Luke 1:34 and "I know no man" (ἄνδρα οὐ γινώσκω)

One argument for the perpetual virginity of Mary is that, as Mary in Luke 1:34 used similar language to Japhet’s daughter in Judg 11:39, and as the latter died a virgin and this was due, in part, to a vow, this someway is Luke, through borrowing from the LXX, informing readers that Mary was an avowed perpetual virgin.

 

Luke 1:34 reads:

 

Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing that I know no man?

 

εἶπεν δὲ Μαριὰμ πρὸς τὸν ἄγγελον· πῶς ἔσται τοῦτο, ἐπεὶ ἄνδρα οὐ γινώσκω;

 

Judg 11:39 reads:

 

At the end of two months she returned to her father, who did to her according to the vow which he had made; and she had no relations with a man. Thus it became a custom in Israel,

 

καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τέλει τῶν δύο μηνῶν καὶ ἐπέστρεψεν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα αὐτῆς καὶ ἐποίησεν ἐν αὐτῇ τὴν εὐχὴν αὐτοῦ ἣν ηὔξατο καὶ αὐτὴ οὐκ ἔγνω ἄνδρα καὶ ἐγένετο εἰς πρόσταγμα ἐν Ισραηλ

 

As both texts uses the negation ου coupled with the verb “to know” (γινωσκω), and “man” (ανηρ), this is supposedly evidence for Luke deliberately quoting from Judg 11:39.

 

When one searches the LXX for instances of this construction, however, we see that it appears a few time, so it is not unique to Judg 11:39:

 

Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man (ουκ εγνωσαν ανδρα); let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye them as is good in your eyes; only unto these man do nothing, for I therefore came they under the shadow of my roof. (Gen 19:8)

 

And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her (ην ανηρ ουκ εγνω αυτην); and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up. (Gen 24:16)

 

And thirty and two thousand persons in all, of women that had not known man (εγνωσαν κοιτην ανδρος) by lying with him. (Num 31:35)

 

And they found among the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead four hundred virgins, that had known no man (ουκ εγνωσαν ανδρα) by lying with any male: and they brought them unto the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan. (Judg 21:12)

 

And many desired her, but none knew her (ουκ εγνω ανηρ αυτην) all the days of her life, after that Manasses her husband was dead, and was gathered to his people. (Judith 16:22)

 

Let us take the first example, Gen 19:8. If one wishes to engage in the same method of typological analysis our Catholic friends often do, one could claim that Mary is the antitype of Lot’s daughters, as she remained a perpetual virgin unlike the daughters; Lot was offering up the virginity of said daughters for evil reasons (to appease the mob), but Mary, being the New Eve and free from all stain of sin, personal and original, offered up herself and her virginity to God and was a consecrated/avowed perpetual virgin (cf. the Protoevangelium of James); the use of the plural in the LXX (for the plural daughters) vs. the singular for the person of Mary can be explained in two ways: (1a) how Mary in her singular person is greater than the two daughters who represent good (as pre-fallen humanity was “very good”) and (1b) the post-fallen nature of humanity which was in rebellion against God (again, Mary as New Eve; to borrow from Irenaeus, she unloosed the knot of Eve’s disobedience) and (2) how in the antitype to this imperfect OT type, Mary is the embodiment of two females, being the New Eve and also the personification of the Daughter of Zion in the Old Testament.

 

Of course, this is all nonsense, but it does show that pop-level Catholic apologists are stretching things then it comes to defending the Marian dogmas. It should also be noted that many of these typological “discoveries” are modern, not ancient, in origin. Commenting on the purported parallels between Mary in the Gospel of Luke and the LXX (e.g., Mary as the New Ark of the Covenant), and why they have only in modern times been “discovered,” two Catholic apologists wrote:

 

I agree and apply an important principle advocated by Brown, Mary in the New Testament, 130:

Some methodological consideration are in order here. If the Greek term [in Luke] in question is not uncommon, one cannot assume that Luke borrowed it from the LXX; if it is common in the LXX, one must prove that Luke had one passage in mind rather than others; and one cannot assume that Luke had a concordance enabling him to relate all the passages containing the same term. And finally, even if a certain possibility is established of a subtle reference to the OT, one must still ask whether an audience would ever have understood such subtleties without clear indications by Luke.

 

The last caveat is stated, I believe, weakly. If Luke is on the one hand elevating style of his predecessors and, like Greek historians of his context and past, looking for models, then – in addition to being literate beyond a mere bureaucrat or merchant recording data – we should expect Luke to be much less accessible to readers in a poorly literate Greek world and an unimaginative world of bureaucrats among many of the literate. Any and all subtle references by that fact would likely go over the heads of non-literary hearers and readers. (Christiaan Kappes and William Albrect, Mary Among the Evangelists—The Definitive Guide for Solving Biblical Questions About Mary: [Biblical Dogmatics Vol. 1; 2020], 114-15 n. 117—notice the attempt to downplay the earliest Christian interpretation [and theology extracted therefrom] of the texts in favour of later authors!)