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Luke 2:36

Discussion in 'Baptist Theology & Bible Study' started by Cutter, Mar 25, 2010.

  1. Cutter

    Cutter New Member

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    Luke 2:36 And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity...

    Taking into account that Luke wrote this several years after the encounter between Christ and Anna, how do you suppose that he obtained the delicate information about the fact that she "had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity?" From divine revelation, from those who may have known her well enough to have been aware of what we would consider today, information of a private matter, or from some other source? Maybe such information was kept in a journal or register about one's life in that day...My wife and I read this verse today in our reading and I had never thought about it before like I did today.
    Thank you.
     
  2. Steven2006

    Steven2006 New Member

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    IMHO it really doesn't matter how Luke came to know the facts. Since I believe the bible to be the true word of God I except it as fact without question.
     
  3. Deacon

    Deacon Well-Known Member
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    Your "delicate information" is a simple expression for how long she had been married.

    And there was a prophetess, Anna the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher (she was advanced <in years> [literally, having many days], having lived with her husband seven years <after her marriage> [literally, from her virginity],
    and herself as a widow up to eighty-four years) who did not depart from the temple with fastings and prayers, serving night and day.
    Luke 2:36-27 Lexham English Bible

    Rob
     
  4. Cutter

    Cutter New Member

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    Please don't take what I have asked wrong. I believe that the Bible is the true Word of God, too and am not questioning it's inerrancy and integrity.
     
  5. Cutter

    Cutter New Member

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    Maybe I just misunderstand the passage. I thought it meant that she remained a virgin seven years sometime within her marriage.
     
  6. menageriekeeper

    menageriekeeper Active Member

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    I think Deacon is correct. This is merely a discription of how Anna lost her husband young and from that point on served/lived in the temple. 84 years of service even! How many of us will ever live that long cause I'm thinking 84 years as a widow+7 years married+approximately 14 years as a child makes Anna about 105 years old at the time of her encounter. I'm betting most folks in that time period died well before 70, making Anna's experience even more unusual.
     
  7. Cutter

    Cutter New Member

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    Thanks for the answers. They have given me a more clear understanding of this.
     
  8. Jerome

    Jerome Well-Known Member
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    Oh no she didn't marry young!
    If she was widowed in her 20s, 30s, 40s, or early 50s, she, by remaining unmarried, would have been being disobedient to the scriptural command that younger widows marry.
    So she was probably 53+ years old when she got married.

    See this post by annsni.
     
  9. Aaron

    Aaron Member
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    Investment in a good commentary is money well spent . . .

     
  10. menageriekeeper

    menageriekeeper Active Member

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    I disagree. Anna didn't have to follow a scripture that hadn't been written yet! The Bible leaves open how old she was when she married. We don't know. That is why I said IF. I used the cultural norms of the time to theorize Anna's approximate age when she married only to show how old she was when Christ was born. It was her great age that was the point (and the miracle) not the age when she married.
     
  11. Zenas

    Zenas Active Member

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    The amazing thing to me about this passage is that Anna is said to be of the tribe of Asher. I thought all the tribes of the Northern Kingdom had lost their identity hundreds of years before this. I don't recall seeing any mention of these tribes after the Assyrian captivity and there is not one other instance in the N.T. where a person is identified as being a member of one of these tribes. It's strange and perplexing and Aaron's Matthew Henry citation doesn't really clarify things very much.
     
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