The Virgin Mary, Monotheism and Sacrifice

Abstract

The Virgin Mary plays a major - although often paradoxical - role in the incarnation and crucifixion and in the ecclesiastical structure of Christianity. This role is shaped by sacrifice as understood in terms of the religious patrimony of ancient Israel and as refigured in the new Christian and Islamic paradigms arising from it. Here the offering up of a son is a frequently occurring motif, one in which fathers and mothers play an emotionally fraught, anthropologically conditioned and theologically significant role. Like such figures as Abraham and Sarah in the Hebrew Bible, Mary's relationship to sacrifice has profound implications not only for Christian theology, but for later developments in monotheism, including the role of women and gender in creating and sustaining religious identities, the emergence of competing definitions of orthodoxy, and the institution in some traditions of a masculine priesthood and religious hierarchy.

Connecting worlds: Filipino and Indonesian sojourns to Saudi Arabia

“…Sacrifice and love 22 are always indicated when participants discuss the trials of being an OFW in KSA. Moreover, it is not a coincidence that love and sacrifice are core to Christian virtue and cosmology (Kearns, 2008;Daly, 2009). According to several participants, to express love, one must sacrifice.…”

“…The OFW's venture into the unknown, living or working under trying conditions, is a form of utang-na-loob, sacrifice and love. Their loób, will and understanding of the other as part of themselves gives them the strength to live many years away from home, giving up the opportunity of raising their own children and living with their families, but knowing that they are sacrificing themselves for their good, paying a debt to the people who raised them and 22 Much has been written about Christian understandings of sacrifice and love (Kearns, 2008;Daly, 2009;Mayblin and Course, 2014). Pedregosa (2019) suggests that Christian values and understanding of OFW's sacrifice are encapsulated in the understanding of the community hero, the bayani.…”

A Feminist Approach to the Marian Temple Type

“…Cited in Cleo McNelly Kearns, The Virgin Mary, Monotheism and Sacrifice (New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), p. 270.…”