Luke's Infancy Narrative

errancy@freethought.tamu.edu errancy@freethought.tamu.edu
Thu, 3 Aug 95 21:09 CDT (00807523740, 950803220308_47492654@aol.com)

Luke said that Joseph and Mary took Jesus to Jerusalem "to present him to the Lord" (2:22). However, the same context said that this was done "when the days of their purificfation according to the Law of Moses were fulfilled" (Ibid.). This is a reference to Leviticus 12:2, which declared a woman to be unclean for 7 days following the birth of a son: "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'If a woman has conceived, and borne a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of her customary impurity she shall be unclean.'" The "days of her customary impurity" is a reference to the woman's menstrual period, which made her "unclean" for seven days (Lev. 15:19-24). Everything she touched during this period was unclean and had to be washed, and anyone who touched anything she touched had to wash his clothes and bathe in water. So after childbirth, a woman was to be considered as unclean as when she was having her menstrual period.

At the end of the seven days following childbirth, the male child was to be circumcised (Lev. 12:3), and Luke 2:21 states that Jesus was circumcised on the 8th day. However, the mother's impurity did not end with the seven days, because she had to continue her purification for an additional 33 days: "She [the mother] shall then continue in the blood of her purification thirty-three days. She shall not touch any hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary until the days of her purification are fulfilled" (Lev. 12:4). At the end of her complete purification (a total of 40 days), the mother had to "bring to the priest a lamb of the first year and a young pigeon or a turtledove as a sin offering" (v:6), which were offered in sacrifice to Yahweh. However, if she could not afford to offer a lamb, she could bring "two turtledoves or two young pigeons" (v:8).

Luke 2:22-24 presents Mary as making the sacrifice of poverty (a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons) "when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled." Hence, this would mean that Joseph and Mary were still in the region of Bethlehem and Jerusalem 40 days after the birth of Jesus, so we can reasonably wonder why Matthew's Herod was taking so much time to rid his kingdom of the threat that Jesus represented to him. As someone else pointed out, Luke 2:39 says, "And when they had accomplished all things that were according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee to their own city Nazareth." It is certainly unreasonable to think that Luke was aware of a trip into Egypt that the "holy family" took before going to Galilee.

F. Till