The Bible is a little sparse on Mary’s background. Fortunately, there are some non-canonical ancient literature that show even the ancients were interested in knowing more about Mary (and other things).
Below is my retelling and embellishment of the back-story on Mary, the Mother of God (mostly based on the narrative contained within the Gospel of the Birth of Mary.
In Israel, in Galilee, in the city of Nazareth, there lived a righteous man by the name of Joachim with his wife Anna. Their lives were plain and right in the sight of the Lord, pious and faultless before men.
They divided all they had into three parts. The first they offered to God, to His priests and to His temples; the second they distributed to the widows, the orphans and the poor; the remaining third they kept for their own use.
For twenty years, they lived this way, in the favour of God, with the esteem of their neighbours and the shame of being barren. They vowed that if God should favour them with children, they would devote them to the service of the Lord.
Each year, at the time of the Feast of the Lord1, Joachim went up to Jerusalem to bring his offering to the Lord. As Joachim stood with the other men of Israel, preparing his offering to the Lord, the high-priest, Issachar approached him and said loudly, “It is not lawful for you to stand among the righteous of Israel and make offerings to God, because God has not blessed you with a son for Israel.”
Joachim answered, “Since before I was married, I have always offered generously to the Lord and He has rewarded me with fertile flocks. I have always given generously to those in need; there is none who would blame me.”
Issachar reproached him even more loudly, “How can you presume your offerings are acceptable to God, when He has judged you unworthy to have children?”
Joachim’s tribesmen and the men of the other tribes rose to his defence saying, “He has always done right by the Lord and by men.” Issachar silenced their protests by quoting scripture, “Cursed is everyone who does not beget a male for Israel.”2 Then turning to Joachim he added, “Until you have born some offspring, your offerings are an abomination to the Lord.”
Being shamed before the men of Israel, he withdrew from the temple of the Lord, weeping. He did not return home for fear of being similarly reproached by his own kinsmen and retired into the mountains with his flocks.
When Anna heard what had happened to her husband in Jerusalem she waited for him to return. After forty days, when he did not return and none knew where he had gone Anna turned to the Lord with tears and cried out, “O Lord, most mighty and holy God of Israel, was it not enough that you should withhold children from me, must you also take away my husband?” She threw herself to the ground and wept.
As Anna poured her sorrows into the dust of the Earth, the angel of the Lord appeared saying, “Why do you weep?”
Anna replied, “I have been cursed by the Lord to be barren and I fear my husband is dead.”
The angel said, “I am the angel of the Lord and I have been sent to tell you that God has heard your prayers and born witness to your charity and He has been greatly pleased. Know that you shall bear a child for Israel, a girl named Mary who shall be blessed above all women.”
Anna replied, “I am past the age of child bearing. Even if I was not, I fear my husband is dead, destroyed by wild beasts, beginning with the one named Issachar.”
The angel answered, “Sarah conceived in her ninetieth year and gave rise to a nation as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand in the sea. Go, therefore, to Jerusalem and as a sign that what I have told you is true, you shall meet your husband, of whose safety you have been concerned, at the Golden Gate.”
At the same time, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joachim as he tended his flocks in the mountain and said, “Why do you not return to your wife?”
Joachim replied, “I have been with her for twenty years and it has not pleased God to give me children by her. I have been driven away from the temple of the Lord by my own people, why should I go back to her when I am an outcast and utterly despised by my own people? Here I shall remain with my sheep for as long as the Lord grants me life.”
The angle said, “I am the angel of the Lord sent to you that I might tell you that your prayers have been heard, and your alms ascended to God.
“God has seen your shame, and heard you unjustly reproached for not having children. God is the avenger of sin, and not its cause. So when he shuts the womb of any person, he does it for this reason: that he may in a more wonderful manner open it, and that which is born is seen not as the product of lust, but as a gift of God.
“Your wife, Anna, shall bear a child, a daughter named Mary who shall be blessed above all women. For the first three years she shall live in your house. Afterwards, as you have promised in prayer, she shall be devoted to the service of the Lord and shall not leave the temple until the time of her betrothal. She shall serve the Lord in prayer and fasting; she shall abstain from every unclean thing, and never know any man; being without pollution or defilement or any kind, and a virgin, she shall bring forth the Saviour of the world.
“Go, therefore, to Jerusalem, and as a sign that what I have told you is true, you shall meet your wife at the Golden Gate, who will rejoice at seeing you again for she has been greatly concerned for your safety.”
Joachim and Anna both departed for Jerusalem as commanded by the angel. Coming to the Golden Gate, they rejoiced at the site of one another. Being fully satisfied at the angel’s promise of a child, they gave thanks and offering to the Lord.
Afterwards they returned home and Anna conceived and bore a child as the angel had told them. They named the child Mary as the angel had instructed. For three years they raised her in the house until fully weaned.
When Mary was three, they brought her to the temple of the Lord, as they had promised, and dedicated her to the service of the Lord.
Mary lived and served the Lord in His temple. She spent three years in the service of God the Creator, the Maker of all that is seen and unseen; she spent three years in the service of God the Comforter, the Counsel and Advocate of the faithful; and, finally, she spent three years in the service of God the Saviour, the Redeemer who would ransom His life for the life of His people.
After nine years, when she was twelve3 and of the age of maturity, she could no longer remain inside the temple lest she defiled it. Having been dedicated to the temple, she was not betrothed. The priests decreed that all eligible men, both single and widowed, shall assemble before the temple and God would, by a sign, reveal Mary’s husband.
All eligible men, young and old, unmarried and widowed, gathered before the temple of the Lord. The priests prayed to God for a sign and, at once, the sky turned dark. The priests asked the men, “Why is the Lord displeased with this assembly?” But the men had no answer. Again, the priests prayed to God for a sign and, at once, the winds began to blow and thunder sounded in the distance. Again, the priests asked the men, “Why is the Lord displeased with this assembly?” Again, the men had no answer. Once more, the priests prayed to God for a sign and, at once, it began to hail with fire flashing in the midst of it4. Once more, the priests turned to the men and asked, “Why is the Lord displeased with this assembly?” This time, a young man, by the name of James, answered, “Because my father, Joseph, refused to come.”
The priests inquired, “The widower Joseph? Joseph the carpenter? Joseph of the House of David from the town of Bethlehem?”
“The same,” replied James.
“Then fetch him and do not vex the Lord any longer,” ordered the priests.
James ran to his father’s house and begged him to come, saying, “The Lord is raining hail as he once did upon the land of Egypt.”
Joseph went with his son and, as he stood with the assembled men, the hail and thundering stopped. The priests demanded of Joseph, “Why did you not present yourself as we decreed?”
Joseph answered, “I am an old man who has been well blessed by the Lord in the wife I had and the sons she bore me. It is not seemly that I should seek for a wife who is younger than my sons and would be as a younger sister to them and not a mother. “
The priests replied, “It is not for you, but for the Lord to decide. Do you deny, that the passing of the storm with your arrival is a sign of God’s will?”
Joseph denied it, saying. “It is a sign of the weather and not of God’s will.”
The priests prayed to God and the clouds broke and the light which came through the clouds shone upon Joseph. The priests asked again to Joseph, “Do you still deny God’s will?”
Joseph denied it a second time, saying, “It is the wind that has scattered the clouds.”
Once more, the priests prayed to God and a dove came and settled on Joseph’s shoulder. Once more, the priests asked Joseph, “Do you still deny God’s will?”
Joseph denied it a third time and raising his staff he slammed it into the ground, where it immediately took root and brought forth green leaves and new flowers.
No longer able to deny the will of God, Joseph relented and accepted Mary as his betrothed.
(1) Feast of the Lord: Sukkot, Feast of Tabernacles – roughly speaking, Thanksgiving.
(3) In ancient Israel, a girl was deemed to enter puberty at age 12 (a boy at 13). In Ancient Greece, girls were married at age 14 to soldiers of age 30. In ancient Rome, girls were deemed to enter puberty at age 12 (14 for boys) and were considered women by age 14, as Epictetus wrote: “From the age of fourteen, men give women then title of Mistress. Seeing that there is nothing else that they can obtain, but only the power of lying with men, they begin to decorate themselves, and to place all their hopes in this.” The title of Mistress should be understood in the proper English sense of “Lady of the House” (Master and Mistress) - a woman with some authority and power and not in the vulgar, vernacular meaning, “illegitimate lover”.
[Updated on 29-Aug-2010 @ 11:31: fixed some minor typos and tightened up the text in places.]
