What the Dead Sea Scrolls Can Teach Us about the Annunciation
The annunciation is Gabriel’s prophetic announcement to Mary that she would give birth to the Son of God. However, in the past, some critics believed the idea of the Messiah as Son of God was a Graeco-Roman concept that Christians picked up after Easter. They thought Christians encountered the Graeco-Roman myth of the divine man or the son of God and then secondarily applied it to Jesus, redefining messiahship. Was the idea of Messiah as Son of God already circulating in the first century Israel? Or did it come later? One of the very noticeable features about the Gospel of Luke is it’s a very well-developed infancy narrative—or even narratives because we’re really talking about the infancy of John the Baptist, as well as the infancy of Jesus, and even a story from his early childhood. I want to focus on the Son of God theme, also on the canticles, or songs of Israel, that are embedded in the infancy narrative, as well as another interesting theme that develops that often is overlooked,...