Joachim and Anna

(Gospel of the Birth of Mary 1:1-1:12)

The Virgin Mary, glorious and blessed, was born in Nazareth of royal lineage and descended from the tribe of King David.  She was educated in Jerusalem at the Temple of Jehovah.  Her father's name was Joachim, whose family was from the city of Nazareth in Galilee, while her mother's name was Anna, who was from Bethlehem. 

Her parents lived simply, righteous in the eyes of God and unfailingly pious in the eyes of men.  Their income they divided into three parts: one third they contributed to the Temple and its priests, one third they donated to the poor and to needy strangers, and the last third they kept for their personal needs and that of their family.  In this way, chastely and without children, they lived for about 20 years with the favor of God and the respect of men.  However, they resolved that if God should grant them any children, they would devote themselves to serve the divine.  Because of this, they celebrated every feast in the religious calendar at the Temple.

At a time when the feast of dedication was near, Joachim and others of his tribe traveled to Jerusalem.  Isachar, who his high priest at that time, noticed Joachim and his neighbors and the offerings they were bringing.  But Isachar looked down on Joachim and rejected his offerings.  He challenged him, "Why do you, who have no children, have the gall to appear here with those that do?  Your offerings will never be accepted by Jehovah, who has judged you unworthy to have children.  For the  Scripture says, 'Cursed will be any of Israel who does not father a male child.'"  (He added that Joachim could remove the curse by having children and that then he would be welcome to come with offerings for Jehovah.)

Overwhelmed by the shame of this rebuke, Joachim spent some time among the cowherds tending their herds in the pasture, for he was loathed to return home in case his neighbors, who were present when the high priest scolded him, might publicly rebuke him in the same way.

Notes
1. The parents of Mary, Joachim and Mary are presented here as moral exemplars, a dutiful, righteous, godly couple.  One wonders, though, to what extend the gospel writer might have had knowledge of them and their characters.  Mary, of course, was still alive at the time of the Crucifixion and could have furnished information, but all the gospels were written a generation or so after the Crucifixion (and this particular gospel, perhaps centuries after.)  We, though, have no way of knowing the date of written source material upon which the gospels were based.

2.  If Joachim was from Nazareth in Galilee and his wife Anna was from Bethlehem in Judea, how did they happen to meet and marry?  One would have thought it would be unusual for a man, except one of high station, to wed someone living outside his home locality.

3.  The high priest Isachar, in rebuking Joachim for being childless, voices the long-standing Jewish emphasis on procreation as a social and religious virtue.  Having children is valued and honored in most societies, save those that are threatened by too much population growth.  Also, the preference for a male child is made clear.  Only a male can perpetuate the family, continue the paternal line.  It is a view held by many societies that not to have a son is to allow the family to die.  A man without a son dishonors his people, his tribe, his nation.  So it is that Isachar comes down hard on Joachim.  (It is interesting that Joachim's grandson Jesus would not marry or have children -- if the accepted gospels are accurate.)

4.  Joachim is not only humiliated and shamed by the dressing down he got from the high priest, but he is afraid that the people in his own community, who formerly held him in such high regard, will turn against him because.  One can imagine there was probably a loss of self-esteem as well, and he may have started believing his condition of childlessness was due to divine disapproval, as Isachar had suggested.