Godet on Luke 2:19 and speculation on Luke's use of a Marian source

“And Mary kept [syntereo, to protect, to keep safe, to preserve, to keep in good condition, to treasure] all these things, and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

I preached Sunday morning in our Luke series on Luke 2:8-20.  I was struck by Frederick Godet’s comments on Luke 2:19.  He argues for v. 19 as giving evidence that Luke used an oral recollection of Mary of the birth of Jesus as a source for his narrative of Jesus’ birth  (cf. 1:1-4).  Here are his observations:

The Aramaean coloring of the narrative indicates an ancient source.  The oftener we read the nineteenth verse, the more assured we are that Mary was the first and real author of this whole narrative.  This pure, simple, and private history was composed by her, and preserved for a certain time in an oral form until someone committed it to writing, whose work fell into the hands of Luke, and was reproduced by him in Greek (p. 84).