Shattered

Have you ever had an image in your mind of someone and then that image is changed for you in an instance? Like this time of year lots of little boys and girls believe in Santa and all to often when they least expect it they find out the big man in the red suit isn't real and that their parents have bought all of those toys all along.

I am still reading Mary, A Flesh - and - Blood Biography of the The Virgin Mother by Lesley Hazleton. As I have stated in previous post most of this book is taken from Ms. Hazleton's opinion, in no way does she know the complete truth about Mary's life, but she has done lots of research on the time period that Mary lived. She even lived in Jerusalem for 13 years. Now I am not calling her an expert by any means but obviously if this is a very talented author than she did a lot of research and feels confident enough to dispel some myths and even lay a little more ground work on Mary's background before, during and even after Jesus time on the earth.

(If you don't want your image of Mary to be changed even a little please I would advise you not to read on.)

I titled this "Shattered" because in Part Two: Her Womb, the author goes on to explain just how Mary became pregnant. Of course we have all heard the story of the virgin birth and she goes on to explain that even today Middle Eastern culture does not classify how or if a woman's hymen is "disturb" to be her virginity. Some women if due to rape or obviously unprotected sex and they had never been married, would still be considered a virgin. The word really meant nothing and the true status of Mary's virginity could obviously been lost in translation as the Bible was translated hundreds of time before it became the official format that we have today.

Now I am not saying that Mary was out there messing around willy-nilly, but bear with me, what if something "happened" to Mary and God saw favor with her and her unborn child. That is what I mean by shattered. Up to this point I was rather enjoying this book, but with Ms. Hazleton pointing out this very fact that women were really looked up on not much higher than a dog in the lineage of status and if she was all alone at one point she could have been mistreated. Which thus far brings up another point she still said yes, when even back then there were any number of ways to terminate a pregnancy and it is believed that happened quite regularly, even more so than by today's standards.

Lesley does try to paint even another scenario that during times of famine and great debt daughters would be sold or given to their local temples or who ever the family might be indebted to and as we have all seen recently in the news a young girl can be easily persuaded into almost anything if they believe the person has the power and authority over them.

But also there is the third option of what about Joseph, what if he truly is the biological father and it is a case similar to Mary's cousin Elizabeth and her husband was struck mute when he questioned God's intentions for Elizabeth being pregnant at such an age and by similar I mean that Gabriel visited with Joseph before Mary actually became pregnant and to lay out the ground work as to how Jesus would be raised and always trust his dreams for his family; i.e. move to Egypt because of Herod.

I personally like to believe the case for Joseph if I had to choose but my heart also wants to have faith that God and Mary were the only true parents. But as Ms. Hazleton states at the end of Part Two: Her Womb:
Without Joseph, nothing would be different. Without Maryam, everything would. It was Maryam who chose her son, Maryam who gave birth to him, Maryam who nursed him and raised him and taught him all she new. Maryam, be-ezrat ha-shem, (with God's Help).