Mary in the Bible and Apocrypha.

1. NT canon: selection criteria.

2. Mary in the Bible.3. Mary in the Infancy

Gospel of James.4. Marian Feasts and

other traditions.

NT canon: informal selection criteria

1. Use in public worship & teaching.

2. Orthodoxy = agreement with the apostolic tradition and rule of faith).

3. Apostolicity = attributed to apostles or ‘apostolic men’.

4. Antiquity =belong to the ‘apostolic age’.

Infancy of Mary

• Written ca. 150 in Syria (?)

• Apocryphal gospel. Ascribed to James, the brother of the Lord

• Immensely popular: feasts

The earliest archeological link to Jesus or a fake?

• Ossuary (burial box) allegedly belonging to the apostle James, “the brother of the Lord”

• Inscription: “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”• Date: 63 AD.

Do you recognize this scene?

Mary’s Nativity.

• Feast Day: Sept 08.

What’s this?

Presentation of Mary in the Temple

Feast Day: November 21.

Dormition/ Assumption

• Feast Day: August 15.

• Additionally, the Feast of Mary’s Immaculate Conception is December 8

Salome’s (in)famous test

1. What is the point of this miracle?

Alternative account of Jesus’ birth, according to a certain Syrian Jew:

“When she [Mary] became pregnant she was turned out of doors by the carpenter to whom she had been betrothed, as having been guilty of adultery…She [Mary] bore a child to a certain soldier named Panthera."

--Origen, Against Celsus 1.32.

OT trial by ordeal of a suspected adulteress

• If ‘a spirit of jealousy’ comes upon a husband, he needs to bring an offering to a priest

• The priest mixes the dust on the floor of the tabernacle in the holy water

• The priest makes a suspected woman take an oath• The priest utters curses and puts them in writing• The priest makes the woman to drink the water mixed with

dust• If the woman is not guilty, she will be able to conceive, if

she is guilty, she will have a discharge.– Numbers 5: 11-28.

Seminar Q’s: Infancy Gospel of James.1. What do we learn about Mary’s parents and her childhood? 2. What details does this account borrow from the NT gospels of

Matthew, chap. 1-2 and Luke, chap. 1-2? 3. How does this apocryphal gospel elaborate the stories found in

the canonical gospels? In your opinion, what were the reasons for these additions?

4. What popular beliefs about Mary are based upon these additions?

5. In your judgment, what could be the rationale for not including this gospel into the canon of the New Testament?