A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne; and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days. (Rev 12:1-6, NRSV)
The most commonly cited biblical “proof-text” for the bodily assumption of Mary, elevated to the position of a de fide dogma in 1950 by Pius XII, is the woman clothed in glory in Rev 12. I have discussed the bodily assumption and Rev 12 a number of times in this blog, such as Refuting Taylor Marshall on the Bodily Assumption of Mary as well as chapter 5 of my book Behold the Mother of My Lord: Towards a Mormon Mariology, pp. 139-56.
Some have argued that, as the woman gives birth to the Messiah, ipso facto, this is Mary, not a corporate personality, the latter being the earliest interpretation of the woman in Rev 12.
While this might, at first blush, seem like a good argument for a Marian interpretation, the problem is that such ignores the Old Testament background of the imagery. In the Old Testament, Israel/Zion/the people of God (a corporate personality, not a specific individual) is said to have “seed”; be pregnant and give birth in great travail, and other elements one finds within Rev 12. Consider the following (all taken from the NRSV):
Like a woman with child, who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near her time, so were we because of you, O Lord. (Isa 26:17)
Sing, O barren one who did not bear; burst into song and shout, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate woman will be more than the children of her that is married, says the Lord. (Isa 54:1)
Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. (Isa 61:9-10)
I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah inheritors of my mountains; my chosen shall inherit it, and my servants shall settle there . . . They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord--and their descendants as well. (Isa 65:9, 23)
Before she wsa in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she delivered a son. Who has heard of such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be delivered in one moment? Yet as soon as Zion was in labor she delivered her children . . . Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who lover her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her . . . For thus says the Lord: I will extend prosperity to her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse and be carried on her arm, and dandled on her knees. (Isa 66:7-8, 10, 12)
Writhe and groan, O daughter Zion, like a woman in labor; for now you shall go forth from the city and camp in the open country; you shall go to Babylon. There you shall be rescued, there the Lord will redeem you from the hands of your enemies. (Mic 4:10)
Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has brought forth; then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel. (Mic 5:3 NRS)
Such a concept if picked up the apostle Paul in Gal 4:26:
But the other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother.
This is also picked up by those at Qumran. 1QHa XI, 7-12 (the Hodayot [Thanksgiving Psalms]) reads as follows:
7. you have [sav]ed [my] life, [for] they regard me [as a reproach and a deris]ion and make [my] life like a ship on the depths of the sea
8. and like a city fortified before[ the enemy]. I was in distress like a woman giving birth to her firstborn, when pangs
9. and painful labor have come upon her womb opening, causing spasms in the crucible of the pregnant woman. For children come to the womb opening of death,
10. and she who is pregnant with a manchild is convulsed by her labor pains. For in the breakers of death she delivers a male, and in the cords of Sheol there bursts forth
11. from the crucible of the pregnant woman a wonderful counselor with his power, and the manchild is delivered
from the breakers by the one who is pregnant with him. All
12. wombs hasten, and there are severe labor pains at their births and shuddering for those pregnant with them. And so at his birth all (these) pains come upon (Eileen M. Schuller and Carol A. Newsom, The Hodayot (Thanksgiving Psalms): A Study Edition of 1QHa [Early Judaism and Its Literature; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012], 35, 37)
Therefore, there is nothing problematic with one holding that the woman represents a corporate personality in light of the fact that she is said to give birth to the Messiah.
