Who Was the Virgin Mary?
Dec. 19, 2001 -- Picture a teenage girl — perhaps even as young as 12 — with dark skin and dark hair, tending her baby in a village on a hillside in the Roman-occupied province of Palestine, 2,000 years ago.
Dressed in modest garments, she is a far cry from the pale-faced, exquisite Virgin Mary usually depicted in European art.
Although Mary is one of the most famous and influential women in Western civilization, revered by hundreds of millions of Christians and many non-Christians too, little is known about the details of her life. But judging from what we do know, historians say, the teenager on the hillside — who would have been known by her Hebrew name, Miryam — is the closest we can get to a historical portrait of Mary.
Mary is revered as the mother of God by Christians, especially by Catholic and Orthodox believers. She is highly respected in Islam as the mother of one of the prophets who came before Muhammad: the Koran refers to her as "a saintly woman." Although Mary has no role in Judaism, some Jews have pointed to her as a symbol of Jewish motherhood.
"She has power for people who aren't Catholics, who aren't Christians," says art historian Jerrilynn Dodds. "She connects with some of the deepest experiences that we share: experiences of motherhood, of tragedy, of passion."
A Picture of Mary
The chief Biblical sources of information about Mary are the four New Testament books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, written an estimated 30 to 120 years after the death of Jesus. The four books carry relatively few words about Mary, although Luke tells the Christmas story from her point of view. When the angel Gabriel says she is to bear the son of God, she asks, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" She is told that nothing is impossible with God.
Luke also contains a prayer attributed to Mary. The prayer, known as the Magnificat, offers a Biblical view of Mary's character and personality. A statement of faith and a declaration against social injustice, it tells of God's intent to put down the powerful and lift up the lowly — a message that would have resonated with Jews living under Roman rule.
In the book of Matthew, real world concerns are addressed when Joseph is considering leaving the pregnant Mary. He reconsiders when an angel appears in a dream and tells him the child was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
From those spiritual accounts — and knowledge of the everyday circumstances she would have faced — comes a picture of the Mary the shepherds would have found in Bethlehem: a woman who was young, devout, offended by injustice, devoted to her child, and, many believe, sorrowful in the knowledge of what his fate would be.
Life in a Palestine Courtyard
Many scholars believe Mary would barely have been into her teens when she gave birth, since 12 was a typical age for girls to be married off. "We have a pretty strong idea that she was approaching 13," says Virginia Kimball, a scholar who is on the board of directors of the Mariological Society of America, a Catholic organization dedicated to the study of Mary.
The Bible says little about Mary after the nativity. Scholars believe she would have led a simple life, focused on the domestic chores of a young mother.
"Think of a courtyard, and at one corner of the courtyard is where the family sleeps," says John Dominic Crossan, a professor at Chicago's De Paul University who has written books about the historical Jesus. "They don't really live in the house, they live in the courtyard. There's probably an oven of some type in the courtyard where the mother has to do the baking every day. Life in general is in the courtyard."
A Simple Life Transformed in Art
No one knows what Mary looked like. She was a Semitic woman, likely dark-skinned, in a hot Mediterranean environment. Custom would have demanded that she be veiled, and Crossan believes she would have worn simple clothes, made of rough cloth in drab colors.
But in European art she developed into a woman who is serene and beautiful and exquisitely dressed. Impressions of Mary evolved depending on what the church, and changing societies dictated.
There are several theories about the end of Mary's life. One is that she went with the disciple John to Ephesus, in what is now Turkey, and that she died there. An account from early Greek tradition says Mary died in Jerusalem and requested to be buried in the tomb where her son had been laid.