Essenes, Therapeutae and the Mishnah — Jewish celibacy outside the Bible

To the objection that a first-century Jewish woman would never vow abstinence, Pitre answers with three Jewish witnesses. Josephus reports married Essenes who 'would voluntarily abstain from relations for up to three years at a time.' Philo describes the Therapeutae, including 'aged virgins, who have kept their chastity not under compulsion, like some of the Greek priestesses, but of their own free will.' And the Mishnah 'contains explicit references to married Jewish men and women taking vows to abstain from ordinary marital relations' — so common that excessive vows could be grounds for divorce (Ketuboth 7:3–7; Nedarim 11:1–12).

• Numbers 30:13 — the biblical basis for such vows.
• Matthew 19:12 — Jesus' own praise of those who renounce marriage.

The cultural objection fails on the evidence: consecrated abstinence, even within marriage, is documented in the Judaism of Mary's time by a historian, a philosopher and the rabbis' own law code.

• Josephus — Jewish War 2.160–61 (p 99) · read
• Philo of Alexandria — On the Contemplative Life 68 (p 99) · read
• Mishnah — Ketuboth 7:3–7; Nedarim 11:1–12 (p 99) · read