The Protoevangelium of James Overview

• The earliest infancy gospel narrative surviving

• Contains what is sometimes referred to as a midrash for Matthew and Luke’s birth narratives

• With the help of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, it influenced many other birth and infancy gospels:

  • Pseudo-Matthew

  • Arabic infant traditions

  • Armenian infant traditions

  • Latin infant traditions

• Was popular

  • has more than 100 surviving Greek manuscripts

• Got its name in 1552 by the Latin translator Postel who claimed it was older than the canonical Gospels

• Has recently been argued against, but could be composite:

  • The major sections:

    • 1-16

    • 17-20

    • 22-24

  • With 21 and 25 added later

  • The whole thing could have made use of earlier written works

pgs. 57-67 & https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/infancyjames-mrjames.html

1-3. Joachim goes to fast in the wilderness. He is like Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, who also all go to fast in the wilderness (the former two fast at Sinai).

2. Anna has a maidservant named Judith. Judith might be a reference to the strong widow named Judith from the Old Testament Apocrypha.

3. Anna is a widow who can’t give birth. She is like Mary, Hannah, and all the other Old Testament women who couldn’t have children for whatever reason.

4:1. An Angel of the Lord visits Anna in the garden to tell her she will give birth to a daughter. This is like when he visits Hagar in the wilderness, and like Mary, who is told by an angel that she will give birth to Jesus.

4:2-4. An angel also visits Joachim. Like how an angel also visits Joseph to tell him Mary would have a son.

6. Anna praises the Lord after giving birth to Mary. She uses the first line of Mary’s Magnificat.

6. Anna puts Mary in a homemade mini-sanctuary. Mary comes to represent the Temple in early Christian theology because she is the Theotokos who holds Jesus in her womb after the Holy Spirit overshadows her, as it did the Tabernacle.

7. Anna sends Mary to the Temple when she’s three. Anna is like Hannah giving Samuel to the Temple.

8. The Temple has to figure out what to do with Mary when she turns 12 because she could have her period and make the Temple ritually unclean; they decide to have all the elders hold staffs, and whichever one has a sign will take her in marriage. This is a practical reason for Mary to get married (even though she might stay a virgin even after that).

9:1. Although none of the elders’ staffs do anything, later, Joseph takes a staff and a dove comes out of the rod to fly on Joseph’s head. This dove is similar to that coming from the sky at Jesus’ baptism that shows his election.

9:2. Joseph doesn’t want to marry Mary at first because he already has his own children to take care of. Joseph is like the kinsman redeemer from Ruth, who first wants to redeem her and then finds out he would have to marry her, and decides he needs to care for his family instead. Here, the opposite happens, and Joseph goes from feeling the need to care for his family to marrying Mary. Further, Joseph doesn’t desire to sleep with Mary at all, and her virginity is protected even after her marriage.

9:2. Joseph had sons from a previous marriage. This could have been to make Mary perpetually a virgin and explain how James, Jude, and Jesus’ other brothers came to be.

11. Mary asks the angel who announces her birth if she will be pregnant in the same way as every other woman. Mary doesn’t seem to challenge the angel like in the New Testament.

12. Even after staying with Elizabeth for 3 months and going home, she hides herself so that no one thinks anything bad of her.

12:3. Mary was 16 when she became pregnant (some manuscripts say 14 or 15).

13. Joseph refers to Eve being deceived by the serpent alone and then tricking Adam, and relates his being tricked by pregnant Eve to the story. Instead of Adam having been with Eve the whole time, as Genesis presupposes, this changes the story to Eve going to Adam and takes some responsibility off of his shoulders.

14. Joseph fears that if he hides Mary’s son, he will be guilty of her sin, and if he exposes her sin, the pregnancy might have actually been from an angel (even though Mary only said she was a virgin and nothing about the annunciation). Joseph had to divorce Mary in secrecy.

15-16. The priests accuse Joseph of having slept with Mary to impregnate her when they find her pregnant, which might. They make Joseph and then Mary drink from the water of conviction mentioned in the Torah to see if they committed adultery. Numbers 5 only mentions the ritual as being for women who are married and not for men or unmarried people. Nonetheless, Mary is proven by the priests to be a virgin.

17-18. Mary feels Jesus pressing in her and starting to come out, and so Joseph stops, and they head for a cave in the desert to hide her shame. This is altogether at odds with the canonical account, where they look for space at inns after arriving in Bethlehem. However, many icons and images of the nativity scene show Mary and Joseph in a cave as narrated here.

19:2. A bright cloud overshadows the cave as Mary gives birth, and then an unbearably bright light appears until it enters into Jesus. This intensifies Jesus’ already odd birth story from the canonical accounts.

19:3-20. Salome (the name of the wife of Zebedee, according to tradition; see also Mark 16:1) comes to test with her finger to see if Mary is a virgin. After testing, Salome cries out about her hand falling away and being consumed by fire, and repents for her unbelief. An angel tells her to touch baby Jesus with her finger, and she is healed. The angel then tells her not to tell anyone until Jesus comes to Jerusalem. Here, Mary is verified by Salome to have been a virgin, and Salome is cursed for her doubt. Here, we also see that Salome, the mother of the Zebedees, knew Jesus from his birth.

21. The star that the wise men see is so bright that all the other stars are dimmed to the point of invisibility. In this account, the star is super bright and cannot be missed.

22. When Herod sends orders to kill the two-year-olds, Elizabeth flees to a mountain to hide and prays to God, and it opens up and covers her. This explains how John the Baptizer wasn’t killed when Herod would have killed all the babies around Jesus’ age—it’s because Elizabeth took him with her to be saved by God’s miraculous power.

23. Herod asks Zechariah where his son is, and Zechariah refuses to answer, so Herod kills him at the altar of the Temple. In the canonical gospels, Jesus will say that his generation will be guilty of the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah (presumably, however, it is the blood of Zechariah the prophet). This account, however, confuses the Zechariah from the Hebrew Bible with Jesus’ uncle.

24. No one in Israel knows that Zechariah is dead until the priests go to check for him in the Temple courtyard and a voice declares that his blood will not go away until the avenger comes and the Temple starts crying. The priests cast lots to see who will replace Zechariah, and it falls on Simeon (who was promised that he would not die until he saw Jesus). This very clearly interprets Luke 11:51 (Where Jesus says that his generation will be guilty of the blood from Abel to Zechariah) as referring to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptizer, instead of Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada (2 Chronicles 24:1-22). Further, it is explained that Simeon, who sang a prophetic song over Jesus in the Temple, was a priest.

25. James claims to write the story at the end, and the whole story is in third-person except at the end (where ‘James’ claims to write it), and the narrative of Joseph going to find a midwife for Mary. When Joseph goes to find a midwife for Mary, it switches to first-person perspective and tells the story from Joseph’s point-of-view. Now, it is said that James wrote the account.