Betrothal of Mary

(Gospel of the Birth of Mary 5:1 - 6:7)
As the Virgin of Jehovah grew older, she developed in character and virtue.  She was, as the author of the Psalms wrote, abandoned by her mother and father, but taken care of by Jehovah -- for every day she communed with the divine and was visited by emissaries from God who protected her from a variety of evil influences and filled her with goodness. 

By the time she had reached her 14th year no evil-minded person could find anything to say against her and every good person who was acquainted with her spoke highly of her character and her company.  The high priest of the temple publicly declared that all young women who were wards of the temple and who had arrived at this age should return to their homes and since they were now sufficiently mature, they should seek to marry, in accordance with the custom of the country.  All the maidens residing the temple expressed a willingness to obey the order, but, alone among them, Mary, the Virgin of Jehovah, responded that she would not comply with such an command.  She presented these two arguments, that she and her parents had dedicated her to the service of Jehovah and, furthermore, she herself had sworn to Jehovah that she would remain a virgin, a vow she was determined never to break by having sexual relations with a man.

The high priest was thus placed in a quandary.  He could not have her break a vow to Jehovah, a transgression of scriptural law that demands one must keep a vow.  On the other hand, he was loathed to introduce a custom that was alien to his people.  To help him handle such a difficult case, he decided that at an upcoming feast he would seek the council of several prominent religious leaders who were coming from Jerusalem and the surrounding area.

When these leaders were assembled, they unanimously decided to seek an oracle from Jehovah.  While they were all absorbed in prayer, the high priest, in the accepted manner, consulted Jehovah.  From the Judgment Seat, the cover of the Chest of Sacred Records, there immediately sounded a voice that was heard by all.  It told them that they should refer to the Prophet Isaiah to determine to whom the Virgin should be betrothed.  (Isaiah had declared, "there will appear from the stock of Jesse a staff, and a flower will bloom from its root.  The spirit of Jehovah will reside within him and he will be filled with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, judgment and authority, knowledge and piety, and reverence for the divine.")

Following the prophecy, the high priest decreed that all men of the tribe of David who were marriageable but not yet betrothed should each bring their staffs to the altar.  If, after their staffs were presented, any of them should bud with a flower and on top of it should sit, manifested as a dove, the spirit of Jehovah, then the one to whom that staff belonged would be the man to whom the Virgin should be given and betrothed.

Among those that appeared from the tribe of David there was of his family a man named Joseph.  Because he was of advanced years he held on to his staff when everyone else presented theirs.

When nothing drew a favorable response from the divine oracle, the high priest deemed it proper to consult Jehovah again.  The reply was that the Virgin was to be betrothed to the one man of those assembled who had not presented his staff.

Joseph was thus found out.  And so when he presented his staff a dove flew down from the sky and perched upon the top of it.  As this was witnessed by all there, it was evident that he was the one to whom the Virgin should be betrothed.

After the customary betrothal ceremonies were over, Joseph returned to his hometown of Bethlehem to ready his house and make all the necessary arrangements for the wedding.

Mary, the Virgin of Jehovah, returned to her parent's home in Galilee along with seven other virgins appointed by the priest to attend her.  These were all maidens her own age who had been weaned at the same time as she had.

Notes
1. Mary, during her childhood and youth, had regular if not constant communication with Jehovah's emissaries.  One wonders what the nature of these contacts might have been.  Did these supposedly divine representatives manifest themselves as normal looking men, as luminous beings, as disembodied voices, or as presences with whom she communed telepathically? 

2. The divine emissaries  guarded and protected her, but from what, in the cloistered environment of the temple?  They enlightened her and nurtured in her proper, pious values.  She became a good girl.  But while goodness itself may flower in a desert, it is hard to see how the character can be developed without life experiences.  Goodness may rightly eschew the evils one has never been exposed to, but character can only be formed by an acquaintance with evil and a rejection of it, by making correct choices, resisting temptation, even by making mistakes and learning from them.  Mary seemed to have been sheltered entirely from real life, with an innocence derived from ignorance. 

3. In Exodus the Judgment Seat, the cover to the Chest of Sacred Records (often called the Ark of the Covenant) is described as being the place upon which Jehovah sits to make pronouncements, pass judgments, and perform as an oracle.  It was never made clear if Jehovah physically assumed his seat as a man would, if he materialized upon the seat, hovered in a cloud above it, or merely used it as a speaker for his disembodied voice.  More than a thousand years later, we read of the Jehovan priests consulting their god in this traditional manner, here at what would have been the Temple built (or, more accurately, remodeled) by King Herod.  The procedure of consultation is different from the Greek oracles such as that of Delphi, but the idea behind it is the same.  At Delphi the entranced priestess was possessed by the god Apollo and made utterances that required interpretation.  Jehovah, a very straight forward sort of god, answers directly in a voice everyone can hear with words that are unambiguous.  There is no record of anyone seeing anything, so one assumes the voice of Jehovah is disembodied.

4. One would think that the number of marriageable men, even restricted to those of the tribe of David, would comprise a huge assembly, many thousands at least, but the impression given is that we are talking about several dozen or a few score men that bring their staffs to the Temple.

5. One assumes the staffs were much like shepherds crooks, but used as walking sticks and customarily carried by most men, that is, most men would have one that they could present.  The word “rod” is often used here, but would be misleading.  Rods were carried by shepherds along with their crooks to be used as clubs.  It’s unlikely that that is what is referred to here.  Obviously reference in the prophecy of Isaiah to budding flowers, roots, and rods (branches or stems) is symbolic, but the priests seem to take it as being literal. We find that all through history biblical passages meant to be metaphoric are interpreted literally (and vice versa).

6. Joseph is described as being a man of advanced years.  It seems odd the old codger, who pointedly did not want to be considered as a potential husband, was regarded as an eligible bachelor and obliged to attend the ceremony of the staffs.  He himself felt he shouldn't be there and refused to present his staff for consideration.  But, for some reason, he was the chosen one of Jehovah.  This incident conforms to the recurring biblical theme of the unlikely/unwilling/aged parent.  The birth of every significant person must seem miraculous, or at least unusual.  This is true of many ancient and medieval personages who are not necessarily connected with religion.

7. A dove lights atop of Joseph's staff, but the prophecy also stipulates that a flower should bud from the end of it.  This is not reported to have happened.  But apparently the dove was sufficiently convincing.  Jehovah was not unlike the Greek gods in his habit of turning himself into an animal once in a while, although he seemed to have preferred manifesting himself as a dove.  The whiteness of the dove has always suggested purity and its docility, benevolence, but it would certainly not convey the power one associates with a god.  A hawk or an eagle would seem a better choice, but, in the present instance, one cannot quarrel with the suitability of a dove.

8. It is established that Mary is from Galilee and that Joseph is a Judean from Bethlehem.  It is important for the story to have Jesus born in Bethlehem in order to conform to Old Testament prophecy assumed to refer to the Messiah.