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Mary, at Christmastime

Mary, at Christmastime

Last updated on: December 12, 2025 at 2:37 pm by Dan Peterson

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Mary, at Christmastime 2025-12-12T14:37:10-07:00 Dan Peterson

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Very few photographs survive from the ancient world, so this one — of Nephi rebuking his brothers (in color, no less) — is exceptionally valuable.
(LDS.org)

This new article went up today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “Irregular Kings and Precious Things: Viewing Nephi and Joseph Smith through the Lens of Ancient Near Eastern Kingship,” written by Noel Hudson:

Abstract: Political legitimacy is a key concept related to the exercise of political power. Legitimacy was especially critical for “irregular kings,” so named because they were not automatically legitimated by the existing political structure. There are many examples of apologetics from the literature of the Ancient Near East that sought to bolster the legitimacy of irregular kings. The Book of Mormon uses similar apologetics to legitimate its own irregular rulers. The most striking example is seen in the case of Nephi (son of Lehi). Nephi provides dozens of arguments that strengthen his status as a divinely sanctioned king within an Ancient Near Eastern framework. Startlingly, Nephi and other Book of Mormon prophets also seem to have viewed Joseph Smith, the future seer who would bring their words to light, in similar terms. Joseph appears to have been presented as the legitimate heir of the Nephite royal line. The prophecies of the Book of Mormon and Joseph’s receipt of the royal artifacts serve to bolster this claim.

And this one went up on the website, as well: Interpreting Interpreter: “A Legitimate Nephi (and Joseph),” written by Kyler Rasmussen:

This post is a summary of the article “Irregular Kings and Precious Things: Viewing Nephi and Joseph Smith through the Lens of Ancient Near Eastern Kingship” by Noel Hudson in Volume 67 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. All of the Interpreting Interpreter articles may be seen at https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/summaries/. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter series is available at https:/interpreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/.

A video introduction to this Interpreter article is now available on all of our social media channels, including on YouTube at https://youtube.com/shorts/P7CXJXViRpc.

The Takeaway: Hudson expands on the idea that Nephi wrote in part to strengthen his own legitimacy as ruler of the Nephites, based on common legitimization strategies in the Ancient Near East. He also theorizes that Joseph Smith was set up to inherit this kingly legitimacy through connections to Joseph of Egypt and his obtaining of royal artifacts.

“The Virgin of the Lilies” (La Vierge au lys [1899]), by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image) I suspect that veneration of the Virgin Mary reflects a dimly perceived ancient theological truth.

From the Facebook page of Christopher Blythe:

You’ve never heard this beautiful Latter-day Saint ode to Mother Mary before this moment. It was written over a century ago, a dressmaker named Samantha Brimhall Foley wrote “Mary,” a poem that up to this point has never been put to music. Foley was herself a powerful songwriter, who is remembered for compiling the first Spanish hymnbook – a book that never received wide use. But, she was a visionary who on occasion would hear music performed by an invisible choir. We don’t know much about this song, but it is a moving representation of the Annunciation with an eye to Mary’s role in the pre-mortal realms. Why do we not have more of a discussion of Mary in Latter-day Saint thought, look forward to our Christmas episode of Angels and Seerstones.

If I’ve done this right, you should be able to listen to the song via this link. It’s really quite an amazing find. I had never heard of it before.

I share Professor Blythe’s feeling that we Latter-day Saints could and should profitably say more about Mary. Perhaps we’ve overcompensated because of the exaggerated veneration that some Christians bestow upon her. (Analogously, I also think that we’ve tended to overcorrect on the question of faith vs. works because of the extreme overcorrection of some Protestant Reformers against the previous extremes of pre-Reformation Catholicism.)

“Burgdorf” means “fortress village,” and this is the town’s castle (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

I’ll illustrate my sense of overreaction with a story from my mission in Switzerland. My first assignment was to a largish town in the lowlands of Canton Bern called Burgdorf. My first senior companion — who died a number of years ago, much too young — was from Chicago, and (I think this relevant to the experience that I’ll relate) was a still relatively recent and still quite-Jewish convert from Judaism. One day, we “tracted out” a couple who were immigrants from somewhere in Eastern Europe. (I don’t recall which country they had come from. Maybe Poland.)

It was immediately obvious from the decor of their apartment that they were devoutly Catholic and, in particular, that they were exceptionally devoted to the Virgin Mary. Objects of Marian devotion were everywhere.

This plainly began to offend my companion, and eventually, to my astonishment, he commenced (not altogether subtly) to denigrate Mary. Whereupon, in their turn, they began to take offense, and, shortly thereafter, they asked us to leave. Quite understandably, I thought.

As soon as we were outside, I asked him what on earth he had been thinking. “Well,” he explained, still somewhat agitated, “they practically worship her!”

I remember saying to him that their excessive devotion in no way justified our cutting her down. After all, of the hundreds of millions of women who have ever lived, she was the one who was chosen to bear and to raise the atoning Son of God, to prepare him for his all-important mission. That makes her exceedingly special and, yes, worthy of our veneration.

With Mary in mind, I offer today’s piece of Christmas music: I never heard the song “Mary, Did You Know?” while growing up. And for good reason: The lyrics, by Mark Lowry, were only written in 1984 and they were only set to music seven years later, in 1991, by Buddy Greene — while my age, nowadays, is best measured in geological epochs. But the song has come to be one of my favorites, and here it is in a beautiful performance by the a cappella vocal group Pentatonix: “Mary, Did You Know?”

A view of the oldest part of Istanbul, which served as the capital of the Ottoman Empire until its collapse in the early twentieth century and, prior to that, under the name of “Constantinople,” as the capital of the Byzantine Empire. I regard it as one of the most fascinating places in the world. (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)

This is a story that I’ve somehow missed until now. But I think it worth sharing. Perhaps especially at Christmas. I received a Facebook item from the History Club that read as follows:

When coffins filled the ditches of Ireland and entire villages disappeared from starvation, an unexpected savior emerged from thousands of miles away. While Ireland’s own rulers turned their backs, a Muslim Sultan in Constantinople heard the cries of the dying and defied diplomatic protocol to send help. This is the story of how the Ottoman Empire secretly fed the Irish during their darkest hour, and why the Irish have never forgotten.

The full story gets even more remarkable. When Sultan Abdülmecid I learned of the mass starvation sweeping Ireland in 1847, he initially pledged £10,000 to help, an enormous sum at the time. But diplomatic pressure from London forced him to reduce the official donation to just £1,000, since Queen Victoria herself had only given £2,000 and no foreign ruler could be seen as more generous than the British Crown.

What happened next became legend. According to widespread accounts, the Sultan wasn’t satisfied with simply following protocol while people starved. He allegedly ordered several Ottoman ships loaded with grain, flour, and corn to sail from Constantinople across the Mediterranean, around Spain and Portugal, through the Atlantic, and up the Irish Sea to the port of Drogheda. These relief ships reportedly arrived with minimal fanfare, their precious cargo distributed to communities devastated by famine while their own government exported food.

Historical records confirm that Ottoman aid did reach Ireland during the Great Famine, with Irish newspapers from 1847 expressing gratitude to the “benevolent Sultan” for his compassion. The story has been passed down through generations in Ireland, and many point to the crescent and star symbols incorporated into Drogheda’s municipal coat of arms as a lasting tribute to this act of cross-continental solidarity.

For further reading, consult “The Great Irish Famine” edited by Cathal Póirtéir (1995), historical archives of the Freeman’s Journal from 1847, and Christine Kinealy’s work “This Great Calamity: The Irish Famine 1845-52.” The Drogheda Historical Society also maintains records related to the Ottoman connection.

And here is a nine-minute video about the story: Why the Ottoman Sultan Helped Ireland?

Posted from Salt Lake City, Utah

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