Definition
Mary was a virgin in conceiving Jesus, in giving birth to him, and for the rest of her life. The Church confesses her as Aeiparthenos, "ever-virgin": the Second Council of Constantinople (553) uses the title, the Lateran Synod of 649 spells out "before, during and after" the birth, and the Catechism gathers the teaching at §§499–507. The "brothers of the Lord" named in the Gospels are close kin, not sons of Mary, and Mary's question to Gabriel, "How can this be, since I do not know man?", makes sense only if she did not intend to have children.
Start here
Begin with Mary's question in Luke 1:34 read as a vow, then the evidence about the "brothers of Jesus", then Numbers 30 and what it asked of Joseph.
From Jewish Roots of Mary
- 1.The three evidences that Mary took a vow of virginity.
Pitre stacks three clues that Mary meant to remain a virgin for life: (1) her reply to Gabriel, 'How shall this be, since I do not know man?' — a strange thing for a betrothed woman to say unless she had already resolved on virginity; (2) the Law's provision letting a married woman take a binding vow of abstinence her husband upholds — Joseph's role; and (3) the couple's abstinence on the wedding night and all through the pregnancy.
- 2.Reading Luke 1:34 closely — a future conception, two mistranslations, 'I do not know man' like 'I do not smoke', and how not doubt
Gabriel says Mary 'will conceive' — not that she has, nor that it will happen at once; a betrothed woman would assume the child would come after the marriage was consummated. 'But this is precisely what Mary does not do.' Some versions mistranslate her reply as 'since I am a virgin' (NIV) or 'since I have no husband' (RSV) — 'downright false, since Mary does have a husband.' The Greek is 'since I do not know man,' with 'know' the biblical euphemism (Genesis 4:1), in the present tense: as 'I do not smoke' means 'I do not smoke now and do not intend to,' so her words state a fixed principle of life — the Protestant Greek expert J. Gresham Machen concedes 'no objection can be raised… from a linguistic point of view.' And unlike Zechariah, Mary does not doubt; she asks how, and only then does Gabriel explain that the conception will be virginal.
- 3.Why 'betrothed' sharpens Mary's question to Gabriel.
In Jewish law betrothal was already legal marriage — violating a betrothed woman counted as adultery. So Mary is effectively Joseph's wife when Gabriel comes. That makes 'How shall this be, since I do not know man?' pointed: an ordinary wife would expect children, so her words imply an intention to remain a virgin.
- 4.Two skeptics who concede Mary's question is absurd for a bride — Lüdemann and Bultmann
Pitre calls hostile witnesses. Gerd Lüdemann, whom he labels 'the atheist scholar': 'Mary's question is hard to reconcile with v. 27: a fiancée can hardly be surprised at the promise of a child even if she has as yet had no sexual intercourse with her fiancé.' Rudolf Bultmann: the question is 'an absurd one for a bride.' Both see the problem and neither accepts the obvious solution. Pitre names the two escape hatches: declare the question 'absurd,' or call it 'a literary device' to prompt Gabriel — 'they totally fail to explain the text as we have it.' The remaining question, why a woman intending virginity would marry at all, is answered by Numbers 30.
- 5.Numbers 30 in detail — 'afflict herself' includes abstinence, three classes of women, and why the vows must be permanent
The evidence 'is not hidden in some obscure Dead Sea Scroll' but in the Law. Numbers 30 concerns a woman's vow 'to afflict herself' ('annoth naphesh). The phrase usually means fasting, but Leviticus 16:29 uses it for the Day of Atonement, and Jacob Milgrom shows the oldest interpretations understood that self-affliction to include abstinence from marital relations (Mishnah, Yoma 8:1). Read that way 'the whole chapter on women's vows makes sense': it legislates for unmarried women (vv. 3–5), married women (vv. 6–8, 13–15) and widows or divorcees (vv. 9–12), and in each case the vow stands if the father or husband hears it and says nothing. The vows must be permanent — a temporary vow of abstinence means nothing for a virgin in her father's house, and a widow would be released from a temporary vow by her husband's death (think of Anna). And why legislate at all, unless wives were making such vows?
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