I have stumbled across this site:
http://www.ummah.org.uk/what-is-islam/index.html
Written from a Muslim point of view, it explains many beliefs and practices. I cannot vouch for its accuracy or objectivity. Nor did I find any specific references to the practices noted in the OP, but I have not had an opportunity to look at the site closely. Perhaps it will help.
Thank you Beruang. This site was informative (even if some of their pronouncements about Judaism were a bit innacurate) and helpful.
Zev Steinhardt
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originally asked by Shodan, 9/10/2000
Is "kiddushin" the state that Mary and Joseph were in when Jesus was born?
I have heard (from a Christian, not a Jew) that it would not have been considered scandalous if
Mary and Joseph had had sex, even though they were not living together. What I did not
understand was why Joseph and Mary would have travelled together to Bethlehem if they were not
fully married yet.
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The alleged virginity of Mary at the birth of Jesus is one of the many - well - problematic themes in the new testament - and therefore one that is quite often discussed. I’ve taken part in quite a lot of them with friends etc.
If I remember correctly - and I won’t guarantee that - the virginity was a social fiction in the jewish/israelic society, due to the fact (?) that if the husband died the wife automatically became the the wife of the next brother (ever heard of Onan, who was dissatisfied with his role?). Since widows were not thought to be that desirable in jewish society in those times, she was considered - at least in the “better circles” to be a virgin if she hadn`t given birth beforehand.
Is there any scholar on ancient jewish customs out there? Correct me if I’m wrong.
Very wrong.
It is forbidden, in Jewish law to marry your brother’s wife, whether he divorced her or if she died. There is a provision, whereby if a man dies childless (and only in this instance), the man’s brother may marry the widow. She did not automatically become his wife. Both parties had the right to refuse the marriage.
In Jewish law, a widow is never considered a virgin, even if she and her husband never consumated the marriage. If she was married and her husband died, then she was considered as a non-virgin, even if it is publicly known that they had never been alone together.
The discussion at hand about Mary had nothing to do with widows. No one was suggesting that Mary was a widow. What does this have to do with whether Mary was a virgin or not?
Zev Steinhardt
It is forbidden, in Jewish law to marry your brother’s wife, whether he divorced her or if she died. There is a provision, whereby if a man dies childless (and only in this instance), the man’s brother may marry the widow. She did not automatically become his wife. Both parties had the right to refuse the marriage.
In Jewish law, a widow is never considered a virgin, even if she and her husband never consumated the marriage. If she was married and her husband died, then she was considered as a non-virgin, even if it is publicly known that they had never been alone together.
The discussion at hand about Mary had nothing to do with widows. No one was suggesting that Mary was a widow. What does this have to do with whether Mary was a virgin or not?
Zev Steinhardt **
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Now, that is quite a feat - you misunderstood me several times, I think. I wrote about social customs 2000 years ago. This has nothing to do with todays custums as long as they are not stated in the Thorah or its comments. [I’d rather not know some of the customs of my forefathers within the last 2000 years, so please don’t take it personally.]
In the Old testament it is quite clearly stated that Onan “let it fall aside” because he did not want to father children with his brothers widow - therefore it must have been an enforced custom >at those times<.
2.) I bow to your superior knowledge what is custom today - but aside from religious rules, no custum will survive 2000 years unchanged - see above for the disclaimer.
3.) I attemped to bring some light into the question why Mary was supposed to be a virgin - a factual impossibility, of course, but still believed (?) by some people today. Even if I mixed it up, a social custom from two millennia might well be a correct answer.
Sebastian
Batard
I didn’t misunderstand you.
The ban on marrying a brother is written in the Torah. So is the provision allowing either party to back out.
As for the “presumption” that a widow is a virgin: That is codified in the Talmud, which goes back about 2000 years. Hence the custom back then.
Why was it a factual impossibility for Mary to be a virgin???
Zev Steinhardt
Sorry,
That should have read:
The ban on marrying a brother’s wife is written in the Torah.
So is the provision of either party to back out of the levirate marriage.
Zev Steinhardt
I asked for correction, I got correction.
However, for the virgin part: I could barely imagine that one could induce a parthenogenetic human, i.e. virgin birth. Humans, however, are not bees whech can lay drone eggs even without males. Any hypothetical virgin birth would have to be a girl - or where do you get the Y chromosome??? They didn’t do any cloning 2000 years ago.
Sebastian
Well, as an Orthodox Jew, I don’t believe in the Virgin Birth either. However, this doesn’t mean that Mary could not have been a virgin when she married Joseph (which is how this all started, with my answer to Shodan’s question.
Zev Steinhardt
The Gospels are notorious for oversimplifications in ritual detail, but that’s understandable being targeted (at the time) for an audience of potential converts: either pagans or hellenized Jews no longer quite connected to the ways back in the homeland. The way I read the story in Luke/Matthew is:
According to Luke:
1.Mary and Joseph are bethrothed. Maybe they are in “kiddushin”. She may well be a virgin at this time for all you know.
2.During that time, Mary turns up pregnant. Never mind how. Hey maybe it was a miracle, who knows?
According to Matthew:
3. Joseph is quite understandably upset.
4. Being a nice guy, though, and not wanting to have stones heaped upon her, he decides to “send her off secretly” (what, and let people assume he went ahead and helped himself, and then changed his mind? is this one of those cases where you could buy off her father with some oxen?)
5. Joe has a vision setting him straight
6. Joseph proceeds promptly to “take her for a wife” (“nissuin”), making it just look like, tsk, tsk, they couldn’t hold out any longer, could they.
Back to Luke:
7. They travel to Bethlehem because of a tax assesment and the rest is history.
In any case, though not strictly by-the-book, to an outside observer it would not be such an unusual goings-on for a working-class couple in a small backwater village. The legal fiction of a presumption of virginity stands and the worst that happens is the town gossips have something else to wallow in.
jrd
And the baby is, of course, “born premature”. But somehow a really big premature baby. 