yyy
March 17, 2019, 7:16pm
40
Btw, this has got me thinking, how old was Mary ? A quick search yields the following:
According to the apocryphal Gospel of James , Mary was the daughter of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne . Before Mary’s conception, Anne had been barren and was far advanced in years. Mary was given to service as a consecrated virgin in the Temple in Jerusalem when she was three years old, much like Hannah took Samuel to the Tabernacle as recorded in the Old Testament .[61]
Some apocryphal accounts state that at the time of her betrothal to Joseph, Mary was 12–14 years old, and he was ninety years old, but such accounts are unreliable.[62] According to ancient Jewish custom, Mary could have been betrothed at about 12.[63] Hyppolitus of Thebes claims that Mary lived for 11 years after the death of her son Jesus, dying in 41 AD.[64]
[…]
The Protoevangelium of James , an extra-canonical book, has been the source of many Orthodox beliefs on Mary. The account of Mary’s life presented includes her consecration as a virgin at the temple at age three. The High Priest Zachariah blessed Mary and informed her that God had magnified her name among many generations. Zachariah placed Mary on the third step of the altar, whereby God gave her grace. While in the temple, Mary was miraculously fed by an angel, until she was twelve years old. At that point an angel told Zachariah to betroth Mary to a widower in Israel, who would be indicated.
Of course, to be fair, we would need to make a list of all the major figures of religious veneration and ask whether they ever did anything that would criminal or immoral by today’s standards.
Siddhartha didn’t have relations iirc. His mother didn’t conceive in the first 20 years of her marriage, apparently, but I can’t find the age at which she was married.
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