Scot McKnight - The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus

The Real Mary

The Real Mary

WHY EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS
CAN EMBRACE THE MOTHER OF JESUS

SCOT MCKNIGHT

PARACLETE PRESS

BREWSTER, MASSACHUSETTS

The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus

2007 First Printing

Copyright 2007 by Scot McKnight

ISBN 10: 1-55725-523-7

ISBN 13: 978-1-55725-523-5

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, Todays New International Version TNIV Copyright 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society.

All rights reserved worldwide.

Excerpt from Journey of the Magi in COLLECTED POEMS 1909-1962 by T.S. Eliot, copyright 1936 by Harcourt, Inc., and renewed 1964 by T.S. Eliot, reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging -in- Publication

McKnight, Scot.

The real Mary : why Evangelical Christians can embrace the Mother of Jesus

/ by Scot McKnight.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-55725-523-5

1. Mary, Blessed Virgin, SaintTheology. 2. Bible. N.T. GospelsCriticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title.

BT613.M43 2007

232.91dc22

2006029126

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in an electronic retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published by Paraclete Press

Brewster, Massachusetts

www.paracletepress.com

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Forgive us, gentle maiden, if we learnt to give you

Less respect than heaven would have wished;

For we fell in love with the Son of your great love,

So as not to venerate you more than Him.

from Wales and the Virgin Mary

JOHN GWILI JENKINS

were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.

from The Journey of the Magi

T.S. ELIOT

Why are youa Protestantwriting a book about Mary? Ive been asked this question many times. In fact, one person asked me the following question: Wasnt Mary a Roman Catholic? (No kidding.)

Why write a book for Protestants about Mary? Heres why:

Because the story about the real Mary has never been told. The Mary of the Bible has been hijacked by theological controversies whereby she has become a Rorschach inkblot in which theologians find whatever they wish to find. In the midst of this controversy, the real Mary has been left behind. It is time to let her story be told again. Over the past ten years I have read shelves of books and articles about Mary, and I have discovered that almost no one is interested in what the real Mary was like in her day. The Real Mary attempts to fill in that gap and underscore the real Mary.

Why a book about Mary?

Because while Marys story is that of an ordinary woman, it also the story of a woman with an extraordinary vocation (being mother to the Messiah) who learned to follow this Messiah Jesus through the ordinary struggles that humans face. In this sense, Mary represents each of usboth you and mein our call to follow Jesus.

Why a book about Mary?

Because for years the view of Mary in the Church has been made unreal. Mary has become for many little more than a compliant resting womb for God, and she has become a stereotype of passivity in the face of challenge, of self-sacrifice at the expense of ones soul care, and of quietude to the point of hiding in the shadows of others. Nora O. Lozana-Diaz, a professor at the Hispanic Baptist Theological College, traces the influence of what she calls marianismo on Latin culture and claims this false view of Mary (marianismo) oppresses women instead of challenging them to live with courage before Godas Mary herself did! If a false view damages all of us, a more accurate view can encourage all of us, women and men.

Why write a book about Mary?

Because she was the mother of Jesus, and being the mother of Jesus ought to matter to each of us.

Because the Magnificat, her song in Lukes first chapter, is the Magna Carta of early Christian songs and a mosaic of what God would do when Jesus, the Messiah, came: My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. And these are just the opening lines of her song.

Why write a book about Mary?

Because the developments about Mary in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions have generated reaction formation. Many of us Protestants have reacted against Mary so much we have been formed now in such a way that Mary has been pushed entirely off the stage. Most of us know far more about what we dont believe about Marythat she wasnt immaculately conceived, that she had other children with Joseph and wasnt perpetually virgin, etc.than what we do believe about Mary.

Why write a book about Mary?

Because a book about Mary for evangelicals that focuses on the real Mary, so far as I know, has never been written. Other books have engaged in polemics about the immaculate conception, her perpetual virginity, devotion to Mary, and other so-called Marian dogmas. But, to my knowledge, no one has written a book about the life and character of Mary helping us develop a positive, Protestant view of Mary. Allow me to say this more forcibly: We are Protestants; we believe in the Bible; Mary is in the Bible; we need to believe what the Bible says about Mary. The Real Mary is designed to speak to our tradition.

Why write a book about Mary?

Because the Cold War between Protestants and Roman Catholics over Mary has ended. There are many reasons for this, some political, some social, some theological, and some global, but evangelical Presbyterian pastor Mark Roberts of Irvine, California, thinks at least one reason the Cold War has ended is the song Mary Did You Know? Written decades ago by Mary Lowry and now recorded by more than thirty Christian artists, this song leads us back to the kind of Marythe real Marythat Protestants can embrace.

I have one final answer to the question Why write a book about Mary?

Because the real Mary always leads us to Jesus. When we discover the real Mary, the one who lived in first-century Galilee with Joseph, who I believe nurtured other children, and who struggled at times herself, we also discover someone we can embrace because Mary embraced her son as we are called to do. When you find the real Mary of Scripture, the Mary of the first century, youll discover that shell be talking about Jesus and pointing us all to Jesus.

The first Christmas was full of surprises. Mary was a young, poor, Jewish woman from an obscure Jewish village called Nazareth when the angel Gabriel startled her. Perhaps she was sleeping and the news came in a dream; perhaps she was in a room praying all alone; perhaps she was meditating by a stream of water. Somewhere, somehow, the angel appeared and brought out from under his wings a special envelope with the heavenly news that Mary had been chosen by God to be the mother of a son.

Gabriel informed her that her son was not going to be just any son, like a Jacob or a Reuben or a Benjamin. No, her son would be the Son of the Most High, the Davidic king of Israel, the long-awaited Messiah. And even more surprising to Mary was that she would conceive miraculously: Gods powerful Spirit, that Spirit who brooded over the waters on Earths Opening Day, would brood over her and create a miracle in her womb.