as made evident by the various waves in scholarship for and against a Jewish connection. Early studies on the Protevangelium generally assumed a Jewish milieu for the text given its frequent use and deep knowledge of the Septuagint. Not only are names and characters drawn from portrayals of famous figures—including Joachim in Susanna 1–4 and Hannah in 1 Samuel 1:1–28—but Anna’s and Joachim’s characterizations exhibit clear parallels with the biblical barren couples Sarah and Abraham and Hannah and Elkannah.49 Van Stempvoort has argued that the stories of these biblical matriarchs and other Hellenistic Jewish sources including Susanna, Tobit, and Judith played a significant role in the crafting of Mary’s character in the Protevangelium. Moreover, van Stempvoort writes that the text’s tone, thought, language, usage, and motifs all point to the Septuagint as a source.50 Cameron makes a similar appeal, describing the Protevangelium as being entirely “steeped in the language of the Septuagint” not only in terms of its use of individual words and phrases, but also in style.51
In line with de Strycker, who also supported a Jewish milieu for the text, Smid was so persuaded by the parallels he saw between the text and the Septuagint that he offered a detailed proposal for the profile of the author: someone of Jewish descent born after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 CE or someone who was highly influenced by and/or had extensive knowledge of the Septuagint and the Hebrew Bible.52 Like Cameron and van Stempvoort, Smid saw the Protevangelium as heavily couched in the same thought and vocabulary of the Septuagint. To make his point, Smid notes various examples in which unique Septuagintal phrases like “the great day of the Lord” (ἡ ἡμέρα κυρίου ἡ μεγάλη; 1:4) and practices like the bitter water test administered by the temple priest (5:1) are used at pivotal points in the narrative.53
However, when these Jewish elements were scrutinized further, many of the parallels found in the Protevangelium did not seem to line up as closely with the Hebrew Bible in terms of its literature, traditions, rituals, and customs. Cullmann,54 Elliott,55 and Hock,56 among others,57 stress that a number of the Jewish traditions depicted in the Protevangelium are distorted representations of Jewish practices, including Joachim’s rejection at the temple because of his childlessness (1:5), Mary’s upbringing at the temple (7:1—9:10), and Joseph’s travels to Judea from Bethlehem (since Bethlehem is already in Judea) (21:1) as either being unknown practices or a misunderstanding of Jewish customs.58 With regard to misunderstanding Jewish traditions, the bitter water test (16:3) is perhaps the most widely referenced. Numbers 5:11–31, in which such a test is given to a wife who is suspected of adultery, is cited as the source of this scene. Upon drinking the bitter water and swearing an oath, two outcomes are possible to determine the loyalty of the accused wife: if she is innocent, nothing will happen and she will be able to bear children, but if she is guilty, she will experience immediate physical pain, whereby her uterus will drop and her womb will discharge. The punishment for swearing falsely, therefore, is the removal of the accused woman’s ability to have children. Elliott notes that the bitter water scene in the Protevangelium does not correspond with the test described in Numbers as both Mary and Joseph are required to take the test to determine whether the two consummated the marriage (a marriage arranged specifically by the same priests, no less).59 Numbers also offers other details including the tousling of the woman’s hair and a recitation of a curse formula. The intention and details of the bitter water test in Numbers, according to Elliott, are simply not present in the Protevangelium.
Michael Mach also dismisses the possibility of a Jewish or Jewish-Christian origin for the Protevangelium but for different reasons.60 Mach argues that etymological wordplays that have been used to justify possible connections to Judaism are in fact expressions that have been lifted from the Septuagint or the NT and cannot be used as evidence for any real connection between the text and Judaism.61 In addition, he is not persuaded by the argument that Mary’s appointment to weaving the temple veil has a halakhic basis, or rather knowledge of Jewish customs, because of the emphasis on her exceptional purity and virginity as the reason for her selection. He argues instead that this detail is not a uniquely Jewish custom given that various temples in Athens also required the purity of all workers.62
Those willing to see some possibility of a Jewish background for the text have reasonably looked for other expressions of early Judaism beyond simply the Septuagint and Hebrew Bible. Taking advantage of the fact that Judaism was highly diverse and that the formation of Jewish and Christian identities was still very fluid in the first few centuries CE, such scholars have contributed to new trends that do not so easily dismiss the Judaism question. W. S. Vorster, for example, explores the representation of the Jews in the text to nuance the approach for understanding the text’s relationship with Judaism. Noting that identifiably Christian texts often portrayed Jews in negative ways and Jewish customs and traditions as being superseded, Vorster finds that the Jewish leadership, people, and institutions are simply not portrayed in that way.63 He writes that Jewish leaders in particular are unexpectedly doing all the right things: they are helpers of the protagonist and the message of the text by offering blessings (17:3, et al.), praying (8:3 et al.), correctly performing rituals and rites (6:2; 8:2, 3; 24:1, et al.), and taking care of the temple and determining proper practices and norms (10:1; 15:3 et al.). Their authority and acts are also legitimized and verified by God as illustrated by the divine responses to questions and advice asked of him (8:3–8; 9:3–6). Vorster argues that even when Jewish leadership aggressively demands the testing of Mary and Joseph via the bitter water test, they still continue to support and contribute to the message of the Protevangelium in that Mary and Joseph are declared unequivocally to be innocent and pure. For all these reasons, Vorster suggests that the author likely had Jewish interests when crafting his story about Mary.
Cothenet also offers a proposal that reconsiders the text’s relationship with Judaism by expanding what constitutes Judaism in the first centuries CE. Describing the Protevangelium as one of the “premier midrash chrétien sur la Nativité de Marie,” Cothenet draws a number of parallels between the traditions depicted in the Protevangelium and the Jewish scriptures and stories found within rabbinic tradition.64 He also proposes that many of the Protevangelium’s motifs were influenced by those found in the Haggadah. Timothy Horner follows suit in this reevaluation by looking into rabbinic literature, but his approach is more careful in that he limits his sources to tannaitic traditions. He writes boldly that the “Prot. Jas. would have been best understood—perhaps only fully understood—within a community that was familiar with concerns and images of contemporary Judaism.”65 Past rejection of the text’s relationship to Judaism, according to Horner, was based on a disconnection between the Protevangelium and elements characteristic of Second Temple Jewish, pre-rabbinic literature.
Horner’s most intriguing proposal is that some of the Protevangelium’s major themes—including childlessness, betrothal, marriage, and virginity—are more fruitfully read in the context of ideas found in the Mishnah.66 For instance, he argues that Mary’s life can be divided into three stages: birth to age three, ages three to twelve, and from twelve to adulthood—corresponding to the life cycle of girls found in the Mishnah. Specifically, m. Nid. 5.4 and m. Ket. 1.1–3 describe the parameters of virginity loss; namely, the virginity of a girl three years and a day or younger can be assured, whereas the virginity of a girl older than three years and a day cannot.67 For Horner, this mishnaic tradition offers insight into why Anna and Joachim decide to dedicate their daughter at the age of three instead of their initial plan to send her to the temple at the age of two. Even more, Horner takes up the highly contested bitter water test scene arguing that the Protevangelium’s version is more aligned with the mishnaic discussion of the Sotah than with Numbers 5:11–31 since the former describes a test to determine fidelity by acting as a sort of truth-telling serum.68 In the Protevangelium, Mary and Joseph are required to take the test because both are being questioned about their actions; additionally, the test is not used to determine an illegitimate pregnancy.
While Horner’s proposal has been criticized given that his approach attempts to connect the text with the Mishnah, an early third-century collection which has no historical evidence of exerting influence in the second century, his point is well taken that the parallels between the Protevangelium and the Mishnah help to reevaluate the text’s relationship with Judaism, even if no direct relationship can be determined. Horner’s study also helps problematize the questions concerning categories. Describing the difficulty of determining