Luke 2:36

[Cutter]

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.

 

[Steven2006]

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.

 

[Deacon]

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

 

[Cutter]

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.

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.

 

[Cutter]

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

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

 

[menageriekeeper]

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.

 

[Cutter]

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

 

[Jerome]

This is merely a discription of how Anna lost her husband young and from that point on served/lived in the temple.

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.

 

[Aaron]

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

He is taken notice of by one Anna, or Ann, a prophetess, that one of each sex might bear witness to him in whom both men and women are invited to believe, that they may be saved. Observe,1. The account here given of this Anna, who she was. She was, (1.) A prophetess; the Spirit of prophecy now began to revive, which had ceased in Israel above three hundred years. Perhaps no more is meant than that she was one who had understanding in the scriptures above other women, and made it her business to instruct the younger women in the things of God. Though it was a very degenerate age of the church, yet God left not himself without witness. (2.) She was the daughter of Phanuel; her father’s name (says Grotius) is mentioned, to put us in mind of Jacob’s Phanuel, or Penuel (Gen. 32:30), that now the mystery of that should be unfolded, when in Christ we should as it were see God face to face, and our lives be preserved; and her name signifies gracious. (3.) She was of the tribe of Asher, which was in Galilee; this, some think, is taken notice of to refute those who said, Out of Galilee ariseth no prophet, when no sooner did prophecy revive but it appeared from Galilee. (4.) She was of a great age, a widow of about eighty-four years; some think she had now been eighty-four years a widow, and then she must be considerably above a hundred years old; others, rather than suppose that a woman so very old should be capable of fasting and praying as she did, suppose that she was only eighty-four years of age, and had been long a widow. Though she was a young widow, and had lived with her husband but seven years, yet she never married again, but continued a widow to her dying day, which is mentioned to her praise. (5.)

Matthew Henry

 

[menageriekeeper]

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.

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.

 

[Zenas]

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.