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In this critical note I examine sexually violent biblical language and motifs that Luke includes in his annunciation narrative. Specifically, I show that Luke's introduction of Mary and his depiction of Gabriel's entrance make Mary an object of sexual advance and also sexual violence in a manner common in the LXX. Moreover, I argue that Gabriel's greeting to Mary and Mary's self-nomination as a slave further reinforce this violence. Sexually violent biblical language and tableaux are, I conclude, one manifestation of Luke's sustained biblical allusiveness early in his gospel.
In a series of narratives rich with themes of fecundity, reproduction, and parturition (Luke 1:1-2:40), Luke's annunciation scene is especially sexually fraught. Lineage, virginity, the threat of transgressed betrothal, paternity, an assertion of conception, the denial of sex, and some manner of impregnation are all in play from Luke 1:27 to 1:35.1 In this context, it would probably be impossible for Luke not to employ some potentially sexually evocative language when describing Gabriel's dialogue with Mary. But Luke goes further and includes septuagintal diction and motifs that, at least to a modern audience, discomfit. Quite apart from sex and birth, at multiple points Luke appears to graft sexual coercion and violence into the scene. Although I address several instances of language suggesting sexual violence, each will center on Luke's depiction of Gabriel's initial approach to Mary.
Sexual encounters in the Hebrew Bible normally involve men as subjective actors, women as objects.2 One could substantiate this rather uncontroversial claim in various ways, but I wish to look narrowly at verbs of motion relative to male-female sexual situations.3 Of the numerous sex and sexual assault scenes in the Hebrew Bible, many communicate the sex itself, whether consensual or forcible, through a construction like Ьн NU ("go/come to/into") indicating approach/ entrance. In Luke's Bible, the LXX, two common verbs, siarcopsusaØai ("go into") and sirøpeaØai ("come into") combined with the preposition rcpóę ("to"), replicate Ьн N13 and related constructions and frequently denote sexual approach and entrance.4 The notion of sexual entrance can raise eyebrows, and modern readers may find difficulty giving full, literal significance to these locutions. Yet, as Christine Mitchell has recently argued regarding the Hebrew construction Ьн N13/3"ip ("approach"), it is squeamishness on the part of translators...