Herrens tjänarinna?

Sammanfattning: Luke 1:28-38 is read in Church of Sweden every year during “Feast of the Annunciation”. During the sermons focus often lies on Mary as a role model for the people. A role model because Mary chose to accept the mission from God to carry Jesus in her womb. The question the essay answers is; Did Mary have a choice, could she say no to the angel Gabriel when he told her she would get pregnant and carry Jesus? In this thesis Luke 1:28-38 is analyzed using two different methods, grammatical criticism and motive criticism, which is a form of tradition criticism. In the essay I do not analyze the biblical texts in the original language in depth, instead I rely on translations of the original texts and commentaries. In the beginning I establish the key word in the pericope as “servant” and I analyze it. The Greek word that equivalent to “servant” and used in the Greek original text is “doulos”. After the analysis I conclude that it is more accurate to use “slave” than “servant” to describe what it means to be a “doulos”, because as a “slave” you do not have any choice but to obey your lord. I then move on to see if I can detect any birth narratives in the rest of the Bible. I use a model of five criteria, that according to Raymond E. Brown constitutes a birth narrative. With the help of this model I come to the conclusion that there are three birth narratives that fulfill the five criteria. Genesis 17:1-22, Genesis 18:1-15 and Luke 1:11-20 are the ones that not only fulfill the five criteria but can also tell us something about Mary’s freedom of choice in Luke 1:28-38, since it is highly probable that Luke had access to Old Testament scripture and used the birth narratives from there as models for the birth narratives in his gospel. When I combine the fact that the word Luke uses to describe Mary is “doulos”-“slave” and that you do not find any expressions of choice in the birth narratives that Luke surely had access to and used as models I come to a conclusion. The essays conclusion is that the answer to the thesis question to be that Mary had no other choice then to accept the mission from the angel Gabriel to give birth to Jesus.