I have a shorter version of this up over at Catholic Answers right now, but I wanted to explore the theme more than the space limitations would allow. If you’re coming here from that piece, you might want to jump down to the curious message of the angel to Joseph:
Two of the most important passages at this time of year are Luke 1:26-38 and Matt. 1:18-25, tracing the angel’s message of the Incarnation to the Virgin Mary and Joseph, respectively. We’ve heard from both of these Gospel accounts this week at Mass, and we’re not done with them. Yet as familiar as these passages are to most of us, they’re ones that we deeply misunderstand. As a result, we can scarcely understand what’s going on in either passage. For example, were Mary and Joseph married at the time of the Annunciation? Why does Matthew refer to Joseph as Mary’s “husband,” and yet common translations of Luke have Mary saying to the angel, “I have no husband” (Matt. 1:19; Luke 1:34)? What does it mean that Joseph “took his wife,” or that Joseph “knew her not until she had borne a son” (Matt. 1:24-25)? And finally, why did Joseph consider divorcing Mary, and why does the angel respond by telling him not to be afraid?
To answer these questions, we need to learn to read these Scriptures through Jewish eyes. Jewish weddings have two distinct stages, kiddushin and nisuin. After the first stage, “the woman is legally the wife of the man. The relationship created by kiddushin can only be dissolved by death or divorce.” These days, the two stages typically occur in a single ceremony, but because “bachelor pads” weren’t really a thing in antiquity, first-century husbands had a short time (upwards of a year) after the wedding to prepare a home for his new wife. By bringing his wife into the home and beginning married life together (nisuin), the marriage process was completed. Thus, when we hear Jesus saying, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:2-3), we should recognize it as what it is: marital imagery. He’s saying to the Church that she’s already his bride, and that this life is the short space between the kiddushin and the nisuin, the wedding ceremony and the marital homecoming.
That’s also where we encounter Mary and Joseph on their journey towards Christmas. When we hear that Mary is “betrothed” to Joseph (Matt. 1:18, Luke 1:27), this is a poor translation. They’re not “betrothed” in the sense of a Western engagement. They’re legally married, and could freely have sexual relations. That’s why Joseph considers a quiet divorce, because he’s “unwilling to put her to shame” (Matt. 1:19). There was no shame, because everyone would assume that Mary’s child was the son of Joseph (Luke 3:23), and it was perfectly acceptable to get pregnant by your husband in the time between the kiddushin and the nisuin. This involved more than shaming, though. If Jesus was conceived out of wedlock, he would have been unable to enter the Temple (Deut. 23:2 is quite clear that “no bastard shall enter the assembly of the Lord”).
And so the first thing we notice is that Mary and Joseph are legally married, are were free to have sexual relations. The second is that, for some reason, they aren’t. We see this in the responses of both Mary and Joseph. The RSV:CE records Mary as asking Gabriel, “How can this be, since I have no husband?” (Luke 1:34). That’s not what she asked, though (as we just saw, she does have a husband). She actually asked, “How will this be, since I know not a man?” In other words, she’s not saying that she doesn’t have a husband. She’s saying that she doesn’t have sex with the husband she has. That’s a much stranger response, but it’s consonant with Joseph’s own response. Remember that he knew both (1) that everyone would assume the child of Mary was his, since they were married, and (2) that the child couldn’t possibly be his. The only reason he wouldn’t assume he was the father of the child is if he weren’t (public assumption to the contrary) having sex with his wife. Early Christian texts claimed that Mary had taken some kind of vow of perpetual virginity in the Temple. Whether that’s true or not, we know this much: Mary and Joseph are free to have sex, but aren’t, and they already aren’t before the angel Gabriel shows up. This continues even after the nisuin, when they start living together. Here’s where things get really odd: Matthew tells us that Joseph “took his wife, but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus” (Matt. 1:24-25). To our ears, “took his wife” may sound sexual. It’s not. It’s a reference to the nisuin: Joseph has taken Mary into his home, and the marital process is complete. But “knew her not” is sexual (cf. Gen. 4:1). So we might ask, why are Joseph and Mary still not having sex? There’s no evidence that the angel told either of them to remain celibate, and yet they are, even as they’re living under the same roof
.
Protestants typically gloss over all of this, because they’re fixated on one word: why does Matthew say that Joseph “knew her not until she had borne a son” (Matt. 1:24-25)? Doesn’t that imply that the two had sex after the birth of Christ? Such an interpretation completely misses Matthew’s point. Why would Matthew be telling us that Mary and Joseph had sex after the birth of Christ? No, something else is going on here. As St. Jerome pointed out, Scripture is full of statements like “even to your old age I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you” (Isa. 46:4) and “he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Cor. 15:25). But that doesn’t mean that God ceases to be God when you’re old, or that Christ stops regining after his final triumph. The inspired author are simply using “until” language to demark an important period of time. Matthew’s doing the same thing. His point is that even after the nisuin , Mary and Joseph continued not to have sex. Why does that matter? Because the Messianic prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 says that a virgin will “conceive and bear” a child. If Mary and Joseph had sex during her pregnancy, it wouldn’t be a virgin birth.
That leaves one last piece of the puzzle. Matthew tells us that “When his mother Mary had been betrothed [sic] to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to send her away quietly” (Matt. 1:18-19). Why does Joseph consider divorcing Mary? The general assumption is that Joseph assumes Mary has cheated on him, and so he wants a divorce, but he’s a nice guy and doesn’t want to see her stoned to death, so he’s going to be quiet about it. This interpretation doesn’t hold water. Jerome notes that, if there were the case, we could hardly call Joseph “just” for trying to cover up sin, since “the Law enacts, that not only the doers of evil, but they who are privy to any evil done, shall be held to be guilty.” Furthermore, this interpretation has Joseph rushing to judgment of Mary without apparently even asking her how she became pregnant. That’s the kind of rash judgment that you and I might fall into, but none of this comports with what we know of either Mary or Joseph.
So let’s look at the facts in a new light. We’ve just seen that, unlike the general public, Joseph is aware that Mary is remaining a virgin. Scripture doesn’t tell us why, but it’s clear enough from both his and her response. As a just and pious Jew, he would also be aware of the Isaiah prophecies that a virgin would conceive and bear the Messiah. He also was married to Mary, and knew her personally. Matthew also says that Mary was “found to be with child of the Holy Spirit,” meaning that there’s literally no reason to think Mary would have hidden the fact of the Annunciation from her husband. Joseph wouldn’t have to be a rocket scientist or a Scripture scholar to put these pieces together, and realize that Gabriel was saying that Mary was going to the virgin bearer of the Messiah. That’s huge, since Isaiah says that the Messiah will be called Emmanuel (“God with us”) as well as “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa. 7:14, 9:6). As a Jew, Joseph would have been intimately aware of the Ark of the Covenant, so holy that Uzzah was struck dead simply for touching it (2 Sam. 6:7). Imagine the realization that your new bride is the Ark of the New Covenant, the one called to bear in her womb the Mighty God himself. Nothing in Isaiah’s prophecy mentions the virgin mother having a husband around, and the spectre of being under the same roof as the new Ark would have been terrifying for any pious Jew… even one who had already resolved to remain chaste alongside her. That’s how many of the earliest Christians understood the text. Origen, for example, says that Joseph “sought to put her away, because he saw in her a great sacrament, to approach which he thought himself unworthy.”
This also explains the curious message of the angel to Joseph. Matthew tells us that when the crowds saw Jesus heal a paralytic, “they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men” (Matt. 9:8-9). The fear is a kind of awe, coupled with an awareness of one’s own unworthiness to be in the presence of such glory. It’s why both angels and the glorified Christ often seem to need to introduce themselves by saying “do not be afraid” (Matt. 28:5, 10; Luke 1:13, 30; John 6:20; Acts 18:9, 27:24). St. Peter exemplifies this pious fear after the miraculous catch of fish, when he falls down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8). Jesus responds to him by saying “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men” (Luke 5:10). Jesus is recognizing that yes, Peter is unworthy; but he’s also been chosen by God for a unique mission. That sounds an awful lot like the angel’s message to Joseph: “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; 21 she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Notice that the angel doesn’t say “Do not be afraid of me, an angel.” Instead, he tells Joseph not to be afraid of taking his wife into his home. By all appearances, Joseph seems to have a holy terror of his own wife.
This image of Joseph is both a great deal more Jewish, and explains why Matthew views his plan for divorce as proof of his “being a just man” (Matt. 1:19). He wasn’t rashly judging his wife or trying to cover up sin for her; he was recognizing in her the prophecied virgin mother, the bearer of the long-awaited Messiah. So as we approach Christmas this year, hear the Biblical text through this lens rather than the lens of our modern culture, and see if it doesn’t upon the passages up in a brand new way.
The author explains the“until” language in the passage in Matthew – Joseph “knew her not until she had borne a son” (Matt. 1:24-25) – by saying that “until” here simply demarks an important period of time. It does not mean that the situation, of there being no sexual relations between husband and wife, ceased to be the case. Matthew’s “point is that even after the nisuin, Mary and Joseph continued not to have sex. Why does that matter? Because the Messianic prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 says that a virgin will “conceive and bear” a child. If Mary and Joseph had sex during her pregnancy, it wouldn’t be a virgin birth.”
That makes sense, but the passage says “until she had borne a son,” not until she became pregnant. It does not resolve the question of marital relations between the couple after Mary gave birth. Isn’t that what Protestants and others are concerned about in quoting this passage – not with whether there were sexual relations during pregnancy but whether Mary remained “ever virgin” after “she had borne a son”? I find the rest of the essay persuasive and it addresses this question, but limiting the import of this passage to the pregnancy and excluding the period after the Child’s birth, i.e., the rest of Mary’s life, raises more questions than it answers.
Paul,
“That makes sense, but the passage says ‘until she had borne a son,’ not until she became pregnant. It does not resolve the question of marital relations between the couple after Mary gave birth. Isn’t that what Protestants and others are concerned about in quoting this passage – not with whether there were sexual relations during pregnancy but whether Mary remained ‘ever virgin’ after ‘she had borne a son’?”
What I was trying to say was that Protestants are asking a different question than St. Luke was asking.
As you said, “It does not resolve the question of marital relations between the couple after Mary gave birth.” So Luke just isn’t saying what Protestants think he’s saying: namely, that Joseph and Mary did have sexual relations on or after Christmas.He’s not saying that they didn’t, either. He’s not trying to say anything one way or the other. But because they don’t get what he is saying (Mary and Joseph didn’t have sex at any point during Mary’s pregnancy, thereby fulfilling the Isaiah 7 prophecy), many have read the passage in this incorrect way.
Mary became pregnant through the Holy Spirit. It was this action that precluded St Joseph from having sex with Mary, plus the fact both Mary and Joseph had taken a vow of celibacy. You see that Joseph would have broken the law if he had sex with Mary after she became pregnant to the Holy Spirit.
How brilliant that both wanted to offer God their life as celibates.
you can find reference to this in the writings of Maria Valtorta and I believe Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich.
yes, Mary, ever Virgin…………
“That makes sense, but the passage says “until she had borne a son,” not until she became pregnant. It does not resolve the question of marital relations between the couple after Mary gave birth”.
But it does, because ‘until’ is not a qualifier of whether or of time, but of the state of chaste celibacy/continence which underscores the Work of the Holy Spirit during this time of marital rite and marital homecoming. The Holy Spirit in Matthew is underscoring this Triune Work in the Annunciation and Incarnation in The Virgin-Mother, before, during and after the Overshadowing Work of God the Holy Spirit. The Virginity is present and preserved before, during and after the Overshadowing – Joseph realizes this, reveres and imitates this chaste celibate continence, and seeks to leave this Ever-Virgin to the Holy Spirit and step aside.
John 14:2-3
Mind blown
Second mind blown.
The first time I tried talking about the nuptial meaning of the passage, I got choked up (this is… uncharacteristic). It’s SO much more beautiful once you get the full meaning.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux has about two hundred pages of text that his monks transcribed from his sermons on the “Song of Songs” in the Old Testament. It seems to be related to the nuptial passage of John 14:2-3 almost exclusively, and begins with an explanation of the words: ” Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth”.
Jesus is the Kiss.
Very profound writings. Everyone should read these excellent sermons sooner or later, as we are all already ‘betrothed’. It can give us an idea of what this marriage life is, and should be like! 🙂
Had no idea too! Thanks for this article Joe, this will be stupendous for quick-reference in apologetic discussion.
For those interested Jerome and Rabanus concur with Origen. The rest of the fathers take the standard interpretation. I think Joe argues Origen’s view well here.
https://sites.google.com/site/aquinasstudybible/home/matthew-commentary/catena-aurea-on-matthew/chapter-1
Joe,
They’re not “betrothed” in the sense of a Western engagement. They’re legally married, and could freely have sexual relations.
This is the (or at least the first) bit that I’ve never understood in Catholic explications of this passage. Your own first citation – the one you link to from the word “Jewish” – says of the period between the kiddushin and the nisuin:
“The rabbis forbade betrothing though intercourse, making it a punishable offense…
“During the kiddushin stage the couple is married, with one minor caveat — they cannot physically express their union… Only after the connection of the souls has manifested itself during the kiddushin period, laying the foundation for a soulful marriage, can the couple proceed with the nisu’in, the physical aspect of their relationship.
“If matrimony started with nisu’in, the physical relationship could permanently overshadow the spiritual connection, resulting in a marriage whose priorities and ideals are skewed.”
Similarly, Wikipedia says of this period (in its article “Erusin”), “For legal purposes, a betrothed couple is regarded as husband and wife. Similarly, the union can only be ended by the same divorce process as for married couples. However, betrothal does not oblige the couple to behave towards each other in the manner that a married couple is required to, nor does it permit the couple to have a sexual relationship with each other.”
And again, the text of the birkhat erusin – the blessing said over the initial betrothal – declares, “Praised be Thou, O L-rd our G‑d, King of the universe who has sanctified us with His commandments and has commanded us concerning illicit relations; and has prohibited us those who are merely betrothed; but has permitted to us those lawfully married to us by chuppah and kiddushin.” The chuppah, or canopy ritual, is either identical with the actual nisuin or, at minimum, is a key part of that latter rite; as that same link goes on to explain, “The sanctification of betrothal is not enough. We are prohibited conjugal relations even after betrothal, if the nuptials have not yet been held.”
Yours is not the first place I’ve seen Catholics make this argument, but the evidence seems… well, at very best, highly mixed as to whether this claim is true. I’m no expert on ancient Jewish marital rites, but I’ve never seen any real appeal to a scholarly source establishing your position. Can you provide one?
Irked,
This is a great question, and in this coming Monday’s episode of The Catholic Podcast, I discuss it with Chloe (your comment actually inspired that conversation). So here’s the deal in a nutshell:
For starters, there are two separate questions here: (a) could sexual intercourse be the method of “betrothal” (kiddushin), and (b) could you have sex during the “betrothal” (kiddushin) period. The first quotation you provide (““The rabbis forbade BETROTHING though intercourse, making it a punishable offense…”) is actually about a whole different debate.
In antiquity, a couple who intended to wed could get married by having sex. Genesis 24:67, “Then Isaac brought her into the tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.” This is the method of marrying that the rabbis prohibited.
So the question ISN’T “can you have sex in order to wed?” but “can you have sex between the first and second part of a Jewish wedding.” And you’re right that there are some rabbinical disagreements. But if you’re attentive to it, the Biblical evidence is actually very clear.
1. Luke says that Jesus was “the son (as was supposed) of Joseph” (Luke 3:23). So everyone assumed that Joseph and Mary had sex between the kiddushin and nisuin, and that’s where Jesus came from. Now consider that:
2. Joseph’s reaction in Matthew 1 assumes that there WOULD be scandal if he divorced Mary, but there WOULDN’T be scandal if he didn’t. In contrast, if they had a Western-style “engagement,” if WOULD be scandalous if she got pregnant whilst engaged, whether or not the father was her betrothed.
3. Upon finding out that she’s pregnant, Mary immediately goes to see Elizabeth. Remember that Elizabeth went into seclusion for five months when she was pregnant (Luke 1:24), but Mary is totally shameless about being pregnant in public, even though she’s not yet living with Joseph at this point.
4. Jesus freely goes into the Temple as an infant, and as a child, and as an adult, but this was forbidden to a bastard (Deut. 23:2).
5. Even Jesus’ fiercest enemies during His lifetime don’t raise the fact that Mary conceived prior to the nisuin as a point against Him (which it would have been, if there was shame attached).
6. When later anti-Christian Jews DO claim that Mary was a fornicator, it’s because they concoct a story about how she allegedly conceived Jesus via a Roman soldier named either Pantera or Pandera. If it were enough of a scandal for her to have become pregnant by Joseph.they would have presumably gone for that more plausible story.
7. Even the Talmudic sources prohibiting betrothing through sexual intercourse presuppose that sex is permitted during this period (just not as the means of forming the marital union). For example, in Kiddushin 12b we read:
“The Sages of Neharde’a say: Rav would not flog a violator in all of the cases listed, but he would in fact flog a man for betrothing a woman through sexual intercourse without a prior arrangement. And there are those who say: Even if there was an arrangement beforehand, he would also flog a man for betrothing a woman with intercourse, due to licentiousness, as it is indecent to have witnesses observe a man and woman enter a room to engage in intercourse.”
So notice WHY the ancient form of kiddushin was outlawed – not because sex was immoral during this time, but because you can’t form a public wedding around the couple having sex. So they could have sex after the kiddushin, but not as the kiddushin.
Hi Joe,
This is a great question, and in this coming Monday’s episode of The Catholic Podcast, I discuss it with Chloe (your comment actually inspired that conversation).
Hey, that’s exciting! I’ll have to give it a listen.
Not to preempt what you guys may say there, but I guess what I’m looking for is something a little bit more explicit: a proper scholarly source that says, without ambiguity, that it was normal, moral behavior for couples bound by keddusin/erusin to have sex with each other before the nuptials. The closest thing I see to that above is your quote explaining why “betrothal by sex” was forbidden – but as you note, that’s sort of a separate question.
So far, just about every source I can find explicitly says no, you can’t sleep with your partner before the nisuin/chuppah. Your own first link says so in pretty clear terms: “During the kiddushin stage the couple is married, with one minor caveat — they cannot physically express their union.” So does Wikipedia, as I mentioned. To give a more scholarly source of my own, we might look to Dr. Moses Mielziner’s The Jewish Law of Marriage and Divorce in Ancient and Modern Times: And Its Relation to the Law of the State; I’m not personally familiar with Mielziner’s work, but it does seem to be broadly cited, and the man seems reasonably well respected as a Talmudic scholar. In Chapter 10, he writes,
“A betrothment is termed, in Rabbinical Law, Kiddushin, also, Arusin… The nature of betrothment, according to the Rabbinical Law, is quite different [from our modern idea]. There, a betrothal is not a mere promise to marry, but it is the very initiation of marriage. The betrothed parties are in some respects regarded as married, though not yet entitled to the marital rights nor bound to fulfill any of the mutual duties of conjugal life, as long as the marriage was not consumated by the nuptials,” emphasis mine.
We would agree that Joseph and Mary did not consummate their marriage at the time of their betrothal, in which case the “not yet entitled” clause would certainly apply, wouldn’t it?
Mielziner continues to cite the birkhat erusin, which I quoted above, noting as he does so that it forbade sexual union prior to the chuppah. Lest there be any ambiguity, he then says in 10.B.a, “During this period [between the erusin and the nisuin], she lived with her friends, and every intimate intercourse between herself and her future husband was strictly forbidden,” emphasis mine.
Mielziner here appeals to the Talmud, in particular Kethuboth 7, which again provides the birkhat erusin above. Footnote 38 at that link is pretty unambiguous: “Betrothal (erusin) without marriage (nissu’in) does not permit the bride to the bridegroom.”
I’m not cherry-picking for Protestant links here; these are the first scholarly hits I see when investigating the question. Rather than “some rabbinical disagreement,” they seem pretty united – but united against the interpretation you present above. If you don’t mind my asking, what original source are you working from for your post?
It seems to me that the rest of your argument is predicated on this question, so I’ll defer discussion of the remainder.
From https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/marriage-in-judaism:
:
“The Process of Marriage: Kiddushin and Nisuin
The process of marriage occurs in two distinct stages: kiddushin (commonly translated as betrothal) and nisuin (full-fledged marriage). Kiddushin occurs when the woman accepts the money, contract or sexual relations offered by the prospective husband. The word “kiddushin” comes from the root Qof-Dalet-Shin, meaning “sanctified.” It reflects the sanctity of the marital relation. However, the root word also connotes something that is set aside for a specific (sacred) purpose, and the ritual of kiddushin sets aside the woman to be the wife of a particular man and no other.
Kiddushin is far more binding than an engagement as we understand the term in modern America; in fact, Maimonides speaks of a period of engagement before the kiddushin. Once kiddushin is complete, the woman is legally the wife of the man. The relationship created by kiddushin can only be dissolved by death or divorce. However, the spouses do not live together at that time, and the mutual obligations created by the marital relationship do not take effect until the nisuin is complete.
The nisuin (from a word meaning “elevation”) completes the process of marriage. The husband brings the wife into his home and they begin their married life together.
In the past, the kiddushin and nisuin would routinely occur as much as a year apart. During that time, the husband would prepare a home for the new family. There was always a risk that during this long period of separation, the woman would discover that she wanted to marry another man, or the man would disappear, leaving the woman in the awkward state of being married but without a husband. Today, the two ceremonies are normally performed together.
Because marriage under Jewish law is essentially a private contractual agreement between a man and a woman, it does not require the presence of a rabbi or any other religious official. It is common, however, for rabbis to officiate, partly in imitation of the Christian practice and partly because the presence of a religious or civil official is required under American civil law.
As you can see, it is very easy to make a marriage, so the rabbis instituted severe punishments (usually flogging and compelled divorce) where marriage was undertaken without proper planning and solemnity.”
According to this, sexual relations is a mode of entering kiddushin, so living apart and not otherwise engaging the marriage obligations during the kiddushin appear to be something other than sexual abstinence.
Hi John,
As Joe and I have discussed above, though, “betrothal by sex” is kind of a question of its own, and was in any event condemned by the time of Christ. It’s technically permitted, basically as a retroactive stop-gap: we don’t see Isaac engaged to Rebecca before their physical union, for instance, so there has to be some route there – but that doesn’t seem to be the procedure under discussion here.
Irked,
Kiddushin 3.12 says that “Wherever there is [a valid] betrothal and no sin, the child follows the male.” I’m not sure that there’s a way to read that anyway other than as an acknowledgement that one can have children during the “betrothal” period without sin.
Or consider the legal dispute in Kiddushin 51a:
“With regard to betrothal that is not given to consummation, Abaye says it is betrothal, since the prohibition against engaging in sexual intercourse does not affect the betrothal itself. Rava says: It is not betrothal. Rava says: The Sage bar Ahina explained to me that this halakha is derived from the verse: ‘When a man takes a woman and engages in sexual intercourse with her’ (Deuteronomy 24:1), as it indicates that betrothal that is given to permitted consummation is betrothal, whereas betrothal that is not given to consummation is not betrothal.”
So the question here isn’t about whether sexual relations are possible within betrothal, but whether it’s possible to have the betrothal without it.
Furthermore, even though they’re separate questions, would you agree that since you could legally “betroth” via sexual relations, that it therefore follows that sexual relations were permitted in the betrothal period? Because the Talmudic Mishnah on Kiddushin literally opens by declaring, “A woman is acquired in three ways, and she acquires herself in two ways. She is acquired through money, through a document, or through sexual intercourse..” It goes on to specify that this is the only way to enter kiddushin with a yevamah (a woman whose is marrying the brother of her dead husband).
At the end of Kiddushin 9b, there’s a lengthy debate over how it’s even possible for there to be a “betrothed virgin” (Deut. 22:23), since a woman who was betrothed wouldn’t still be a virgin. Rabbi Abba bar Memel puts the paradox this way: “If this is referring to a case where he betrothed her with money and then engaged in sexual intercourse with her, she is a non-virgin, and the punishment of stoning applies only to one who engages in intercourse with a betrothed young virgin. If it is referring to a case where he betrothed her with money and did not engage in intercourse with her, this is nothing, as the betrothal has not been completed.” So sexual intercourse wasn’t just permitted, it was literally necessary in this view. The other rabbis don’t disagree so much as try to come up with ways of imagining what a “betrothed virgin” might be (some of which are truly bizarre).
The Gemara asks: “And according to the opinion of Rava, who said: Bar Ahina explained this to me by citing a proof from the following verse: “When a man takes a woman and engages in sexual intercourse with her” (Deuteronomy 24:1), which teaches that betrothal that is given to consummation, i.e., betrothal when it is permitted for the man and woman to engage in intercourse, is a betrothal, but betrothal that is not given to consummation is not a valid betrothal, what is there to say? Since he uses this verse for a different purpose, from where does Rava derive that a woman can be betrothed through intercourse and that a Hebrew maidservant cannot be acquired in this manner?”
Hi Joe,
Sorry to leave you hanging here – we were travelling for a couple of days, and then I decided to wait to hear the podcast. (You folks did a good job!)
It seems to me that a lot of your argument draws from Catholic scholar John McHugh, or at least parallels his heavily; for full disclosure, a chunk of my response is based on rebuttals to McHugh in, for instance, Svendsen’s Who Is My Mother?.
In any event, I really appreciate you digging a bit further for some original sources, and that does answer my question nicely – thank you! Given that we’re both citing the Talmud for portions of our response, I’m inclined now to agree with your original statement: there is disagreement among the Jews of antiquity as to exactly what’s permitted. Raymond Brown et al., in Mary in the New Testament, point to exactly the same Talmudic sources you do – but then provide a couple of clarifying notes:
1) There’s some evidence that the tradition of “sex between the rituals” may have arisen after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, as a way of protecting Jewish girls from Roman soldiers (who might otherwise swoop down on a nisuin ceremony confident of abducting a virgin). I feel a certain amount of irony writing this: it seems like my response was, “Well, this is what’s true in the 500s,” and yours was, “But that’s a change from earlier in the 300s,” and my response is now, “But that’s a change from even earlier in the first century.”
2) Galilee in particular is noted in multiple sources as having an extremely conservative view of sex; according to some sources I read, the Galileeans alone refused the traditional rite of the “bloody sheet” on the wedding day. As Brown et al. note, whatever the tradition elsewhere in Judea may have been, in Galilee – in Nazareth! – it would have been impermissible. (McHugh also seems to report this view.)
I say all that to say: the weight of the evidence suggests that it would be considered proper for Mary and Joseph to not have sex post-erusin, and indeed it seems likely it would have been considered somewhere between a scandal and a moral crime for them to do otherwise. There is, in other words, nothing peculiar either in their abstinence or in the view that a mid-erusin pregnancy would have been thought scandalous.
It seems to me that the natural read of 1:18, then, is that the couple are living in the contemporaneously acceptable way, “before they came together” sexually as in the ordinary course of marriage. Any argument to the contrary must show that this default isn’t in force here.
***
With that said, I’m happy to turn to your biblical arguments. I’ll admit to some confusion regarding some of them; for instance, you say,
If Jesus was conceived out of wedlock, he would have been unable to enter the Temple (Deut. 23:2 is quite clear that “no bastard shall enter the assembly of the Lord”… Jesus freely goes into the Temple as an infant, and as a child, and as an adult, but this was forbidden to a bastard (Deut. 23:2).
You seem here to be referencing the category of illegitimate children called mamzerim, to whom this passage was applied. But to be mamzer is to have a specific kind of illegitimacy, and the child of an unmarried woman and a man she could marry was not considered a mamzer. (Wikipedia provides an easy summary here, though I can reach further if you’d like.) Even if Mary and Joseph were considered to have done something shameful, their son would not thereby be blocked from the temple. Can you unpack the reasoning of this argument further?
We come then to Joseph, of whom Matthew says, “Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.” As Craig notes, Jerome seems to be in a minority of the fathers on this point; Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Augustine, among others, appear to agree with the Protestant reading of the verse. I’ll let Augustine speak for the others here:
“Joseph, “being a just man,” with great mercy spared his wife, in this great crime of which he suspected her. The seeming certainty of her unchastity tormented him, and yet because he alone knew of it, he was willing not to publish it, but to send her away privily; seeking rather the benefit than the punishment of the sinner.”
Indeed, the passage seems eminently sensible under that read: when a man’s betrothed is suddenly, inexplicably pregnant… is it peculiar that he might be afraid to complete his marriage with her? Is that reaction not immediately understandable? You seem to read the Protestant as assuming the two don’t talk, but I don’t think that’s necessary; all that’s really needed is that Joseph isn’t convinced that “No, really, God did this” is the truth.
So I don’t see any necessity here to present ideas of holy terror, or of Mary as the Ark of the Covenant – ideas Scripture simply never introduces into the narrative. The story makes perfect sense just on the facts Matthew actually provides, without inventing new motivations; shouldn’t we default to an explanation in terms of what’s actually said?
Indeed, I don’t understand how the angel’s message makes sense in your reading. Joseph is, per your argument, afraid to take Mary as his wife because he believes her pregnancy is from God. And the angel’s message is: “Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife – don’t worry, because her pregnancy is from God.” Wouldn’t Joseph reply, “Well, yeah, that’s the problem?”
On the contrary, if he’s afraid that his wife is unfaithful, or a liar, or crazy, or some combination of all three, this reassurance makes perfect sense: “Don’t worry. She’s telling the truth.”
You note that Protestants fixate on “until,” saying,
The inspired author are simply using “until” language to demark an important period of time.
But your examples all feature the Greek word heos alone; as Svendsen argues at length, the particular phrase heos hou that Matthew uses is consistently used – in the New Testament and literature for a hundred years on either side – to indicate either “X while Y” or “X happened until Y, and then X stopped.” As the “while” sense is meaningless here (“He did not consummate their marriage while she gave birth”), the latter reading is the only one that fits with any contemporaneous material.
Which, again, fits with what should be our default assumption of a healthy marriage, lacking explicit evidence to the contrary. It fits with the Jewish understanding that wife and husband owed a conjugal debt to each other; it fits with Paul’s echoing of that conjugal debt in 1 Corinthians 7. It fits further with the most natural, default interpretation of the repeated uses of adelphos (typically, “brother”) throughout the New Testament to describe the siblings of Christ.
Even if we had none of the heos hou or adelphos references, our default assumption should be that Mary and Joseph consummated their marriage in the ordinary way. What compelling reason does Scripture present to not read the passage in this fashion?
Irked,
I’m not butting in but to say that a check of Raymond Brown (Wikipedia) suggests that his ‘historical-critical’ perspectives are not held in high regard within much of orthodox Catholicism. His speculations, often aligning with heterodox views, are of course fodder for refuting an orthodox argument, but that does not cook up into a nutritious or satisfying meal. I for one would not touch his food with anything but a very long fork for a very starved mind.
Best of the new year to you and yours.
Hi Margo,
I appreciate the note, and yes, I’m aware – I wouldn’t appeal to Brown for a question of a primarily theological nature, for instance. But “What actually were the Jewish marital practices of the first century?” is basically a historical question – he certainly could be wrong about it, but having bad theology doesn’t automatically invalidate his scholarship in that area. (To minimize this burden, I also noted that McHugh seems to agree with at least some of his historical claims.)
Again, this is not an area in which I have real expertise; if there’s scholarly refutation on this particular question, I’m open to that. I don’t think we can meaningfully restrict historical arguments to only orthodox Catholic sources, though, any more than we could to traditional Protestant ones.
Joe appears to have answered your objection. The problem with Brown’s scholarship is its historical-form-critical approach. Because Brown simply does not have authentic historical sources, he speculates. I do not argue that Brown speaks theologically. I argue that Brown speculates about history. And that speculation is suspect from orthodox (truth) standards.
A scholar explains:
“Underlying Brown’s conclusion that Matthew’s Infancy Narrative was created imaginatively by Christians from parallel stories about Moses in the Jewish Midrash tradition there appears to be, among other things, an error of anachronism. Brown, to be sure, is aware that, according to the historical evidence, “most” of these Jewish stories cannot be dated prior to the 80s, the time when he supposes that Matthew’s Gospel was published, but he is unaware that all of these Jewish stories appear to have been fashioned after the time when the episodes in Matthew 1-2 could already have been in circulation. The curious fact is that Brown, while he likes to examine all of the historical possibilities behind an episode, completely overlooks the idea that the Jewish stories may have been created imaginatively from the parallel accounts now recorded in the Gospels. And this kind of oversight is typical of form-critics. As I indicated in a previous article12, the episodes in Matt 1-2 were known by the Virgin Mary from the time that they took place, and she could easily have recounted these events to Matthew the Apostle as early as the gatherings in the Upper Room before the first Pentecost or at any time thereafter. Josephus wrote down the Jewish stories about the birth of Moses around the year 90 A.D., which would be up to sixty years after the time when some Christians and also some non-Christian Jews could have known the episodes that Matthew has recorded. Brown goes along with Bultmann, Dibelius, and a host of other non-Catholic form-critical scholars, in believing that “no one of the four evangelists was an eyewitness of the ministry of Jesus,” and that the Gospel of Matthew was composed by someone else in or near the 80s.13 Form-critics readily grant that a complex tradition of imaginative Christian stories could have developed in less than sixty years, but they take no account of the same possibility for the Jewish tradition that Brown is citing here. Yet some Jews had a motive for creating these stories. We know from the Acts of the Apostles that a heated debate between Christians and Jews over the facts about Jesus took place beginning from the time of the Resurrection of Jesus, and this debate could have motivated some creative persons to counteract the true accounts of the Infancy of Jesus with parallel stories about the birth of Moses. In fact, form-critics do assume that the stories in the Jewish Midrash tradition were invented, but their method prevents them from realistically considering the hypothesis that the Jewish stories were based upon the Christian tradition.
200. Overlooking rationalist and modernist presuppositions. Let us take a serious look at Brown’s manner of reasoning. He begins from a theory of interpretation put together by rationalists who do not accept the possibility of any supernatural happenings in history and who, therefore, relegate all reports of such happenings to the realm of fantasy. He begins from a method elaborated by modernists which assumes in advance that what is reported in the New Testament is merely the imaginary product of a sub-rational religious instinct. Brown, as a Catholic exegete, does not profess the rationalism and the modernism from which form-criticism arose, but neither does he deal adequately with the way in which these false philosophies influence the method that he is using. His conclusion that the episodes recounted in Matthew’s Infancy Narrative are imaginative adaptations of earlier Jewish stories is basically the same as the conclusion of Bultmann, Dibelius, and other rationalist scholars, and he admits that his conclusion follows from their method, but he assumes as a Catholic scholar that his method does not proceed from their rationalist presuppositions. Brown does present somewhat different evidence than they do for his similar conclusion. He bases his arguments more upon an error of anachronism, but the result is the same, because it is presupposed by the method. If one takes away the modernist presupposition that the Gospels are imaginative fabrications, and if one takes away the false sociological presupposition that the early Christians had an instinctive need to invent religious fantasies from earlier non-Christian stories, such as those of the pagans and of the Jews, then this whole approach of form-critical analysis falls to pieces.
201.True historians do not assume in advance what could have taken place and what could not have taken place, using rationalism as the basis of their judgments. Rather they use the instruments of their profession to determine what did take place, and, if what took place was miraculous, they accept it as miraculous. Catholic form-critics do not deny categorically that miracles could have taken place, but their method tempts them to deny miracles wherever Catholic dogma does not forbid, and always to retain a measure of doubt regarding the rest. True historians do not, like form-critics, deny that Jesus was born in Bethlehem on the basis of an unproved assumption that Jesus must have been born in Nazareth. When true historians read a sober account like that of Matthew’s Gospel, they do not assume, using weak plausibilities to justify their assumption, that he made up events to smooth out his story; they need historical evidence which, in fact, is not there. A fundamental mistake that Catholic form-critics almost universally tend to make is that they do not attempt to show concretely and with respect to the particular passages that they are analyzing how their conclusions as Catholic form-critics do not carry with them the rationalist presuppositions of the method. If the first two chapters of Matthew are adjudged to present a complex of imaginative stories, what does this judgment do to Christian faith? How can a Catholic accept that these episodes regarding the early childhood of Jesus are imaginary, and that Christians could blithely fabricate such accounts as though they were true without being liars and deceivers? Catholic form-critics like Father Raymond Brown do not say that the composers of these stories were liars and deceivers, but neither do they squarely face the implications of their conclusions and provide adequate answers.”
http://www.rtforum.org/study/lesson26.html
Hi Margo,
Sure, I’m familiar with the problems of radical form criticism. But, as your citation notes, the historical-critical method is a mode of investigating texts – of trying to suss out their history through speculation. I’m not a big fan of speculation ungrounded from the text; indeed, that’s part of my objection to interpreting Matthew 1 on the assumption that Joseph thinks of Mary as the Ark of the Covenant.
But I’m not appealing to Brown regarding the text. He can be entirely wrong in his conclusions about the origins of Matthew, and it does not invalidate his statements on the general historical situation of the time – statements that, again, are also acknowledged by John McHugh, who should be sufficiently orthodox.
Beyond this, remember that some of your sources (while accurate) are describing a post-Christian development in Jewish wedding practices. Rabbinical Judaism as we know it doesn’t exist at the time of Christ. It’s a later development, especially after the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. With that come particular doctrinal changes and shifts in Jewish praxis, including here. That’s not just a Christian claim – Jewish sources recognize that there’s a shift with the third century A.D. rabbi Rav (Abba Arika, 175–247 A.D.). The Jewish website Chabad notes that the kiddushin can be contracted either through money (kessef), contract (she’tar), or:
“3. Intercourse (bi’ah). After the man has addressed the marriage formula to the woman before two witnesses, the couple retires to a private place with the intent of effecting the betrothal through intercourse. The Sages considered this to be gross, virtually an act of prostitution, and in the third century Rav decreed flogging for those who chose this manner of betrothal. Nonetheless, if the marriage was performed in this way it was legally valid.
“Only kessef is performed today; both intercourse and contract as forms of betrothal are obsolete.”
So note that even with the rabbinical push against sex as a means of contracting kiddushin is the third century A.D., it nevertheless remained legal. Two centuries prior to Rav, the sexual norms weren’t the same. Dr. Lynn Cohick, associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College (and author of Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life) documents this. She’s quoted in a Christianity Today on the question of Mary and Joseph directly:
“Mary was betrothed to Joseph, which was a legally binding arrangement in the Jewish culture. All that awaited the couple was the wedding. If they engaged in sexual intercourse with each other, that was not seen as a violation of any cultural norm. Later rabbinic writings allowed that a future groom who had sexual relations with his bride-to-be at her father’s house was not guilty of immoral behavior.”
Beyond this, there’s all the Scriptural evidence that I mentioned in my earlier comment, to which you haven’t responded. Basically, I think that both of us are right in that (1) sex during the betrothal was allowed (and was a means of performing the ceremony), and (2) sex during the betrothal is not currently allowed.
I.X.,
Joe
Regarding the relationship of ancient Jewish betrothal and it’s relevance to Christianity, there is an interesting quote from a website devoted to the subject of ancient Jewish marriage ( “Jewish Jewels .org”) regarding the Eucharist and marriage:
“When we partake of that cup at the Lord’s Seder (Communion) we remember our Heavenly Bridegroom, the mohar paid for us, and our covenantal relationship with Yeshua. Just as two cups of wine were used as part of the ancient Jewish wedding, (the second at the actual hometaking of the bride), Messiah’s bride will one day soon drink a cup with Yeshua in person at the second part of our marriage ceremony. Yeshua mentioned this cup in Matthew 26:29 when He said: “I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.” Until that day, we have the communion cup to remind us of our covenant with our Heavenly Bridegroom. We are to remember His love more than wine . . . (Song of Songs 1:4). It is more precious than anything else this world has to offer.”
The site is Christian, and not Catholic, but still has some very interesting Jewish history and content to consider regarding ancient Jewish marriage traditions:
http://www.jewishjewels.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Ancient_Jewish_Wedding.pdf

This is beautiful.
Thank you
I love this post. But I’m confused on the part about Joseph not wanting to put Mary to shame, so he decides to quietly divorce her. Wouldn’t the contrast here be with a public divorce, vs. a private divorce? And doesn’t that mean that a public divorce would indeed put her to shame? If the whole thing, as Joe says, is that it’s okay to get pregnant while betrothed, then what would be more shameful about a public divorce vs. being put away quietly? What would everyone assume to be the reason for the divorce?
Wouldn’t the public perception of the reason for divorce of a pregnant women be infidelity, especially when Joseph knows he’s not the father?
Yeah, I guess what I mean is, wouldn’t a quiet divorce still be putting her to shame? If he really did believe her, and he didn’t want to put her to shame either through a public or private divorce, then wouldn’t he have chosen to stay married regardless of the angel’s visit?
Knowing he wasn’t the father and the implausibility of a supernatural explanation (before the corroboration by an angel), I expect Joseph was torn by love, justice and the demands of the law (potential stoning).
If I may, the way the Greek phrases what Joseph was considering is closer to “secretly send her away”. I think you are correct that any kind of divorce would be shaming to a woman, since she would have been seen as displeasing her husband. Sending her away, say, to her cousin’s house in Judah? Not a divorce, just a separation.
Thank you for causing me to examine 2 Samuel 6 closely! I do see the angelic message to Joseph “son of David” in Matthew 1:20 as referring to 2 Samuel 6:9-10, where David is afraid of the Lord and decides not to take the Ark to himself, but leaves it in the house of Obed-edom for three months (until he learns of the blessings of the Lord on the house of Obed-edom!) Joseph is afraid to take his wife Mary to himself because that which is conceived in her from the Spirit is Holy (this is the significance of the word “estin” coming between Pneumatos” and “Hagiou”, right?). And I think it is interesting, if not significant (?), that both the pericopes end with a phrase using the Greek “heos” [“until”]– 2 Samuel 6:23 says “And Michal the daughter of Saul birthed no child until the day of her death.” Matthew 1:25 says “And he did not know her until she brought forth a son, and he called his name Jesus.” Also, the phrase “called his name”, which shows up three times in the Matthew pericope, might be an additional reference to 2 Samuel 6, which uses the Name [“Shem” in Hebrew] three times (not in the Septuagint, though). (Jewish people were forever counting words, as, there are 365 words in the story of Noah’s ark, or so I’ve been told.) I don’t doubt Matthew knew both Greek and Hebrew.
“Protestants typically gloss over all of this, because they’re fixated on one word: why does Matthew say that Joseph “knew her not until she had borne a son”
Protestants typically gloss over such as this because they have better things to do than speculate upon Joseph’s state of mind or revelation at any given point. Such debates no doubt amused generations of cloistered pinhead-surveyors and angel-counters, while the lepers wandered by and the poor lay at their gates.
Why do you think the Gospels tell us so little of Christ’s early life? The authors could easily have asked Mary or Christ’s brothers, or the neighbours or whoever, but they didn’t, save for the story of Him being found in the Temple amazing the scholars with his learning at about age 12.
Could it be that they were not led to do so by the Spirit?
“Knew you not that I must be about my Father’s business?”
Who would not wonder as the years passed by in apparent (so far as we know) normalcy, about such amazing visitations or visions? “Did we dream it all?”, they might have wondered at times? “She treasured all these things in her heart”. No doubt she did, and we know that much of these matters could only have been learned from Mary, other of course than by Divine Revelation.
There is no indication that having found their son, the Messiah among the elders and sages, the light as it were immediately went on in their heads, and they thought, “Ah yes, of course, He is the Messiah!”
No, apparently their reaction was much more typical of what worried parents might say. Blessed indeed, but only human after all.
And after that comfortable little diversion….”Now returning you to the works of God already in progress”
Seriously James? You think that Mary and Joseph, knowing of Jesus’ miraculous conception, had no idea that He was the Messiah, the Son of God, or even anything special at all, until presumably when He started to tell everyone about it at age 30?
I’ve read your article before but I am back, looking for sources. For the wonderful quote from St. Jerome about calling St. Joseph “just”, you link to a source from St. Thomas Aquinas at Lectionary Central (http://www.lectionarycentral.com/christmas1/CatenaAurea.html). This is great except that there are no sources for that discussion. Can you point me in the right direction for the original St. Jerome quote?
Joe,
So what you are saying is the shame would be a public divorce vs. a private/discreet one?