Addressing the arguments of McHugh et al., Eric Svendsen noted the following problems with such:
Difficulties with the Daughter of Zion View
The image of the daughter of Zion, often attributed to Mary
by conservative Catholic scholars, is doubted by moderates . The phrase is used
frequently in the OT to denote a sinful and shameful Israel—not exactly the
kind of imagery Catholics would like to apply to Mary. The M[ary in the]N[ew]T[estament]
taskforce does not mince words in assessing the tenability of this symbolism: “Drawing
heavily on a concordance to the LXX, the proponents of this symbolism often
contend that since a term used by Luke is found in a certain Old Testament
passage, Luke intended to invoke that passage, its context, and other related
passages” (MNT, 128).
The taskforce notes
several difficulties with this view (Ibid., 131). First, χαιρε is further clarified in 1:29: “Mary
was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting (ασπασμος) this might be,” indicating that
the proper translation is “greeting,” not “rejoicing.” Second, χαιρε is a term that normally denotes
a simple greeting (Matt 26:49, 28:9), or is used at the beginning or ending of
a letter (Jas 1:1; Phil 3:1; 4:4), and was as common then as “hello” and “goodbye”
are today. The notion that Luke would have used ειρηνη and not χαιρε had he intended a normal
greeting is pure speculation. Third, the connection between Mary and the daughter of Zion via the use of παρθενος does not help the case of the
proponents of this view “since almost all the Old Testament references to the
virgin Zion or virgin Israel are uncomplimentary, portraying her in a state of
oppression, waywardness, and lust” (Ibid., 132). Fourth, χαιρε is also found in the LXX addressed
to the Daughter of Edom:
Rejoice and be glad, O Daughter of Edom, you
who live in the land of Uz. But to you also the cup will be passed; you will be
drunk and stripped naked. O Daughter of Zion, your punishment will end; he will
not prolong your exile. But, O Daughter of Edom, he will punish your sin and
expose your wickedness (Lam 4:21-22).
On what basis do we assign to Mary the
symbolism of the daughter of Zion and
not the Daughter of Edom since χαιρε is used for both? Moreover, as McHugh
himself has already conceded [in his discussion] only two of the six OT
passages that use the present imperative form of χαιρε are used with the phrase daughter of Zion—hardly enough of a
pattern to justify our finding the technical meaning of this word that McHugh
implies in his thesis!
In answer to the
first two objections, McHugh grants that this is a greeting, but asks what kind of greeting it is: “Does it have
Old Testament overtones or not?” (McHugh, Mother
of Jesus in the New Testament, 45) In answer to this, we must ask the
further question, Can the OT passages to which McHugh appeals be considered
true greetings? In fact, neither the Zephaniah passages nor the Zechariah
passage uses χαιρε as a
greeting. But if neither one of the two OT passages that can be adduced in
support of McHugh’s view is a true greeting, then the connection between those
passages and the Lukan passage breaks down even further. Moreover, as even
McHugh concedes (Ibid., 46), Luke may have chosen χαιρε instead of ειρηνη simply because he intended a
wordplay with κεχαριτωμενη
which immediately follows.
Against the fourth objection above, McHugh,
while conceding that a phrase such as Rejoice and be glad, O Daughter of Zion”
would certainly have made Luke’s purpose clearer, nevertheless maintains that this
would be out of step with Luke’s style (Ibid., 46-47). He cites other instances
where Luke alludes to OT passages without providing direct quotations, such as
1:31 which alludes to Isa 7:14 (though, oddly enough, McHugh later contends
that Luke 1:31 “Is a virtual citation of the Greek text of Is 7:14! [Ibid., 54]),
and 1:32-33 which alludes to Isa 9:7 and 2 Sam 7:12-16. Yet in each of the
cases McHugh cites, the OT allusions are Christological, nor Mariological.
Moreover, even McHugh grants that this view of χαιρε as an allusion to the daughter of Zion is historically
innovative, and that “before 1939, nearly all writers took the word χαιρε to be simply an everyday
greeting, devoid of doctrinal significance, the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew shalom or the Aramaic shelam (‘Peace!’) (Ibid, 37).
On the other hand, McHugh has argued
persuasively for a connection between the daughter
of Zion passages and the Annunciation via the use of the present imperative
χαιρε. If there
is no intended connection, it is indeed odd (the attendant difficulties set
aside for the moment) that Luke never again uses this form of the word for a
greeting, and that all the instances of it in the LXX where a positive command
is given also refer to Zion. Still, all this must mean is that Luke intends an allusion of some kind. It would not be all surprising that Luke might allude to
these passages given their salvation-historical theme. For Luke, the Messiah
has come, and with him the ultimate cause for Israel’s rejoicing. If Luke
portrays Mary as the recipient of the greeting “Rejoice!,” it is not so much
that Mary is being portrayed as the daughter
of Zion as that Mary, as a member of the class of Israel, is also a member
of the daughter of Zion. At the end
of the day, if McHugh has sought to equate the person of Mary with the eschatological
daughter of Zion (Ibid., 47, 50), he
has not established his case. For there is clearly a difference between
connecting the daughter of Zion
passages in the OT to the Lukan passage by means of the common theme of the
final redemption of Israel, and the further, unmerited step of equating the daughter of Zion with the person of
Mary. While the evidence McHugh adduces (though scant in light of the
objections above) might support the former contention, it certainly cannot bear
the weight of the latter. (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], 164-66)
