Mary: A Flesh-and-Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother

Rating: 3 Stars

Review:

I am really struggling to review this one. Especially as the Gnostic discussion grew more frequent in the last ten or so pages. I will have to think a while longer and hopefully give a decent review in the future. I can say that I enjoyed the set-up, the 'what daily life was like' aspects. But the parts relating to Mary herself, someone we can never really know anything about besides what the Bible provides? I am feeling disgruntled but can't yet put it exactly into words.

Additionally:

After having some time to think, I think I am better able now to put my thoughts into form.

This book is kind of maddening.

It says it is a biography of Mary, Mother of Jesus. It is not. It is a bunch of hypotheticals about what could have happened to Mary, what life was like for a peasant girl growing up in a small village, and certainly not an actual biography of the real Mary. I am not sure what I expected when I picked this one up, because I logically knew that any trace of Mary has long since disappeared in the last 2,000 years. But I was curious, I wanted something more, some brief facts if even that, beyond what the Bible alone tells us. But on the other hand, the Bible should always be enough. Except, when you love history so much - especially ancient history - sometimes it just isn't.