Biblical law prescribed a period of ritual impurity for a woman after childbirth. This did not mean that childbirth was sinful or that the mother was dirty. Ritual purity was a religious category that affected participation in sacred life.
Leviticus 12 gives instructions for a mother following the birth of a child.
The length of the period differed after the birth of a son and a daughter. At its completion, the Law called for an offering.
These rules belonged to the Jewish system of ritual purity.
Ideas about purity and impurity shaped important parts of Jewish religious life.
Ritual impurity could result from normal bodily experiences. It should therefore not automatically be understood as moral wrongdoing.
Childbirth was one of the experiences addressed by biblical purity law.
A mother recovering from childbirth was also passing through the period described in the Law.
The requirements affected her relationship to sacred space and religious observance.
When the prescribed period was complete, the required offering could be made.
Ritual baths found throughout Judaea and Galilee provide important evidence for Jewish concern with ritual purity during the late Second Temple period.
They do not tell us exactly how an individual woman observed the rules following a particular birth.
Leviticus provides the basic biblical instructions. Later Jewish writings discuss ritual purity in much greater detail.
Those later discussions are useful, but they should not all be projected unchanged into the first century.
Leviticus 12 describes the mother's period of purification following childbirth.
It also prescribes an offering at the end of that period. A family unable to afford a lamb could offer two birds instead.
Luke 2:22–24 describes Mary and Joseph going to Jerusalem when the time of purification was completed.
Luke specifically mentions the offering of two birds allowed by the Law.
The account shows Mary and Joseph acting within the requirements of the Law of Moses.
Purification after childbirth was prescribed in Leviticus. Luke directly connects the family of Jesus with these requirements.
Archaeological evidence also shows that ritual purity remained important to many Jews in the late Second Temple period.
We should distinguish ritual impurity from ordinary dirt and from moral guilt.
We also should not assume that every later rabbinic interpretation of childbirth purity was already practiced in exactly the same way in the time of Jesus.
Without some understanding of ritual purity, Mary's visit to Jerusalem can seem like an obscure religious formality.
In fact, Luke is showing Jesus' family participating in the covenant life prescribed by Scripture.
The passage also helps us understand how seriously Mary and Joseph took the Law.