Mary was a virgin in two senses. She was a temple-dedicated Virgin, a custom among the Hebrew priests. Remember Elkanah and Hannah dedicated Samuel to the temple. It was a common practice. Hebrew daughters who served at the temples are described in the Old Testament as women who "watch (צָבָא) at the door of the tabernacle.” Exodus 38:8 states that the laver of copper and its stand of copper were made “from the mirrors of the women who performed tasks at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting” (Hebrew Study Bible, p. 197).
Psalm 68:25 refers to temple women as musicians. "The singers went before, the players on instruments followed after; among them were the damsels playing with timbrels.” In the King James, the temple virgins are called "damsels" but the Hebrew word that appears there is alamot. The duties of the alamot included baking bread, brewing beer, weaving, sewing, drawing water, singing, and playing musical instruments such as the sistrum and the timbrel, a type of tambourine.
To deny Mary's uniqueness is to deny the central miracle of our faith: that she conceived by divine overshadowing (Luke 1:35) just as her Hebrew ancestors anticipated. In their images this miracle is depicted by the sun over the head of HR's mother because the sun was the symbol of the High God for the early Hebrew.
Mary, the Mother of our Lord, is designated “almah” in the Scriptures. The word almah (עַלְמָה) is derived from a verb meaning “to conceal” or “to hide away”. Temple virgins were “alamot” because they were cloistered until they married. In Antiquitates judaicae, the historian Flavius Josephus (c.37-100 AD) refers to the cloisters in Book XV, Chapter 11.
It helps to understand the social structure of the Hebrew ruler-priests. According to that society, a temple-dedicated virgin was a high-status bride and usually a patrilineal cousin. As the cousin bride (a second wife), she was not expected to produce an heir. Joseph's heir was his firstborn son by his first wife. Temple-dedicated virgins such as Mary might marry but depending on the vow made at their dedication, the husband might never have sexual relations with her. Certainly, a righteous man such as Jospeh would have honored Mary's vow.
In the Church, Mary's conception of the Son of God is depicted by an overshadowing dove, a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Both depictions speak of the fulfillment of the first Messianic reference in the Bible: Genesis 3:15. In Joos van Cleve's painting above, The Annunciation c. 1525, a dove hovers above the Virgin Mary. The dove represents the Holy Spirit by whose divine power Mary conceived.
Other images of the Virgin Mary show her holding a spindle, a very early sign of authority among royal women. The spindle symbolized the rabitu's authority. Rabitu was a title for royal ladies who served at Bronze Age water shrines. The term is related to an Ancient Egypt word bity, a reference to the king’s presence in the royal palace. The term also is related to the Akkadian words for water (raatu) and house/shrine (biitu). In the Ugaritic story of Elimelek, the queen mother holds the title rabitu and her emblem is the spindle.
Related reading: Fertility and Water Shrines; The Earliest Known Site of Horite Hebrew Worship; The Influence of Early Hebrew Women; Gender Balance of the Hebrew Social Structure; Solar Imagery of the Proto-Gospel; The Authority of Queen Mothers
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