based anatomical terminology. Due to several translations including Arabic, first periods of proverbial Bable resulted. Return to systematic order was achieved finally by Andreas Vesal (1514/15-1564) and Caspar Bauhin (1560-1624). But again due to translations into several national languages, the uniformity of the anatomical nomenclature was undermined. Thus, by the end of the nineteenth century, in 1895 the newly founded Anatomische Gesellschaft created a uniform terminology, the Basle Nomina Anatomica (BNA). Although it has been revised several times, it is still the very basic of human anatomical terminology. Recently, an attempt was made to replace it by English translations of the original Latin (and also still Greek) terms to mainly get machine-readable denominations. As this will result again in non-uniformity of terminology, the Anatomische Gesellschaft proposes a version of the latest, generally accepted terminology, based on the Latin terms but incorporating recent developments.

JINGLE BELLS IN THE HISTORICAL WAYS OF CAROL SONGS

Carols traditionally held a central place in the celebration of the Christmas season. It is believed that the angels sang the first carol on the day of Jesus' birth on the first Christmas night. But Carols before the birth of Jesus come to our attention as we travel through history. The beginning of the carol is detailed in history as it was part of the Winter Solstice celebration. There was also a time when carols were written and sung for all four seasons. May carols, Harvest carols etc. were celebrated. Thus in the beginning, Christmas carols were more secular rather than sacred and religious. The secularization didn’t destroy the significance of this carols, it only took the celebration back to its roots and reminded us of the social significance of early secular carols. However, it is a fact that the tradition of singing carols at Christmas only continued later. Many carols today have little to do with Christmas. Are they good signs that carols are becoming secular like in the early days? In the world of music, many songs have been composed about Sacrifice, Love and Peace. How Christmas carols have lasted so long, remaining in people’s minds for centuries and millennia? A study in search of the roots of the Christmas Carols is intended here. An attempt has also been made to associate the immortal Christmas Carols to the centuries in which they were born.

Rasowa interpretacja dziejów Alfreda Rosenberga

One of principal aims of Alfred Rosenberg’s theory of political myth was the creation of a racial interpretation of History. It was a very important issue for National Socialism, as the movement presented itself as leading force opposing Marxism and Leninism. The great strength of communist propaganda lies in its overarching teleological vision of the world, especially Marx’s singular interpretation of the aim of history as great process of human emancipation from class society to communism, which is seen as the end point of history. It was Rosenberg’s understanding that National Socialism, as the great adversary of Marxism, must produce an alternative vision of the sense and goals of history. Rosenberg himself authored one such alternative vision. His meaning of history is a great discourse of the chronology of races struggles. It’s a perpetual war between the Nordic and Semitic races, which encompassed the fabled fall of Atlantis, Antiquity, birth of Christianity, the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the French Revolution, and the beginning of the final war between Marxism and Nazism. This article is an attempt at presenting this vision, with a brief analysis and evaluation of his scientific value.

Weak Thought and Religion in Gianni Vattimo: Implications and Repercussions

In this paper, I focus on controversial issues in Gianni Vattimo’s later philosophy concerning religion. In his later writings, Vattimo employs his idea of “weak thought” (il pensiero debole) to (re)interpret Christianity by claiming that as opposed to metanarratives of modernity, a weak ontology not only weakens all foundations and dominant truth claims, but also enfeebles the strong metaphysical claims of atheism such as “God does not exist.” There is no reason to be an atheist, according to Vattimo, since weak thought enables emancipation from all ideological foundations, including atheism. Therefore, Vattimo offers a new definition of secularization: In contrast to modernity’s claim that secularization is to banish religion from the states of reason and progress, he changes the target of secularization from religion to metaphysics. Hence, the rigid distinction between faith and reason is nothing but another foundation that needs to be weakened. That is why the aim of secularization in the West is not separate faith and reason, but to weaken metaphysics in order to make room for faith. Put it differently, secularization is “weak thought” itself. This idea is strengthened by Vattimo’s interpretation of Nietzsche’s announcement of God’s death. However, in Vattiminian perspective, the God announced as dead by Nietzsche is not the God of the biblical text but the God of metaphysics which philosophers have believed since Pascal. Hence, the statement that “God is dead” is basically the rejection of the metaphysical foundation built by modernity this time. Like Jesus the crucified, God in the postmodern time, too, becomes weak and is tolerant toward the other. Furthermore, like the birth of Christianity, the postmodern return of religion, in fact, depends on those who receive this announcement. For postmodernity as a philosophy of event considers the Christian event in the sense of Ereignis. That means Nietzsche never comes to “claim” that God is dead, but rather he makes an announcement of the death of God as a historical event. That is why Vattimo maintains that postmodernity is not only the overcoming of metaphysics but also now the rebirth of Christianity after the second death of God, and proposes two constituents of the postmodern return of religion: (1) the reinterpretation of kénosis as a diminution of all foundations, and (2) the recognition of truth as caritas as opposed to the metaphysical agreement over truth as an obsession with objectivity. Thus, we can conclude that Vattimo in his later writings radicalizes hermeneutics in terms of scrutinizing the idea of “weak thought” with Christianity. However, it also should not be unnoticed that employing his earlier thoughts to (re)interpret Christianity after Nietzsche’s announcement and Heidegger’s ontology, Vattimo risks the major points of his earlier consideration of hermeneutics as koine in the postmodern era. Though he draws a modest picture of the postmodern era, Vattimo falls into the error of reducing hermeneutics as koine to the Christian discourse. On the other hand, Vattimo has an idiosyncratic and outmoded understanding of what it is to be an atheist “in postmodern times”. In this regard, by misapprehending the possible responses of atheistic arguments, Vattimo risks his weak thought (il pensiero debole) by making the religious approach “strong” in comparison not only with other religions and various traditions but also with atheism. Finally, I argue that Vattimo’s rhetoric of “the return” is doomed to constitute a fundamentalist approach regarding the future of Christianity.

O caminho do leitor de Lc 2,41-52

The article approaches the pericope of Lc 2,41-52 in a communicative key and intends to show how the author of the Third Gospel gives elements to his reader in order that he may have sufficient pre-understanding that makes him recognize the identity of Jesus as Christ, through whom God visits his people. Because of this, the text and context of Luke 2,41-52 are analyzed, considering its demarcation, unity, and place in the Infancy Narratives (Luke 1–2). Then, the article presents the guidelines that the biblical author gives to his reader so that he can follow a path of pre-understanding starting in Luke 1,1–2,40, culminating in the account of Jesus at the age of twelve, in the Temple (Luke 2,41-52). At this point, an analysis is made of the various pericopes of the Infancy Narratives, from the perspective of the Model Reader and his growing understanding of the text. And, finally, the article concludes collecting by way of synthesis, the main elements of Lucan Christology, as well as some characteristics of the Model Reader highlighted by the texts studied.

“Indispensable Reference Book”: Russian Calendars or Monthbooks of the 18th Century from the Collection of the Russian State Library Book Museum

For a modern user, a calendar is usually a reference table that lists all the days of the year in sequential order, dividing them into months and weeks, and highlighting weekends and holidays with a special color. People of the 18th century gave the calendar similar definitions, but its functions were much broader: the calendar became a desk book, fulfilled the functions of a notebook, an individual for each family home directory — for this purpose in the copies, even at the stage of conclusion in the cover or binding, blank sheets were bound to keep family and household records. Throughout most of the 18th century, the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg had the exclusive right to issue calendars, and the calendars, along with other academic publications, were subject to state and church control, as they contained current information about persons serving at the court and about the highest Russian officialdom. The Russian State Library as part of the collection of the Research Department of Rare Books (Museum of Books) holds a representative collection of calendars and monthbooks of the 18th century, which makes it possible to get acquainted with the repertoire of this type of publications. The present study examines the subjects and readers’ address of calendars or monthbooks of the 18th century, reveals the content of the “Calendar or Monthbook for the summer from the Nativity of Christ...”, court, historical, geographical, economic, travel, church, “fortune-telling” calendars on the example of copies from the collection of the Book Museum.The calendar as a type of publishing reacted sensitively to the changes that took place in society and in the book business in different historical periods, tried to record the information that seemed important to contemporaries, helped owners to structure their lives and the lives of their families, their homes and households. Calendars had their readers and admirers. It is in the calendar that one finds information that has not passed the test of time, but is so necessary to reconstruct the history of everyday life of a particular era.

The Coptic Martyrdom of Saint Chamoul. Together with the Edition of an Unpublished Fragment of a Homily (?) on the Birth of Christ

The Coptic Martyrdom of Saint Chamoul. Together with the Edition of an Unpublished Fragment of a Homily (?) on the Birth of Christ

Meningkatkan Hasil Belajar PAKat dan Gotong Royong Melalui Model PBL Fase A SD Negeri 04 Aris

The purpose of this classroom is to determine aspects of learning outcomes and mutual cooperation as well as measure the results of target achievements through the Problem Based Learning model in Class II Phase A of SD Negeri 04 Aris, Capkala District, Bengkayang Regency, West Kalimantan Province. The research subjects of the students were II grade students at SD Negeri 04 Aris, totaling 6 students, consisting of 6 male students. The object of the research is the result of learning and mutual cooperation of students in Catholic Religious and Character lessons on the material “The Birth of Jesus” and “Jesus Presented in the Temple of God”. The data collection techniques are observation, tests and documentation. The results of the research showed that there was an increase in learning outcomes and mutual cooperation for class II students on the material “The Birth of Jesus” and “Jesus was Presented in the Temple of God” by applying the Problem Based Learning model. The increase in learning outcomes and mutual cooperation is evidenced by the average score of learning outcomes in Cycle 1 which was 66,67% and Cycle 2 was 86,67%, the scoreincreased by 20% while the average score of mutual cooperation in Cycle 1 was 61,5% and Cycle 2 is 81,5%, score increases 20%.

Balamuts as Traditional Ukrainian Jewelry of the 19th – Early 21st Centuries

The purpose of the research is to determine the sources of inspiration and artistic features of balamuts in Ukrainian folk costumes of the 19th – early 21st centuries. Research methods are ontological, hermeneutic, axiological, historical-genetic, historical-chronological, comparative, socio-cultural, iconographic, and art analysis. The research toolkit is designed to help understand the sources of inspiration and artistic features of balamuts in Ukrainian folk costumes. The scientific novelty is based on the introduction into scientific circulation of the essence of the concept of “balamut” in Ukrainian jewelry of the 19th – early 21st centuries, in particular, wedding jewelry. Conclusions. Since ancient times, it has been customary to wear pearls in the territory of modern Ukraine, and following the Hellenic-Scythian and Byzantine fashion, it was first among men. Pearls were part of the initiation jewelry of representatives of the elites of Sassanid Iran from the time of Shapur I, who ruled in the 3rd century. AD, and Shapur II (ruled in the 4th century), and gradually became part of the culture of the Greek colonies of the Crimea and the Black Sea. Pearls from the time of antiquity were a sign of initiation stems (at first, ribbons decorated with round and teardrop-shaped pearls, and later on hoops – crown-like diadems). After the first centuries after the birth of Christ, these accessories, which replaced the laurel wreaths of pagan times, became part of the complete image of the Roman emperor. Thus, as early as the 4th century, the son of Constantine the Great, Emperor Constantius II (337–361), wore a diadem with a pearl base, modeled after the Sassanid coronation ornaments. Justinian the Great, an Illyrian by origin, in 548 was depicted wearing a crown with prependulis and a fibula with pearls, later pearls firmly became part of the coronation accessories of the following dynasties of Byzantine rulers, who had both eastern (primarily Persian and Armenian) and western (Balkan) roots. Taking into account that in several centuries the heiresses of Byzantine emperors began to marry Kievan Russian princes, this tradition of using pearls gradually became part of local customs. So, already in the 10th century Svyatoslav, the son of Igor and Olga, wore a colt with pearls and a red garnet in his ear. Later pearls, including fossilized, fossil, made from a thick layer of mother-of-pearl of ancient shells (balamuts) from the 19th century gradually became part of Ukrainian wedding outfits.

Advances in Tea Chemistry

The origins of tea, a traditional beverage in China, can be traced back to the Shennong period, about 2737 years before the birth of Christ [...]

Linguistic means of creating the image of the anti-hero in W. Ayguals de Izco’s novel «El Tigre del Maestrazgo»

The article is focused on the analysis of linguistic features of the «history-novel» by W. Ayguals de Izco «The Tiger of Maestrazgo», published in 1846–1848 and dedicated to R. Cabrera, one of the leaders of the Carlist movement in Spain in the 1830-ies. The relevance of this article is due to both the lack of scientific publications about W. Ayguals de Izco in Russian, and the relevance of «The Tiger of Maestrazgo» in the anti-Carlist political discourse in Spain in the middle of the XIX century. A brief review of recent publications on the writer’s work is offered as well as the history of the book creation. It is concluded that the publication of «The Tiger of Maestrazgo» was a reaction to the apologetic biography of R. Cabrera, written by B. de Cordoba, as well as to the uprising of the Carlists in Catalonia, which began in 1846. The anti-hero of the work is R. Cabrera, who in the novel personifies Carlism. The article analyzes the vocabulary used to create his image. 66 adjectives and 116 nouns and substantive combinations related to Cabrera and having negative connotations are registered in «The Tiger of Maestrazgo». There are 4 categories of lexemes that are used by the author to describe the anti-hero of the work: designations of social belonging; ethnonyms; names of animals; words related to the religion. W. Ayguals de Izco focuses the attention of readers on the unprofessionalism of R. Cabrera, who does not have a military education. The anti-hero is compared to «savages» from Africa and the New World and to predatory animals. W. Ayguals de Izco emphasizes that R. Cabrera has a «satanic» nature. Describing the birth of R. Cabrera, the writer parodies the gospel story about the birth of Christ. W. Ayguals de Izco not only creates a negative image of the leader R. Cabrera, but also criticizes the entire Carlist movement.

Античность (Тысячелетие до Рождества Христова). Базис европейской культуры

The essay is devoted to a summary review of the main phenomena of global artistic culture in the Antiquity period (a millennium before the Birth of Christ). The work provides a holistic vision of artistic phenomena. The author consistently examines the achievements of ancient masters in various art forms: literature (the creation of the spiritual foundation of ancient culture in religious canons and national epic), architecture (the appearance of the order in ancient Greek classics), sculpture (as the leading genre of Antiquity), fine art (based on preserved frescoes and mosaics), theatrical art (tragedies of ancient Greek playwrights), poetry (Roman classicism). Attention is also paid to the development of art in line with Hellenism and to the parallels to Greco-Roman Antiquity in the territories of the East. In addition, an overview of the last stage of Antiquity, the Roman stage (the heyday of Roman architecture and sculpture), is given. In conclusion, the author finds that the art phenomena of the period of Antiquity played the most important role as the basis of European culture.

Ancient and Modern

This year the ITS World Congress will be taking the long view like never before, with both up-to-the-minute technology and a gala dinner venue that dates back to before the birth of Christ

Theology and identity

In this book, Kwame Bediako explores the theme of identity and Christianity from a broad perspective, addressing many issues modern scholars have battled with. Although Bediako’s focus is postmissionary Christianity in Africa, dating from the 1960s to the present, he gives a foundational background to issues related to culture and identity since the birth of Christianity in the first century AD.

Neglo celebramo, pa�olo burlamo: La negrilla en Espa�a y en Am�rica by Leonardo J. Waisman (review)

Reviewed by: Neglo celebramo, pañolo burlamo: La negrilla en España y en América by Leonardo J. Waisman Drew Edward Davies Neglo celebramo, pañolo burlamo: La negrilla en España y en América. By Leonardo J. Waisman. 3 vols. Published by the author, 2020. Available for download at https://conicet-ar.academia.edu/leonardowaisman (accessed 5 January 2023). In this three-volume work, possibly the most ambitious study ever undertaken of a villancico subgenre, Leonardo Waisman crafts a comprehensive yet nuanced overview of a distinct repertory of Hispanic baroque music: villancicos that feature stereotyped caricatures of Black men. Sometimes known as negrillas (among other terms) in Spanish, such villancicos tend to use racialized literary dialects and simplified musical language to depict Black Christian revelers heading to Bethlehem to adore the Christ child. A creative variant of the Adoration of the Shepherds episode in Luke, realized using popularizing elements from the Iberian theater traditions, the subgenre presents Black personages who play musical instruments and travel to Bethlehem to dance, often boisterously, to the Christ child who is sleeping in the manger. Well-known examples are "Ah siolo Flasiquiyo" by Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla (ca. 1590–1664) and "Los coflades de la estleya" by Juan de Araujo (1646–1712), the first two works of Latin American early music to enter major English-language music history textbook anthologies. Waisman bravely navigates the many types of racism present in this problematic early modern subgenre, in which the Black caricatures behave as interchangeable simpletons, the poetry contains remarks that might be considered offensive today, and the main point requires the Black caricatures to be of low social status in order to portray the humility of the circumstances of Christ's birth. The presence of Blackness also serves to underscore the Catholic Church's official universality. Waisman retains as positive an approach as possible, noting the joyfulness (alegría) of how the Black personages are cast, and thus avoiding a judgment of early modern material according to the social norms of today. That said, I believe this book needed to be written in Spanish, as English-language terminology may underscore the racist material more directly. As such, English-language authors since Robert Stevenson, who can be credited with reviving interest in the subgenre, have tended to appropriate if not hide behind Spanish-language genre, theater, and linguistics terminology. Diminutives used in Spanishlanguage terms such as negrilla, which some native Spanish speakers will connote as endearing rather than as [End Page 631] offensive, have little positive connotation that I can perceive in English. Of course, Waisman, a leading scholar of Latin American music, is well aware of these issues, and in fact he has centered the problematic racial content of the material and the discourse about it as a challenge to the scholar: "the horror of slavery and the camaraderie of the 'villancico Blacks' (negros de villancico) are its inescapable references, its irreducible poles, its extreme images. For the author, it has meant navigating between the Scylla of political correctness and the Charybdis of rationalizing racism. I hope I have avoided both" (1:2, all trans. mine). The first volume of Waisman's trilogy contains the main study, while the second and third serve as extended appendixes—the second a compilation of musical editions and the third a compilation of villancico texts, both drawn from sources throughout the Iberian peninsula and Latin America. In the study, Waisman takes a pragmatic approach, setting up the presence of Black caricatures in villancicos with chapters about the presence of African people in early modern Spain and the Americas and the linguistic elements that define the literary dialect, sometimes known as the habla de negros, that most of these villancicos use. Early in the text, Waisman presents an interesting graph (cuadro 2, p. 8) showing the distribution over time of texts in printed chapbooks at the National Library of Spain (BNE) with villancicos featuring stereotyped Black caricatures. The graph shows a clear growth of the subgenre across the seventeenth century with a peak in the 1690s, followed by a rapid decline in the first half of the eighteenth century. Waisman excels at the factual presentation of...

When to Manipulate a Patient with Low Back Pain?

When to Manipulate a Patient with Low Back Pain? Abstract. The roots of manual treatment date back to well before the birth of Christ. Today, various professions are engaged in manual therapy, which is an established, accepted and evidence-based treatment for various musculoskeletal complaints. Elemental to the success of manual therapy are the mechanical, neuro-reflective and psychological effects. There are different levels upon which the indication for manual treatment can be established. These include the organ/structural level, the functional level (hypo- vs. hypermobility) and the pain level (acute vs. chronic).

The Characterisation of Joseph by Matthew (Matt 1–2; 13:55)

The article presents the figure of Joseph and his place in the narrative by the first evangelist in Matt 1–2. Apart from the arguments for the unifying function of Mary’s spouse in the whole Infancy Narrative, the most important features of Joseph highlighted by Matthew are emphasised. Those include the attitude of the righteous man, the fact of belonging to the royal family of King David, the bond and similarity to the actions of the patriarchs, as well as the silent and ascetic nature of the spouse and parent. Despite many similarities to the Lukan narrative, the first evangelist stresses different aspects in his characterisation of Joseph. Using the tools proposed by Cornelis Bennema, the author of the paper also assesses the degree of characterisation of the person under study, his role in the narrative and his representative value for the modern reader.

Relating the Gospels: Memory, Imitation, and the Farrer Hypothesis by Eric Eve

Reviewed by: Relating the Gospels: Memory, Imitation, and the Farrer Hypothesis by Eric Eve Daniel Glover eric eve, Relating the Gospels: Memory, Imitation, and the Farrer Hypothesis (LNTS 592; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2021). Pp. viii + 247. $115. Eric Eve's Relating the Gospels is a new study on the Synoptic Problem, arguing in favor of the Farrer Hypothesis. E. proposes that offering attention to memory and the scribal and authorial practices of imitation in the ancient world help to demonstrate the plausibility of Luke's use of Matthew and Mark. He dialogues with recent advances in memory studies and scribal compositional practices to argue in seven chapters for the plausibility of Luke's use of Matthew. The first chapter introduces the book and specifies that E. has confined this study to "comparing the viability of the Farrer hypothesis with that of its principal competitor, the Two Document Hypothesis" (3). It is somewhat disappointing that the more recent Matthean [End Page 356] Posteriority Theory did not feature prominently in this book. While no book can do everything, even a surface level engagement with this recent literature in the footnotes would have been desirable. The next two chapters supply the book's method. In chap. 2, E. establishes different models of engagement with memory studies in relation to the Synoptic Problem and how these models can help support the assumption of Marcan priority. Most interesting here is the discussion of scribal composition. E. offers evidence that scribes had a profound capacity for memory and the memorization of texts. The literary elite valued not only rote memorization of lines of text for recitation but also creative memory, which allowed for an interaction with texts even amid their performance. The best scribes could recite passages from a given text that shared a theme, word, or character, rework passages around other and different themes, sometimes recite a narrative in reverse order, and all of these on demand. Those interested in composition would often practice the same sorts of recollecting techniques just described but in combination with other literary works in order to produce a new, creative retelling or reworking of those older sources. These sorts of practices of creative rewriting, therefore, challenge Alan Kirk's argument (Q in Matthew [LNTS 564; London: T&T Clark, 2016]) that the Gospel authors would have been restrained by the logical ordering of written materials. (E. helpfully complicates this argument by pointing out that whatever rearranging would be necessary on Luke's use of Matthew, would also be necessary on Matthew's use of Q.) To be sure, E. does not attribute to the Gospel authors the same level of ability as those elite scribes, but he takes for granted that they would have had access to some of these same practices. In chap. 3, E. places this vision of scribal practice into conversation with recent work on ancient paideia. E. suggests that, while progymnastic exercises of reordering and rearrangement cannot account for every instance of Luke's use of Matthew, they do help the reader to anticipate the types of changes Luke would have made to Matthew, especially once one considers Luke as engaging in typical scribal practices of creative memory. The next three chapters wade "into the weeds" as close, comparative, and exegetical studies of the double and triple tradition. In chap. 4, E. discusses and evaluates significant similarities between Matthew and Luke, especially in the sayings material, but also between the first few chapters of Matthew and Luke. E. himself lists eight thematic and verbal parallels that are difficult to explain without some sort of literary dependence. He finds much the same sort of information in their narratives of John the Baptist, the temptation, and the resurrection. Luke's scribal creativity manifests throughout his Gospel, but E. observes the significance of Luke's imitative rewriting of the narrative of Samuel's infancy narrative in the composition of Jesus's birth and early years. There we find an analogue for the kind of creative alterations to Luke's Septuagintal source that we may observe in Luke's Matthean source under the Farrer Hypothesis. Eve's last two chapters deal with problem passages in Luke, including...

A Farewell to the Pondering Mary

Abstract Almost sixty years ago, W.C. van Unnik demonstrated that the participle συµβάλλουσα in Luke 2:19 does not mean “pondering” but that Mary was “understanding” the heavenly message. The limited reception of his view, especially in anglophone literature and translations of the Bible, stems from misconceptions about the lexical definition and the imperfective aspect of συµβάλλουσα, as well as from a problematic interpretation of the phrase “to keep matters/words in one’s heart.” The present study proposes that Luke 2:19 means that Mary preserved the message as revealed knowledge of the future and understood its meaning. This interpretation makes better sense within the infancy narrative and the Gospel of Luke as a whole than traditional interpretations and sheds new light on Mary’s image and function.