Friday, December 9, 2016

Answering the claim Mary is New Ark of the Covenant

It is common for Catholic apologists to point to alleged parallels between the Old Testament Ark of the Covenant and Mary, the Mother of Jesus, in an attempt to prove, via typological interpretation of certain New Testament texts, that Mary, as the New Ark of the Covenant/antitype of the OT Ark of the Covenant, was free from sin, both original and personal. To read a popular example of this, see Patrick Madrid, Mark, Ark of the New Covenant: A Biblical look at the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Cf. John Salza, Biblical Q&A about the Blessed Virgin Mary, p. 4)

In their book, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences (Baker: 1995), Norman Geisler and Ralph MacKenzie wrote the following in response to Patrick Madrid's article on pp. 314 n. 55 which was rather spot-on:

One Catholic apologist calls this the “most compelling type of Mary’s Immaculate Conception” (see Madrid, “Ark of the New Covenant,” p. 12). It is only compelling if one makes the unbiblical and unjustified assumption that it is a valid analogy. One can note certain similarities between many things that prove nothing (e.g., there are many strong similarities between good counterfeit currency and genuine bills). Thus, even proponents of this view have to admit that none of this “proves” the immaculate conception (ibid.). The ineptness of these kinds of analogies surface in Madrid’s question: “If you could have created your own mother [as God did in Mary], wouldn’t you have made her the most beautiful, virtuous, perfect woman possible?” (ibid.). Sure, I would have done a lot of things differently than God did. If I were God and could have created the most beautiful place for my Son to be born it would not have been a stinky, dirty animal stable! God, however, chose otherwise.

Furthermore, Eric Svendsen, in his excellent book on New Testament Mariology, wrote the following in response to John McHugh’s attempt to appeal to alleged Ark of the Covenant imagery in the Gospel of Luke:

Many of McHugh’s points made in support of viewing Mark as Ark/Tabernacle are badly in need of nuance. The word επισκιασειν (along with its variants σκιαζειν and συσκιαζειν, “overshadow”) is used in many other OT contexts beside the one McHugh selectively cites. It is used, for instance, of Mount Zion (Isa 4:50; cf. Wis 19:7), of the Israelites (Num 10:34[36]), of God’s chosen ones (Deut 33:12; Ps 91[90]:4; 140[139]:7), and even of the plant that grew over Jonah’s head (Jonah 4:6). Moreover, the parallelism demanded by this view is inconsistent. We are told sometimes that Mary is paralleled with David (both “arise” and “set out”), while other times that Mary is paralleled with the Ark. Moreover, the statement of David in 2 Sam 6:9, “How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me?,” changes the parallelism from Mary/David to David/Elizabeth.

Yet even if we were to allow for this inconsistency, there are still other incongruities. First, the Ark did not immediately come to David (as Mary does to Elizabeth) but was taken to the house of Obed-Edom for three months. Second, David’s words are said in frustration, whereas in the case of Elizabeth, the words are stated in humility. Third, Mary did stay with Elizabeth for three months, as opposed to David who complains that the Ark can never come to him—again changing the parallelism, this time from Elizabeth/David to Elizabeth/Obed-Edom. There is a difference not only in the intent of the saying, but also in just where the “Ark” stayed in relation to the speaker. The fluctuation of the parallelism from Mary/Ark to Mary/David to David/Elizabeth to Elizabeth/Obed-Edom seems too capricious to be valid, and is for that reason alone rightly rejected by most scholars. Mary’s three-month stay with Elizabeth is more naturally explained on the basis that Elizabeth is six months pregnant when Mary arrives. After the baby is born (three months later), Mary would naturally return home to take care of her own advancing pregnancy.


At the end of the day, if McHugh’s parallel between Mary and the Ark is to be maintained (“like the Ark of the Covenant, [Mary] became the Dwelling-place of the Most High”), then it must be nuanced—the value of the Ark law in its Dweller and not in the Ark itself which, apart from the Dweller, had no intrinsic value of its own. If Mary is to be seen as the Ark, it must have been a temporary status lasting only the duration of her pregnancy. Once the dweller leaves, so also the value of the Ark diminishes. (Eric D. Svendsen, Who is My Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism [Amityville, N.Y.: Calvary Press, 2001], 167-68)