This gospel, though it is considered to be authentic by several ancient Christian sects to be true of Mary’s life, has parts of it that has been corrupted. Jerome, a church father of the fourth century, made translations of this gospel.
Other church fathers such as Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, and Austin, also mention this gospel in their writings. However, a bishop named Faustus, said that ancient copies were different than those translated by Jerome. Faustus writes that the “Virgin” was not of the tribe of Judah, but of the tribe of Levi. The most recent copies of this gospel state:
THE blessed and ever glorious Virgin Mary, sprung from the royal race and family of David, was born in the city of Nazareth, and educated at Jerusalem, in the temple of the Lord. (Birth of Mary 1:1)
Reasons that the first verse of this gospel is forgery:
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“THE blessed and ever glorious Virgin Mary”, besides the “Virgin Mary” being worshiped by the Catholics, this obviously smacks of Catholic style talk.
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“…born in the city of Nazareth”, is trying to convince the reader Mary was of the tribe of Judah.
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“…the royal race and family of David”.
- the genealogy in Luke is not the “royal” lineage;
- though the genealogy in Luke leads back to King David, it is not the lineage that contains King Solomon, who is of the royal lineage.
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“…educated at Jerusalem, in the temple of the Lord”: only Levite girls could be educated in the Temple. Her mother Anna was the sister of Elisabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, who we know from scripture was a Levite:
There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. (Luke 1:5)
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Faustus referred to a Gospel in which states that “the Virgin herself was not of this tribe, but of the tribe of Levi; her father being a priest of the name of Joachim”. Not only does he state that Mary was of the tribe of Levi, but also that her father was a priest. Priests only came from the tribe of Levi and they were allowed to only marry a Levite woman.
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This means that both Mary’s parents were Levites, which makes Mary a Levite. (Again, unless a man of the Tribe of Judah could become a priest — however there is no indication that Joachim was a descendant of King David and King Solomon)
The Gospel of the Birth of Mary was corrupted to make it look like Mary was of the tribe of Judah, but the corrupter doesn’t take into account other factors that contradict his falsehood. The obvious reason was to make it look like Mary could have been a descendant of King David, making it possible for the genealogy in Luke to be Mary’s.
The reason for this is obvious: if Jesus’ genealogy were through Joseph, then Mary could not have been a virgin — contradicting the virgin birth forgery in Matthew and Luke. Also, since Mary was a Levite, it is impossible that she was a descendant of the genealogy in Luke.