Mariamne and Mary

It was a research project that suddenly hit a snag. Those doing the research decided to quit. The project fell to the rest of the committee. The St. Peters Historical Focus Group was tasked with providing new research on Main Street in St. Peters, Missouri. I decided to start running some of the chains of title on the properties that had already been chosen. Every history of St. Peters says the same thing about the beginning of the town, that the town of St. Peters was platted by Henry Deppe and Henry Reineke in 1868. The 1885 History of St. Charles, Montgomery, and Warren Counties claims this as do all the histories of St. Peters written since then. Every history of St. Peters is wrong. The original town of St. Peters was laid out by Hypolite Bernard before 1850 (St. Charles County, MO, Deed Book 559, p. 991, 30 July 1970). The first addition to the town of St. Peters was made in 1860 by John Baptiste Bernard and Hypolite Bernard (St. Charles County, MO, Deed Book O-2, p. 160). All the histories of St. Peters are wrong. It is possible for one to think they have figured out the truth and yet be wrong.

Ancient history is much harder to prove than the above example. Claims can be made that cannot easily be proven true or false. The name Mariamne is common among the Herodians. Mary is a common name in the New Testament. I get the sense from reading Cleta Flynn’s blog (https://mysearchforpoliticalmary.com/2015/06/06/bad-mary-part-ii/#_edn2) that she thinks Mary is one of the Mariamnes descended from Herod the Great. Considering the fact that both names were common in Roman times in the area in and surrounding today’s country of Israel, such a connection seems ridiculous to me. I mean, how do you know that Mary Magdalene or one of the other Marys mentioned in the New Testament wasn’t part of the Herodian dynasty? Such a connection is impossible to prove because of how common the name was at that time. Consider also that no evidence is given to show that the Herodians ever lived in Nazareth, which is the town Mary was living in according to Luke 1:26. Such a view would disqualify Jesus Christ as Messiah as He would not be biologically descended from David. It denies the virgin birth of Jesus Christ and claims that Matthew simply made up the details in his gospel, details for which Matthew later died. It also denies the statement made by the angel Gabriel to Mary in Luke 1:32, “And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David” (ESV). Flynn, sticking with Matthew, after accusing Mary of committing adultery, then claims that Matthew fabricated a genealogy which included women of ill-repute. In this, Flynn claims that Ruth played the harlot to have a son by Boaz, but the story does not imply that. In fact, it was Naomi that encouraged Ruth to lay at the feet of Boaz at nighttime. The word “know,” often used of intimate sexual relationships in the Old Testament does not appear in Ruth 3 as it should if Flynn is correct. In fact, there is no indication of any premarital sex in the Book of Ruth at all. Ruth 4:13 says, “So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. And he went into her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son.” In other words, Boaz and Ruth did not have sex until after marriage.

I conclude, therefore, that the claim that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a Mariamne descended from King Herod, cannot be proven because of the prevalence of both names in New Testament times, there is no reason not to take what Matthew wrote at face value unless one is already predisposed to reject it, Flynn’s claims about Ruth have no foundation in the Bible and the book of Ruth refutes them, and the claim that Jesus was a descendant of Herod has no historical foundation whatsoever. That Joseph and Mary were both living in Nazareth, and not Bethlehem, should be enough to prove geographically that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was not related to the Herods in any way. Like the history of St. Peters, just because someone makes a claim does not make it so. There must be irrefutable historical evidence to back it up. Otherwise, it’s just speculation.