ABSTRACT
One particularly important categorization of Mary taken from the Hebrew Bible has to do with her socioeconomic origin. It is generally acknowledged that Mary came from that class of lowly and oppressed people of Israel who had long been deprived of economic necessities and social justice and who, in biblical Hebrew, are called 'anawim. Mary's low social station – but not necessarily her submissiveness – has made her popular among many Christians on the left to this day. Consider, for example, the appeal of Mary to poor and vulnerable women. Gustavo Gutierrez is a liberation theologian who approaches the emotionally charged issue of poverty while paying hardly any attention to Mary. How is this possible? Gutierrez does adduce a mass of scriptural evidence to support his contention that, "in the Bible poverty is a scandalous condition inimical to human dignity and therefore contrary to the will of God.".
