Are Welcome Here

Queer theology, altar scapes, and the life of a Nonbinary, soon to be seminarian. I am a great many things, but above all I am myself. They/them

[mirielvairenen]

Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)

Christ Has No Body

Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours, Yours are the eyes with which he looks Compassion on this world, Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, Yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours, Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

[cryptotheism]

"Medieval Christians would have gone nuts for protons, neutrons, and electrons for trinity reasons" sounds like a jokey oversimplification historypost but I cannot really articulate how true that is. They would never shut up about it.

[ahopefulbromantic]

RIP St Thomas Aquinas you would have loved atomic physics

[sobekettemsa7]

Maybe when I have time I'll comment more on it but Jesus' birth in the New Testament vs his birth in the Qur'ān have very different vibes if that makes any sense? Sure they're both miracles and stuff but the tone is just different for both, not to mention the actual events. Like in the NT Mary was not alone but a big part of the narrative in the Qur'ān was that she was completely on her own even when facing her people so she could barely even defend herself against the accusations hurled against her. But yeah I'll talk about this more later

[sacredheart-stigmata]

While it has been a VERY long time since I’ve read the actual text of Mary’s birth experience in the Qur'an, I practically prefer it to the birth in the NT. I tend to feel the depiction of her in the Qur'an is almost, for lack of a better word, more ‘accurate’ to information historically found on her, and how she is in my heart. The Gospel of James, an apocryphal text that serves both as an infancy gospel, but also as a huge source of information on Mary’s entire life, shares a lot in common with the Maryam Surah. A lot of the GoJ is also found in the Qur'an, and while cultural and religious syncretism is very real, I can’t help but feel the connection is based in her historical reality as well.

I hate the theological idea that a lot of Christians still ascribe to that Mary felt no pain in birthing Jesus, and in the more extreme circles, the idea that He didn’t even come from her vaginally, instead just. Poof. Baby Jesus. The question of if her ‘hymen was unbroken in childbirth’ is still a hot topic every Christmas, and it makes my skin crawl. Like just say you’re a misogynist and save us all a lot of time. But anyway, the image I get every time I read her story in the Qur'an strikes me as so much more powerful and purposeful to the woman she is than having a Poof Jesus. The cries and wishes that she would die while giving birth alone and frightened just speaks so much more to me, especially considering how she’s often seen as the ‘perfect example’ of the ‘ideal human’. This Mary is a real person, not a status in Saint Peter’s Basilica. She seems much closer to the suffering prophetess that a lot of people call her in Christianity.

Idk, I just really really love Jesus’s birth in the Qu’ran. I love the focus of Mary in the Qu’ran in general. I love getting to see the differences, the connections to GoJ, and how human and alive she is in the Qur’an. Like I said, it has been a looooong time since I’ve read anything straight from the text, but I still take a lot of comfort in her portrayal.

[sobekettemsa7]

(note: I wanted to use Arabic names for the Islamic counterparts to avoid confusion, but that ended up being more confusing so I used the English names for all of them. Sorry in advance if it's still confusing)

I cannot comment on the historicity because I'm not really well-educated enough on the topic and have not read the Gospel of James, but you've captured my feelings on it very well.

I'm biased as a Muslim, sure, but the Mary in the NT seems. Idyllic. So to speak. She accepts God's will and we rarely get her feelings on the matter. 

I'm only going to be referring to the Gospel of Luke here since that's what I've read, and I might have missed something because I have not read the NT entirely, so forgive me if I get something wrong. (Using the NIV version).

Let's talk about Luke 1: 26-30 and compare it to a part of Surat Maryam to explain myself. 

26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee

27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be

30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God

This just. Feels odd to me, in a way. The angel tells Mary not to be afraid, but we barely even get her reaction to the angel appearing in front of her. She seems more confused than anything. 

Plus, I know Mary's virginity has importance in Christianity I'm not well informed about, but it feels strange to me that she's first introduced as a virgin, then we're given her name. 

But, in Surat Maryam verses 16-18  (using Muhammad Asad's Translation as it's my preferred, however it is a bit difficult to read sorry. I removed the footnotes but I do recommend going to see them yourself). 

19:16 AND CALL to mind, through this divine writ, Mary. Lo! She withdrew from her family to an eastern place

17and kept herself in seclusion from them, whereupon We sent unto her Our angel of revelation, who appeared to her in the shape of a well-made human being

18 She exclaimed: "Verily, 'I seek refuge from thee with the Most Gracious! [Approach me not] if thou art conscious of Him!”

It shows her shock, clearly, and her agency. She's afraid of this stranger and immediately tells them to leave, before even listening to what they might have to say because they approached her while she was secluded. Which is just a great way of showing her emotions, you know. 

And, she's first introduced by her name and that she's secluded in the temple. Her virginity is never alluded to, except when she questions the angel about how she'll bear a son.

In fact, not once in the Qur'ān is Mary described as bikr (بكر) or ‘athrā’ (عذراء) or any word meaning virgin, now that I think about it. Huh…I'll ponder on it later.

Now, unlike the Gospel of Luke, it's unclear whether she tells anybody about her pregnancy beforehand

But. Considering Joseph Does Not Exist in Islam, and that she was on her own while in labour? I can only infer she kept it secret and ran away to Bethlehem when she started showing. Though that's only conjecture. 

I won't talk much about Yahyā (ع)/John the Baptist, but it is worth noting that Surat Maryam has a similar framing to Luke 1 where it cuts from the news of John's conception and his birth to Jesus. But the parallels between these two are for another time. 

This is when the stories diverge greatly. 

Again, Joseph Does Not Exist in Islam. It's all just Mary (in fact, depending on your reading of 19:20, Mary could be telling the angel that she has no desire to be with another human to begin with. So. Uh. Do with that what you will. All I know is that it's been vindication for me as an AroAce Muslim)

With Jesus' birth in Luke 2 it also feels idyllic, like a fairytale. A story you'd tell a child before going to bed. That's not a bad thing or a good thing, it's just an observation.

His birth is not described at all, it was just that Joseph and Mary were expecting him, and there he was. Like you said. Poof Jesus. In fact we get more of the shepherds’ reactions and feelings than Mary or Joseph.

The whole birth is focused on Jesus, the miracle, the Messiah. 

Which is understandable given his role in Christianity as God but it's in direct contrast to Surat Maryam, where the birth is all about Mary, and not in any way whimsical or magical. There's a miracle, sure, but it still feels grounded, in a sense. And it's Mary's miracle, Not Jesus'.

19:22 and in time she conceived him, and then she withdrew with him to a far-off place

23 And [when] the throes of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree,17 she exclaimed: "Oh, would that I had died ere this, and had become a thing forgotten, utterly forgotten!”

This, to me, paints a much more striking image, you know? 

A young mother seeking safety from her people who would judge her or do worse for bearing a child out of wedlock (not that they'd understand the miracle), who is overcome by pain and can barely reach the trunk of a palm tree to support herself against, before the pain of labour strikes her again. 

And that part? “forgotten, utterly forgotten”? It's the closest English to the Arabic “nasyan mansiyya[n]” (نسياً منسياً). 

This is a special grammatical case in Arabic I can't remember the name of and it can never really be properly translated to English but I'll try to give you a feel of it. 

You know when you forget something but you remember that you forgot it and it keeps bugging you till you can remember?

Well, Mary wishes she was more than that. That she was forgotten and nobody remembered the empty space in their memories where she would've been.

In other words, Mary wished she never existed to begin with.

And, God, isn't that chilling? 

This verse genuinely hit me hard during some of the lowest points I had in my relationship with faith and worst days with my mental health because of it.

But what's really important to me isn't just her suffering, no, it's what happens after. 

There's a weird impulse among Muslims (and Christians, from what I've seen, but I can't personally comment) to romanticize suffering due to the general understanding of the concept of istishhād/martyrdom (id say misunderstanding, personally, but that's not the point). 

The worst victim of this is Āsiyā, the wife of the Pharaoh of Exodus in Islam. But she deserves her own essay. 

Moreover, there's a weird push to just accept God's will and never feel bad about anything ever because God willed it. Obviously that's the extreme end of people, but it does exist and this Surah just exists to directly oppose that I feel.

If that sentiment had any morsel of truth, Mary here would've been chided for questioning God's will and wishing death upon herself (which. yk. I'm sure you've heard of the “suicide is a sin” squad). 

But that's not what happens, is it? 

No, God instead comforts Mary after everything by blessing her with a stream of water to quench her thirst and allowing palm dates to fall down so she can eat them to rest after the entire ordeal. 

19:24 Thereupon [a voice] called out to her from beneath that [palm-tree]: "Grieve not! Thy Sustainer has provided a rivulet [running] beneath thee

25 and shake the trunk of the palm-tree towards thee: it will drop fresh, ripe dates upon thee.

26 Eat, then, and drink, and let thine eye be gladdened! And if thou shouldst see any human being, convey this unto him:`Behold, abstinence from speech have I vowed unto the Most Gracious; hence, I may not speak today to any mortal.

I don't know if you've seen a palm tree before, but those things are huge and their trunks are big. You can't just shake them and take the dates, you need to climb or wait for the dates to fall on your head. But God specifically made it so that Mary can easily just shake this enormous tree and take from its fruits

“Let thine eyes be gladdened” here is “قَرِّی عَیۡنࣰاۖ”. I don't know how to translate it into English but it's an idiom for allowing yourself to rest. 

And I can't lie and say it means that, but it always brings an image to my head of a Mary, whose throat was wrecked from screaming and eyes turned red from crying, wiping away her tears as she reached for the water and the dates and felt calm and rest for the first time in months.

That phrasing is also just very gentle in Arabic, it sounds a bit harsher in English but it is just comforting to an Arabic speaker. I just can't describe it, it's one of those things lost in translation.

This is actually part of a running motif of sorts in the Qur'ān of childbirth being described as the ordeal it is and used as a reason for why people should respect their mothers and like women in general. That's its own topic but a real quick example is Surat Al-Ahqāf, verse 15. 

46:15 NOW [among the best of the deeds which] We have enjoined upon man is goodness towards his parents. In pain did his mother bear him, and in pain did she give him birth; and her bearing him and his utter dependence on her took thirty months [...]

Back to Mary. 

I think it's really important that she took a vow of silence. Not only as a parallel to Zechariah's own vow, but to me it feels like an extension of God making it up to Mary, for lack of better phrasing. 

To a degree, it is obviously to allow the miracle of Jesus speaking in the cradle present in Islam to unfold, but it does feel like Allah telling Mary that They will be the one to inform her people and bear the brunt of delivering the news, not just her, and she needn't worry about their reactions. 

And Mary's people immediately assume the worst. They tell her that what she brought, Jesus, was “شيئا فريا”. A thing shocking, unexpected, monstrous. 

It's dehumanization of her and Jesus both by describing him as a “thing” she brought, they don't care about her suffering or that she fled and gave birth on her own, no, all they care about is the unexpected monstrous thing she'd brought. That she conceived and bore a child out of wedlock. 

Not that she was young and clearly tired and had to survive on her own with a newborn, no, just that she failed their expectations as a woman. 

28 O sister of Aaron!* Thy father was not a wicked man, nor was thy mother a loose woman!

*For this sister of Aaron thing, I do recommend just going to Muhammad Asad's footnote and reading that because I can't be bothered to explain right now.

“wicked man” here is more literally “a man of evil”.

Your Father was not a man of evil, Mary, not like you.

“a loose woman” as a translation of بغيا obviously means “adulteress” or “unchaste” or. Well. In more crass terms: a whore.

Your Mother was not a whore, Mary, not like you. 

That's what they focused on...not Mary's well-being or Jesus', just that she failed their expectations.

She is evil, wicked, unchaste and a whore. Not Mary, the young and tired mother carrying a newborn infant in her arms and travelling on her own being attacked from all sides by people who only wish to judge her, not help her.

And it just breaks my heart, honestly

Which makes Jesus' miracle of speaking in the cradle more powerful to me. Not just as a proof of prophethood, but as God directly defending her. And God doesn't defend her by emphasizing that she's still a virgin or that Jesus was conceived miraculously, no, God defends her by having Jesus declare that he, her son, will be a great man blessed by God and that God instructed him to treat her well. 

19:29 Thereupon she pointed to him. They exclaimed: "How can we talk to one who [as yet] is a little boy in the cradle?”

30 [But] he said: "Behold, I am a servant of God. He has vouchsafed unto me revelation and made me a prophet,

31 and made me blessed wherever I may be; and He has enjoined upon me prayer and charity as long as I live,

32 and [has endowed me with] piety towards my mother; and He has not made me haughty or bereft of grace.

33  "Hence, peace was upon me on the day when I was born, and [will be upon me] on the day of my death, and on the day when I shall be raised to life [again]!

Mary is defended against those accusations in other places as well, notably in Surat An-Nisā', but never in the context of the moment she presented Jesus to her people like this. 

And that just hits harder for me? The first people to see Jesus other than his mother were not a loving stepfather or three shepherds there to witness the messiah in the manger, no, they're Mary's people who spew endless cruelty at her and she's alone and God defends her through her son. 

And UGHHHH I LOVE IT SO MUCH I COULD TALK ABOUT IT FOREVERRRRRRR AKKWOEKDJCOS XHOQJANCNVNV GLAKSHUDHDDIDJZBN

OH YEAH!! I think a huge point of comparison as well is the focus on different parts of Jesus' lineage.

In the NT (from what I've seen), there's a bigger emphasis on him being the “son of David”, which makes complete sense since that's part of the prophecy that the Messiah will be born from the House of David. Oh and especially focusing that that was through Joseph being from the house of David, meanwhile he just doesn't exist in Islam.

However, that prophecy and that requirement for the Messiah (or Al-Masīh) is irrelevant to Islam, which, between Abraham's two sons, is more focused on Ishmael's lineage than Isaac’s to begin with.

For all intents and purposes, genealogy of prophets and venerated figures in Islam isn't as important as it is in either Judaism or Christianity, beyond establishing that Prophet Muhammad (ص) was from the lineage of Abraham through his first son Ishmael, because Islam frames itself as the fulfillment of God's promise to Ishmael of a great nation in Genesis 17 (indirectly referenced in Surat Al-Baqarah, 2:128-129, framed entirely differently tho

It is more important in Shī'ā Islam, but even then it's only focused on the genealogy of Muhammad's family (Ahl ul-Bayt).

Sure, it's generally accepted that all prophets that came after Abraham are from his lineage, but even then there's some ambiguity with prophets like Shu’ayb (ع), Hūd (ع) and Salih (ع) (who don't even have biblical counterparts and are exclusive to Islam). 

Not to mention that Islam defines “prophet/nabiy” differently and has an entirely separate category of “messenger/rasūl”. And it rejects priesthood so figures like Aaron (ع), who's a priest in the Torah, are understood as prophets.

With all that context, I can get to the point. The Qur'an doesn't emphasize his relation to David at all, doesn't even hint at it, but it keeps emphasizing multiple times that he's the son of Mary and no one else. 

Quick Arabic lesson: 

Arabic names (*as understood in Pre-Islamic/Jahiliya Arabia) are traditionally patronymics, you don't really have a last name except your tribal name.

You have a given name that's yours, and nasab which is all direct your male ancestors as far back as you can trace them. There's also kunya but that’s irrelevant

Jahiliya Arabs put a large emphasis on bloodlines, and liked keeping track of their nasab as far back as they could.

For example, let's take Hamza (ر), the Prophet's uncle. 

His given name is Hamza, but his nasab would be (copy pasted from wiki cos I value my sanity): 

Ḥamza ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim ibn ʿAbd Manāf ibn Quṣayy ibn Kilāb ibn Murrah ibn Ka'b ibn Lu'ayy ibn Ghālib ibn Fihr ibn Mālik

And this is shortened. 

“Ibn/bin” means “son of” and bint means “daughter of”. 

So, going back to Hamza, his name is literally Hamza son of Abdul Muttalib son of Hashim, etc. 

Pre-islamic Arabia was a strictly patriarchal and tribal society, so patronymics and lineage were extremely important. Matronymics were never a thing, as far as I'm aware.

A lot of the times, people will just be referred to as “Ibn/Bint X”. Notable examples include Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Ibn Hanbal. 

The Qur'ān does, in fact, use this naming system occasionally. 

For example, Cain and Abel aren't named in the Qur'ān, but they're referred to as “Ibnay Adam”, The Two Sons Of Adam.

And Mary is called "Maryam bint ‘Imrān" in the Quran once in Surat At-Tahrīm, 66:12. 

Imran is typically understood to be Joachim from apocrypha….or a way denoting tribal lineage, and should be understood less as “ Maryam daughter of Imran” and more “Maryam The Imranite”, and since that verse above implied Maryam is the descendant of The Aaron, I'm one of those who choose to understand her name as a tribal denotation meaning “Maryam The Amramite” to show her relation to Aaron and Moses

But that's irrelevant. 

What's really noteworthy is the one subversion to the typical patronymic system the Qur'ān and the Arabs employed: ‘Isā ibn Maryam. Jesus son of Mary. 

This is extremely important. Jesus could have just been ‘Isā ibn ‘Imrān to denote his tribal lineage or just have him take his grandfather's name or not use a nasab for him at all but no, he's specifically referred to as Mary's son. 

That's his nasab. His name. His lineage. Mary's Son.

Now, I'm sure this was probably preposterous to the pre-Islamic Arabs who already hated the Qur'ān, but that's not what we're here for. 

I'm trying to show here that it shows a great level of respect to Mary as his most important and emphasized ancestor by giving him a matronymic instead of a patronymic, subverting the typical naming conventions at the time.

Again. 

Mary is his most important and emphasized ancestor. Not David, not Aaron, not Jacob, not Isaac, not even Abraham– Mary. 

In fact, Maryam is always referred to by her first name in the Qur'ān, her nasab only being mentioned once alongside her first name

But Jesus? Almost always paired with “ibn Maryam”. Sometimes it'd be “Al-Masīh ibn Maryam”, The Messiah Son of Mary. 

And occasionally? Just “Ibn Maryam”.

Like in 23:50 (Surat Al-Mu’minīn) and 43:57 (Surat Az-Zukhruf). 

You're supposed to immediately understand that the son of Mary is him. That's his biggest identification. That's enough to know who he is. That is who he is.

More than the messiah, more than Jesus, he's Mary's boy. 

Mary is never referred to as just “Bint 'Imrān”.

Now, part of this is the Qur'ān’s vehement denial of Jesus being the son of God, thus emphasizing his fully human mother, however it cannot be denied that a part of it is out of respect for Mary as his mother and as her own person and a great subversion of patriarchal Arabian expectations. 

This is even emphasized before Jesus is born. 

As you know, the Qur'ān is non-chronological, it's not a history book. 

So, the annunciation is recounted a couple of other times with different phrasing, the one that stands out to me besides the one in Surat Maryam is the one in Surat Ālī Imrān (The Amramites or the Family of Imran). Verse 45 to be specific. 

3:45 Lo! The angels said: "O Mary! Behold, God sends thee the glad tiding, through a word from Him, [of a son] who shall become known as the Christ/Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, of great honour in this world and in the life to come, and [shall be] of those who are drawn near unto God

Before he was even born it was decided that he would bear his mother's name, alongside proclamations that he'd be the messiah and one of the closest to God. And that's just. It makes me emotional okay. 

Even in hadiths, he's called Ibn Maryam.

I have a lot of feelings about Qur'ānic Jesus and Maryam and could go on for longer but that's enough for now. 

Sorry about rambling I just love discussing parts of the Qur'ān. If I misinterpreted any part of the NT do let me know!!

[sacredheart-stigmata]

Sorry for the late reply! Your response is beautifully written, so I wanted to be able to sit down and give it the time it deserves!

This conversation immediately reminds me of Esther Strauß’s ‘Crowning’. Crowning is an extremely controversial piece of Marian art that was made in 2023 for a contemporary art exhibition in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Austria.

The exhibition was intended for artists to start “a discussion of contemporary questions about women’s roles, family images and gender equality” in the Church. Strauß chose to create a sculpture that highlighted the complete removal of Mary's humanity in Christianity, from dogma all the way to art. The title of the sculpture is a pun referencing both Jesus’ title 'King of Kings'' and the term for a newborn baby’s head emerging during childbirth. While I will say that the sculpture felt a tad weird to see from the full front for the first time, since you can see Jesus physically crowning from Mary's vagina, that means, to me, that it absolutely did the job it intended to do. While part of my original discomfort was that usamerican culture both sanitizes and stigmatizes childbirth, it was also an instant reaction of, for lack of a better term, 'uh. what.' Even as someone who has always tried to focus on Maty's humanity, it managed to remind me just how deep the sanitization of Mary's childbirth is.

Strauß did exactly what she intended to do; not only did it show how so much of Jesus' nativity narrative is rooted in misogyny, it very quickly insisted that 'This is a real human woman giving real human birth. The 'holiness' of the birth doesn't negate that. Stop.' and I love it for that.

I've made a few posts on Crowning given how much I ADORE it, but this is how I think I summed it up best in this one:

"The sculpture shows Mary in the last stages of childbirth— her heavenly robes pool around her pregnant stomach as she spreads her legs, hands clutching at the ground below her, eyes turned up to the heavens as she prays for the pain to be over. She knows the joy of holding her baby is coming, but in this movement, the contractions are agonizing, and all she wishes is for her God to hold her. Her eyes are filled with tears and devotion as she looks skyward, and her heaving breaths are a prayer.

The Prophet Simeon says her heart/soul will be pierced due to her role in salvation:

"Then Simeon blessed them and told Mary, his mother, “This infant is destined to cause many in Israel to fall and rise. He will be a sign that will be opposed. Indeed, a sword will pierce your own soul, too, so that the inner thoughts of many people might be revealed.” (Luke 2:33-35; ISV translation)

Her heart/soul is pierced, brutally, as she watches the torture and execution of her Son. We know Jesus brought Mary pain— her baby is a blessing to Mary, but He brings her complete agony upon His death. Is it too much to think that His birth may have caused that same agony? That she is a human being giving birth in a barn, frightened and wishing for anything to make her pain stop?"

Almost immediately upon Crowning's debut, it was vandalized; an anonymous group decapitated the sculpture, saying it was an “abominable and blasphemous caricature.” They proved Strauß's point better than anybody else ever could. For a huge percentage of Christians, especially Catholics, the idea of a human Mary and a human Mary giving human birth is blasphemy.

The active refusal to see Mary's childbirth as anything other than perfect and free of all human messiness is directly tied to misogyny. For a misogynistic society that views childbirth as demeaning, disgusting, etc,, to be able to venerate a woman whose childbearing is kinda a huge deal, it becomes vital for Church doctrine to remove her humanity and the humanity of her childbirth as much as possible.

'She's without original sin, so she doesn't experience contractions or pain! After all, painful birth was punishment from God!'

'She's a perpetual virgin completely 'intact' for her whole life! Her body 'breaking' during childbirth means her hymen breaks, tainting that virginity! She couldn't have had a vaginal delivery!' (I think I just threw up in my mouth)

'She is Perfect, and Jesus is Divine-- if she bleeds, defecates, and screams, cries, and is in pain during childbirth, if she doubts if she can do this or if saying yes to God was the right thing to do, if she is a human woman feeling human feelings experiencing a human reality, the Perfection and Divinity are tainted by that humanness.'

It alllllllways comes back to the misogyny 🙃

ANYWAYS, you mentioned here something I absolutely agree with

This just. Feels odd to me, in a way. The angel tells Mary not to be afraid, but we barely even get her reaction to the angel appearing in front of her. She seems more confused than anything.  Plus, I know Mary's virginity has importance in Christianity I'm not well informed about, but it feels strange to me that she's first introduced as a virgin, then we're given her name. 

Mary's 'Fiat' ( the yes she gives the angel after being told of Jesus, “I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me as you say.” (Luke 1:38a)) is a huge deal in Christianity- she isn't coerced or forced by God, she actively says yes. She dedicates herself to Him; in a ton of earlier translations that I'm too lazy to find, 'servant' is translated as 'handmaiden', with the Greek implying less 'I am submissive to you' and more a kind of 'lady in waiting' position. She is a maiden to His will out of love and adoration, not out of forced servitude.

The emotion we don't see in her with the angel is thankfully more present in her song of praise in Luke 1:47-55. Upon visiting her cousin, who is also experiencing a divine pregnancy, the two women are completely overcome with joy, and Mary starts singing one of the most important prayers in Christianity, the Magnificat. In it, she shows her joy, her dedication, her enthusiasm, praising God for His protection of the small and humble, declaring that she will magnify His greatness always, etc, etc.

To me, it is very clear in the Magnificat that she is so, so grateful to be a part of God's plan. Yet, like you said, during the meeting with the angel, that energy is NOT there.

I've seen some arguments and translations that phrase her questioning of the angel's announcement of her pregnancy as more accusatory; less 😖🥺 and more, 'what the hell are you talking about? I'm a betrothed woman and a virgin. This is ridiculous.' Now, is that second interpretation popular? No. But it is the one I like to hold to.

The really strict emphasis behind her virginity comes down to translations, more or less. In the book of the Prophet Isaiah, chapter 7, verses 10-16:

Later on, the Lord spoke to Ahaz again: “Ask a sign from the Lord your God. Make it as deep as Sheolor as high as heaven above.” But Ahaz replied, “I won’t ask! I won’t put the Lord to the test.” In reply, the Lord announced, “Please listen, you household of David. Is it such a minor thing for you to try the patience of men? Must you also try the patience of my God? “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Watch! The virgin is conceiving a child, and will give birth to a son, and his name will be called Immanuel (God With Us). He’ll eat cheese and honey, when he knows enough to reject what’s wrong and choose what’s right. However, before the youth knows enough to reject what’s wrong and choose what’s right, the land whose two kings you dread will be devastated.”

Isaiah is told that the Immanuel will be conceived and born of a virgin, right? So Mary must be a virgin, right?? Nope! Many biblical scholars, historians, translators, etc etc, believe that 'virgin' refers to the social class of a young unmarried woman, not a woman who has never had sex. The verses could absolutely be saying Mary had to be young and unwed, with something else happening, whatever that may be. Her sexual virginity is not 100% guaranteed to be biblically accurate; instead, God chooses her because she is not fully married to Joseph yet. Luke, in defining her as a 'virgin' before anything, is him screaming 'Isaiah!!' from the rooftops. The gospels are, at the end of the day, religious propaganda written with the intent to convert and inform. Do I believe them? More or less, yeah. But to pretend that they weren't deeeeeply influenced by the attempts to convert Jews and those who were surrounded by Jewish society is completely naive.

The nativity in the gospels is propaganda. It is, as my priest once said, 'a superhero origin story'. The events were tweaked and exaggerated for their audience. For example, Jesus' nativity in Matthew is heavily influenced by Moses. In the Gospel of Matthew, King Herod calls for all toddlers born around the time Jesus was born (he was like, 2) to be slaughtered after he learns that Jesus is to become a king. He is frightened of Jesus' prophesied power, just like the Pharaoh was fearful of the Hebrews' power in Moses' story, and kills a bunch of toddlers, just like Pharaoh kills the Hebrews' newborns. However, Jesus survival is divine-- an angel comes to Joseph and warns him that Herod is killing kids, and the family flees-- unlike Moses.

Basically, the Gospels constantly subtweet the Prophets and the most famous figures in the OT, partly because of the whole 'son of god' thing, but also because their audience is often Jewish and they want their audience to see connections to their daily life. The Jewish people were the hardest to convert (just typing that feels grossss), as many of them saw Christianity as polytheistic, which, I'll give em that, totally valid argument. So by stressing the connections there reaaaaaalllllly hard, they were able to get more Jewish folks on 'their side'.

So, Mary being a virgin is super vital, but also very likely not in the way of what we think of now, and even then, I completely agree that people stress the virgin part WAY WAY WAY too much.

But going back to the Magnificat; that scene, Mary with her community, happy and joyous, really showcases the differences between our texts. Mary has community-- Joseph and her cousin and her cousin's husband. Joseph accepts her story; she sings the Magnificat, all is well. Barn birth sucks, but hey, no biggie! They remove almost any and all conflict, and Jesus's birth is a fairytale.

In the Gospel of James, which is non-canonical and not considered a valid biblical text, but I find a lot of religious truth in, Mary's experience is far, far closer to yours. I don't have my copy on GoJ nearby, but in it, Mary was given to the local temple as a very young child. As she grows up, she serves as a handmaiden in the temple as best she can; her dedication and determination are so significant that she's noted as a uniquely holy woman. She takes a vow of perpetual virginity, promising God that, as His literal handmaiden serving in the temple, she will never have a relationship or sex with anyone, ever, showing she cares only for Him.

However, due to a bunch of Events, she is forced to leave the temple. As an unmarried woman, she is in a very precarious spot socially, and so the temple clerics find a 'husband' for her. They will never have sex, etc, etc., as she has made it very clear that sex is a no-go, and Joseph is more of a friend and protector than husband. They are 'married', but not in any way married.

So when she gets pregnant, while she absolutely says yes, she is still terrified. She is supposed to be a perpetual virgin; even if she still technically is, no one else knows that. No one else will believe her, and she knows her community will abandon her. When Joseph finds out, he is furious-- he's concerned people will think he seduced Mary or even assaulted her instead of serving as her protector, and blames Mary for not taking his feelings into account, and despite her being in a increasingly dangeorus situation, breaks off the betrothal.

He abandons her (until God smacks him around into shape a bit later). Her community abandons her. She is alone and scared. She has nothing.

While Joseph eventually returns and the story continues as such, that feeling of despair and fear never lifts. Mary is happy to stay in Bethlehem instead of returning home to Nazareth, likely because everyone there thinks very poorly of her. She got a scarlet letter for following God.

This is exactly why I love your point here so much:

Moreover, there's a weird push to just accept God's will and never feel bad about anything ever because God willed it. Obviously that's the extreme end of people, but it does exist and this Surah just exists to directly oppose that I feel. If that sentiment had any morsel of truth, Mary here would've been chided for questioning God's will and wishing death upon herself (which. yk. I'm sure you've heard of the “suicide is a sin” squad). 

In Christianity, there is a title of Mary called 'Our Lady of Sorrows/Our Lady of Swords'. It is in reference to the suffering of Mary in the Bible, but despite Our Lady of Sorrows being a HUGE devotion, we actually, imo, see very little of that outside the crucifixion. There is much that Mary went through, but the Bible shows none of the real emotional weight in any of it. Granted, I think the Qur'an has far more 'emotional' wording, for lack of a better term, than the Bible. I find the Bible to be far more dry (especially with my go-to translations. They may be more accurate to the Greek, but they are sooooo dry). But despite all this stress on Mary's sorrow culturally, we see so little in the text outside of the 'sword will pierce your heart/soul' from Simeon. That has allowed Our Lady of Sorrows to become synonymous with 'grin and bear it'. "Our Lady suffered so much! Steal your faith, accept what you've been given, and keep going :)."

That ain't healthy. And it makes me very angry that such a vital woman to the faith, who so little is known about, gets twisted into this 'toxic positivity, submit to God, if you suffer it's bc He wants you to and/or you deserve it."

The 'suicide is a sin' squad is alive and kicking over here-- my cousin Matthew, may he rest peacefully, was denied a plot in a Catholic cemetery because he died by suicide, against his priest's own wishes! His priest wanted to let him be buried there, but was denied by higher-ups because of the reasons Matt died. It's sickening. Having someone as important as Mary being consoled by God when in a similar mindset..... God, that would be so amazing.

19:24 Thereupon [a voice] called out to her from beneath that [palm-tree]: "Grieve not! Thy Sustainer has provided a rivulet [running] beneath thee

25 and shake the trunk of the palm-tree towards thee: it will drop fresh, ripe dates upon thee.

26 Eat, then, and drink, and let thine eye be gladdened! And if thou shouldst see any human being, convey this unto him:`Behold, abstinence from speech have I vowed unto the Most Gracious; hence, I may not speak today to any mortal.

This is honestly some of the most touching scripture I've read. When I was in some really dark places as a kid, I never went to chapters from the NT. There wasn't anything in there that felt emotionally relevant. I always went to the story in the Old Testament of the Prophet Elijah being suicidal (1 Kings 19: 4-8)

 Then Elijah walked for a whole day into the desert. He sat down under a bush and asked to die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he prayed. “Let me die. I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the tree and slept. Suddenly an angel came to him and touched him. “Get up and eat,” the angel said. Elijah saw near his head a loaf baked over coals and a jar of water, so he ate and drank. Then he went back to sleep. Later the Lord’s angel came to him a second time. The angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat. If you don’t, the journey will be too hard for you.” So Elijah got up and ate and drank. The food made him strong enough to walk for forty days and nights to Mount Sinai, the mountain of God.

I adore the similarities between Elijah's suicidal ideation in the OT and Mary's in the Qur'an. Both calling out to God, wishing to be gone, both being consoled and provided what they need in that moment. That passage, a few paragraphs above, with God and the palm tree is so much closer to the image of what Our Lady of Sorrows stands for. I find so much more meaning in that Mary than I do in a Christmas carol. To me, this birth, the ideation, isolation, and leaning on God is much, much more of what I envision Mary's life to have been like. In some theological arguments, God is Mary's virgin spouse who stands with her and comforts her throughout her life. Basically, Joseph gets cucked by the Holy Spirit. This seems far closer to how I imagine her relationship with God than any cuck chair Joseph.

I've always had in my head this image of the angels literally being Mary's midwives and loved it, but at the same time, the 'whore' Mary, the 'harlot' Mary-- I feel it reflects a lot of the hypocrisy of the Church, actually. This Mary, mother of Jesus, mother of God, is not a woman the Church is a fan of.

The Mary I see in the Qur'an feels far more like the woman whom a God who lifts up the lowly and unburdens the oppressed would want to be His mother. Not a perfect, immaculate statue, but a human who cries and fears and doubts and is comforted. The young woman whose husband is away for a while, now suddenly pregnant and abandoned? That is who God would choose.

Mary is his most important and emphasized ancestor. Not David, not Aaron, not Jacob, not Isaac, not even Abraham– Mary. 

In fact, Maryam is always referred to by her first name in the Qur'ān, her nasab only being mentioned once alongside her first name But Jesus? Almost always paired with “ibn Maryam”. Sometimes it'd be “Al-Masīh ibn Maryam”, The Messiah Son of Mary.  And occasionally? Just “Ibn Maryam”. Like in 23:50 (Surat Al-Mu’minīn) and 43:57 (Surat Az-Zukhruf).  You're supposed to immediately understand that the son of Mary is him. That's his biggest identification. That's enough to know who he is. That is who he is. More than the messiah, more than Jesus, he's Mary's boy. 

I have no words other than screaming, crying, throwing up (extremely pos)

3:45 Lo! The angels said: "O Mary! Behold, God sends thee the glad tiding, through a word from Him, [of a son] who shall become known as the Christ/Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, of great honour in this world and in the life to come, and [shall be] of those who are drawn near unto God

I just... I need a moment

i just realized how long this monster is, i just started rambling and didnt stop T.T thank you for your time and the lovely response

[likeahauntingmelody]

before sunrise (1995)

[weltenwellen]

b

[namarikonda]

Jesus showing off his top surgery scars to the boys (John. 20:27)

[thesoftfaithclub]

Random modern day things i think Jesus would love

Those plastic lawn chairs - they transcend every culture and bring people together. I think he and his disciples would have enjoyed sitting in a circle on cheap white plastic chairs and talking on hot nights.

Birthday cakes - we’re celebrating the day he brought us into the world AND we’re doing it with food we all share out.

Craft fairs - people who use the talents he gave them coming together to share what they’ve made and exchange between themselves.

Public parks - I mean the really nice ones with playgrounds and public bathrooms. It’s such a wonderful example of free community

Libraries - same reason. We decided to pool our collective writing and offer it for free. We have a hub of community for all ages. We hold free baby groups and we make classes for grownups. Ditto museums.

Build a bear - humans taking inspiration from His act of creation and sharing in the joy.

Charity bags through the post - semi-regular opportunity to help the poor and do some good without even leaving the house.

The stickers you get when you go to a blood drive - For nothing at all you are giving your own body to a stranger to save their life and for your bravery you get a little paper badge of honour

Wooden toys - babies still love their wood toys just the same as they did when he walked.

[blood-is-the-life]

[xxeraphimm]

Then Jesus comes to me again and grinning lifts his shirt...

[melpomenescircus]

Queer Jesus is all I need in life

[flirting-with-psychology]

The Passover Story in Memes

My family has an annual tradition of telling the story in a creative way so here it is, told through memes:

[bad-with-emotions-sadly]

Holy heck how does this only have 140-odd notes

[sacredheart-stigmata]

enough fighting about protestants vs catholics vs orthodox, it is vital we focus on a far more important thing: is judas/jesus or john the beloved/jesus the best One True Pairing

[sacredheart-stigmata]

who gets to make out with the Son of God?

Judas Iscariot (false)

John the Beloved (truly the most obviously correct of answers)

Voting ended onMar 18

**btw, if you answer incorrectly you are a heretic and will be forever #blocked from paradise. team John 5ever

[judas-shrine]

jedas nation WE MUST RISE UP!!!!! do NOT let judas be beat by john #3 who's most notable contribution to the Passion was running faster than one other guy. JUDAS RISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[sacredheart-stigmata]

(tags by @juatw)

[allonlifesjourney]

Jesus/Lazarus the beloved disciple team say holla

[westernsunrise]

the fundamental problem on this website is that if a homeless person tried to talk to most of y’all you’d be scared out of your minds

[westernsunrise]

see because people are actually seeing this i feel like i need to make it abundantly clear what i mean by this: in the united states context, the majority of social problems are just disappeared. the mentally ill are often relegated to their homes, to asylums (these still exist), to hospitals. the disabled, fat, and disfigured likewise. people called “criminal” disappear into the criminal punishment system and often never emerge.

if you live in any city in america, however, there are homeless people. they are the social problem that cannot be disappeared so easily. drive along a freeway outbound from the urban center to the suburbs and look into the trees. you’ll see tents, tarps, evidence of human habitation. walk through a downtown, even in coldest winter, and you’ll see bottles that weren’t there yesterday and clothes inexplicably abandoned. people tend to either not look at these things or to look at them and name them garbage. eyesore. they don’t consider what it would be like to carry everything you own on your back. how little energy you would have for recycling or cleaning up after yourself if you had been kicked out of your shelter at 7am that morning and now had to find a nook to hide out in to escape a -5F windchill. maybe you can go to a local public library, but maybe you can’t because you twitch or smell bad or talk to yourself and people only look at you out of the corner of their eye so they know what description to give the armed security guard at the front desk.

when i’m talking about looking at your unhoused neighbor, i’m talking about looking at them first. i’m talking about smiling and waving and maybe striking up a conversation. i’m talking about offering to grab lunch. i’m talking about indulging them even when they make you uncomfortable.

on memory care floors in hospitals you often encounter the problem of nurses who have been taught how to engage patients with memory issues but who do not give proper patient care because it makes them uncomfortable. they don’t want to lie or play pretend or do anything that takes them out of their very rigidly defined reality. an old man wakes up and tries to get out of bed because it’s time to feed the cows. he wonders where his wife is. it would make his nurse uncomfortable to tell him that his wife knew he needed some rest so she went out to feed the cows, so they tell him that his wife died five years ago and he doesn’t have his farm anymore. they break his heart rather than allow him to live in a better time for a little while longer.

back in december a man sat across from me on the train who was clearly struggling. i started a conversation with him about his art he was holding, which he told me were illustrated children’s books in a language he had always known. it was a syllabary i certainly didn’t recognize, and the illustrations weren’t anything i’ve seen in children’s literature, but we were suddenly both artists on the train. i showed him my journal and he complimented the pasting job on some of my collages. then he started to talk about angels. about his angel specifically, who had died and left him behind on earth. he missed his angel so much that he planned to commit suicide before christmas. i talked to him about his angel, and about love and grief and pain, all of which we could share. he began to call me jesus. i could have told him he was wrong, that i wasn’t even into the abrahamic religions, etc., and it would have broken his heart. instead i walked with him up from the train station—and got him through the armed transit cops who tried to stop him because he didn’t have a ticket—and gave him a picture of a loving savior, and a world that would be better for having him in it. instead of hugging some faggot, he ended up hugging a jesus that loved him. it was an odd situation. it made me a little uncomfortable. it may have been one of the few instances of kindness that he got that day. it may have been the first time in a while that someone who wasn’t unhoused or working the bread line actually started a conversation with him.

imagine if no one ever looked at you. don’t say some cute shit about “oh, i wish no one ever perceived me.” no you don’t. you wish you could control people’s perception of you. but what if people weren’t only not looking at you, but they already thought they knew you. you’re twitching so you’re on something. you’re staring at nothing so you’re dumb. you’re asking for money or food so you’re a leech on society. you’re talking to yourself so you’re dangerous. they don’t look at you but they know you. so they don’t speak to you bc they already know what they’re gonna find.

two and a half weeks ago my mom was found dead on the streets of san antonio. she’d been homeless there for about 12 years. i’d only just gotten stable enough to reach out to her. the woman i contacted at the day home she went to every month to get a haircut, her nails done, and to wash her clothes said she was doing well, that she was clean, that she was very polite, that she was smart. she had two dogs that she’d cared enough about to have microchipped. their names are fin and sophia. having those dogs probably made it so she couldn’t get permanent housing, because most housing programs for the homeless don’t allow them to bring pets. a lot of people choose to keep their pets rather than give them up as a condition of securing housing.

in denver, colorado i once met an unhoused man who had a master’s degree in geophysics. his thesis was on magnetic wells and their affects of satellite orbits. he was a birdwatcher.

when you refuse to look at homeless people, or the things they leave behind (often are forced to leave behind by cops), you are actively participating in the disappearance of a population. do you think you wouldn’t lose part of yourself if safety concerns made you nocturnal? if every time you got enough stuff to set up a good camp some suburbanite called the cops on your tent? would you not talk to yourself if no one else was speaking to you?

a lot of talk goes into the problem how easy it is to become homeless. one medical bill, one missed paycheck and your life is imperiled. well, there are a lot of people who are stepped over every day who already live your worst case scenario, and the simple fact is that the majority of people in the u.s. are too scared of having an uncomfortable or even perhaps scary interaction with an unhoused person to look at them. but i need y’all to know that you are not special. it isn’t just the dirtiest, most addicted, most mentally ill homeless people who are left to die on the streets alone. it is all homeless people. people who won’t leave behind beloved pets, people who couldn’t survive in academia, people who think they’re being gangstalked, people who have jobs, people who have families. if you are one missed paycheck from homelessness, you’re also one catastrophic tragedy, one spark that catches in the apartment on the other side of your building, one chance encounter with the drug that just won’t let you go. not one goddamn person on this earth is better than the unhoused person they step over on the way to get their morning coffee, and i hope to fuck y’all figure that out before you find yourselves disappeared too.

if you actually want to change the fucking world, maybe start with looking your neighbors in the eye.

[maxpawb]

It's scary to be transgender in the world right now but if you're transgender I love you and we have to stick together and keep fighting and keep living and keep loving

[thesoftfaithclub]

Little human things i like to imagine Jesus did

Did he ever imagine pictures in the shapes of clouds?

A bug landed on him and he did that thing where he let it crawl up his finger then lifted it up to his face for a better look.

Did he draw squiggles in the dirt with his sandals?

Blow into one of those clay pots to hear it echo.

When he sat outside in the cold would he pull his feet up under his blanket and sit in a ball to keep warm?

Did he ever get a song stuck in his head?

Would he make heat by rubbing his hands together and then place them on the cheeks of a disciple to warm them on a cold night?

[luciaofsyracuse]

“Bad theology is when people see Judas as more Jewish than Jesus.”

— Krister Stendahl

[eesirachs]

do you have any favorite poems that remind you of your faith?

this living hand, now warm and capable

any other name

the warble of melting snow is the river

산하엽

in kyoto

last poem i’m gonna write bout us

[havingapoemwithyou]

Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale by Dan Albergotti

[evilwizard]

one time back in like 3240 B.C. all the angels were hovering around in God’s throne room waiting for one of the prophets to show up, and the Big Guy leaned over, ever so casually, and just ate a seraphim. right out of the air. everyone was too freaked out to ask any questions about it, and God never addressed it later. but they don’t put shit like that in The Bible

[wildseerbigwings]

why and how do you know this?

[evilwizard]

saw it in my orb. also i dated an angel for a while