And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord" -- Luke 1:39-45).
With her advanced age, especially compared to Mary's, Elizabeth also begins to have a protective role towards her younger relative and, by correlation, towards the yet unborn Jesus. Following the storyline and considering the times, Mary became pregnant without being Joseph's wife in a physical sense. Given the traditions, this may have meant that Joseph's family would have had the opportunity to kill her in order to save their honor. .
The fact that Mary chooses Elizabeth as the relative where to take refuge shows the importance of Elizabeth's character in the biblical storyline and the fact that she offers sufficient guarantees to ensure that she is chosen for that. The previously mentioned characteristics of Elizabeth blend in to ensure that she is the protective individual that can take Mary in.
Following her birth, there are few subsequent scenes in which Elizabeth appears. The storyline is focused on different, more important characters, so she last appears when deciding on the name of the child and attending his circumcision. She strongly argues that the child's name will be John, emphasizing, once more, not a stubborn nature, but rather the certitudes and sound truths that are hard to deny for somebody who has accepted God and his decisions.
Naming the child John was equivalent to breaking with the family tradition, a tradition in which the child would be named after one of the relatives or ancestors. The fact that he does not take the name of anybody else in the family means that he will start a new tradition and will belong to a new familial...
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