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Title: Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah
Author: Brant Pitre
Copyright Date: October 30, 2018
Narrated by: Mark Deakins
Pages: 240
Audio length: 5 hours, 41 minutes
SUMMARY:
via Amazon:
Are Catholic teachings on Mary really biblical? Or are they the “traditions of men”? Should she be called the “Mother of God,” or just the mother of Jesus? Did she actually remain a virgin her whole life or do the “brothers of Jesus” refer to her other children? By praying to Mary, are Catholics worshipping her? And what does Mary have to do with the quest to understand Jesus?
In Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary, Dr. Pitre takes readers step-by-step from the Garden of Eden to the Book of Revelation to reveal how deeply biblical Catholic beliefs about Mary really are. Dr. Pitre uses the Old Testament and Ancient Judaism to unlock how the Bible itself teaches that Mary is in fact the new Eve, the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven and Earth, and the new Ark of the Covenant.
My Review:
I always enjoy it when I read something, that I thought I knew well, only to find out that someone else has a MUCH deeper understanding of the topic. Brant Pitre’s book is the best, most thorough, and most well-written defense of Catholic and Orthodox teachings regarding the Blessed Mother, that I have read in my two to three years of study on the subject. In just a few hours in an audiobook, nearly every question I have ever had on the topic of Jesus’s mother is thoroughly answered, and defended by the text of the Bible itself.
The key to understanding why Catholics and Orthodox Christians believe what they do about Mary, the Mother of Jesus, lies in the ancient Christian practice of interpreting events recorded in the New Testament through a Typological study of the Old Testament. This is familiar for most Protestants regarding Jesus. It is likely very unfamiliar to that same group as applied to His mother. Brant makes a deeply compelling argument that this is a mistake, not by arguing against Protestants overtly, but by pointing out so much Marian foreshadowing throughout the Old Testament that it becomes hard to ignore once pointed out.
Pitre goes through several of the Typological comparisons made with Jesus, and then points out the simultaneous parallels to Mary, if one is willing to see them. For example, if Jesus is the new Adam, wouldn’t you expect to see a new Eve? If Jesus is foreshadowed by Joseph, wouldn’t you expect to see Mary foreshadowed by Rachel? If Moses is a Type of Jesus, then is the Ark of the Covenant the same for Mary? If Jesus is the forever reigning Davidic King, should we expect to see (as we saw in the original Davidic Kingdom) a prominent place for the Queen Mother?
Pitre walks through all of that, citing Scripture in both the Old and New Testament, and the argument becomes overwhelming in favor of interpreting New Testament Scripture in this way. The case is thus made that Catholic and Orthodox Christians did not create veneration for Mary, or particular beliefs about her, from pagan roots, but rather that these beliefs were inherited from Judaism.
In addition to a lot of Typological discussion, the book also addresses several other points of contention regarding Mary, including her perpetual virginity, her painless childbirth, her role as a still living advocate for sinners, and the topic of whether she had other children after the birth of Jesus. Pitre again thoroughly and overwhelmingly defends the historical Christian beliefs – those still held by Catholics and Orthodox – using the Old and New Testaments, as well as the Jewish Second Temple Period pseudepigrapha, and writings from very early Church fathers. He also argues for why those beliefs should matter. There is much more in the text than you might think, if you have never actually read the text with this in mind.
There were a couple of interesting points that really stood out to me, and which I had never heard before. If we assume that Rachel is a Type of Mary, then what are those similarities? She is the beloved wife of Jacob, whose pregnancy was miraculous, and she gives birth to a prophet who saves his people. Traditionally, Rachel is viewed as an advocate with God for the people of Israel.
Jeremiah 31:15 Thus says the Lord:
“A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more.”16 Thus says the Lord:
“Keep your voice from weeping,
and your eyes from tears,
for there is a reward for your work,
declares the Lord,
and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.
17 There is hope for your future,
declares the Lord,
and your children shall come back
For context, Rachel – the symbolic mother of the children of Israel – weeps for them when they are taken into exile. This is an odd thing to say for someone who is allegedly dead. Pitre provides a lot of background on the traditional way that Rachel was viewed by Jews at the time of Jesus, such that Mary occupying a similar but greater role makes sense.
Pitre also makes a compelling case for why Jesus is recorded as referring to His mother as “woman” on multiple occasions, and the case rests in the Gospel of John’s intentional links to the Book of Genesis. The woman who became Eve did not have a name until after the Fall. Thus Christ’s referring to Mary as “woman” was an intentional action, designed to link Mary with the pre-Fallen Eve for those who read or hear the text. As early Christians were predominantly Jewish, they are likely to have made the connection.
Pitre also makes the case here that if we see Mary through Rachel, and Jesus through Joseph, then John assumes the role of Benjamin at the foot of the cross. The provides an explanation as to why John refers to himself as “beloved” throughout the Gospel of John. That is a description of Benjamin in Genesis. In a sense, John becomes the brother of Jesus through their shared mother, Mary. Further, Pitre also explains that the language in that scene is fairly interpreted in a broad way, with Mary becoming a mother to all believers and the unnamed John symbolically representing all believers.
There is a lot much like those examples throughout the book. By suggesting that Christians read the Old Testament, looking for Types of Mary, and the New Testament as though the writers assumed their 1st century Jewish readers would see these parallels, I suspect that this framing will open up a lot of new vistas for Christians who have never viewed Scripture in this way.
This book is a significant challenge for Protestants who object to Catholic and Orthodox views of the Blessed Mother, but I hope that it’s one they will take for the sake of a pursuit of truth. It might also be an extremely useful tool for people who have Catholic or Orthodox views, but lack a Biblical foundation to explain them. Pitre’s book is a fantastic work of scholarship, heavily cited, but nonetheless easy to read and understand.
I thoroughly recommend it to everyone interested in Biblical interpretation or in Marian theology.
