In Quest of the Jewish Mary

I was not at all impressed with Mary Christine Athans's well-intentioned but ultimately tepid and often turgid "quest" for this "Jewish Mary" she finds so indispensable to a genuine understanding of Christ's mother. Meaning no disrespect to the good sister, I could discern after perhaps a dozen pages that her underlying agenda (a convoluted agenda, at that) was drearily similar to those espoused by so many militant feminist nuns and theologians who are determined to "box Mary up" in their own narrow, partisan packaging every bit as much as they think she is being boxed-in by The Little People, i.e. everyday Catholics and Orthodox Christians. I find this whole approach to be not only condescending and counter-productive but obviously ironic.One of the themes that runs like a tattered thread through this treatment seems to be some sort of happy-go-lucky, progressive nun "fantasy" that everyday Catholics haven't the foggiest idea that Mary was ever a Jewish woman who walked the streets of Nazareth and had her share of human feelings and experiences. Athans peppers this work with vague assertions like "most Catholic girls growing up go through a period of resentment toward Mary" or "most Catholic people can't see beyond the plaster Mary statue on a pedestal." Well, Sr. Athans, "most" writers attempting such a monumental task as summating Mary's place throughout the entirety of History, Theology and Spirituality (this *is* the subtitle of your book) would back-up such condescending generalizations with data and well-researched empirical evidence. Even a few straw-man/straw-woman anecdotes might be helpful. Athans doesn't do that, here. She merely drops the generalizations like seedlings and plows ahead on her merry way to teach poor uninformed Catholics that they must view Mary, almost exclusively, through a prism of her Jewishness or else not bother to view her at all, since any other view is deficient.Where to begin with such a problematic thesis? First, I would question the fact that most Catholic/Orthodox people have little concept of Mary's earthly Jewishness. In as much as Christians think about it at all, I'd say the rank-and-file are quite powerfully aware of the manger and the impoverished sojourn to Bethlehem and the ignominy of betrayal and suffering at Golgotha and the Pharisees, etc. etc. The little old granny in her babushka in Latvia may have a garish plastic Mary atop her kitchen windowsill, but I guarantee that she is aware of Mary's abject participation in the human experience. Indeed, this awareness has been throughout the ages a potent impetus for Christian devotion to the Virgin. I would footnote such assertions but this is an Amazon review, so I don't have to do so. My point is that Athans ought to have done so in her book, and in general she does not. Amazing revelations such as "Mary worshipped at a synagogue" are surely helpful and fascinating, but I do not think they are intrinsic to an effective understanding and spiritual relationship with Mary or her Son.Athans, in my opinion, makes a big mistake by attempting to posit how centuries of poor stupid Christians have gotten the whole Mary "story" dreadfully wrong, or have gotten it half-baked, and then she proceeds to take us through a rather breakneck summary of Mary throughout History, Theology and Spirituality -- a compendium of her own craftsmanship. Yikes. That is a quite daunting task within the framework of one volume seeking to chiefly delineate Mary's Jewishness. To blithely feature an additional compendium of the entire "history of the history" of Mary across the ages of Christendom is painful to behold, in this instance, particularly since Athans's scholarship is trite, stilted, pedestrian, largely devoid of insight and, quite often, incorrect. Again, even in the portions of the book wherein Athans seeks to relate dry factual data about devotion to Mary in any given time period, she'll often insert one of her vague generalizations along the lines of: "Medieval Christians were closer to Mary than to Christ because they believed she was more merciful." No footnote to provide corresponding evidence of such a broad assertion is given. No further explanation attempted. At times Athans's historical summation reads like a generic, post-Vatican II "talking points" primer on how to apologize to all your scandalized Evangelical Protestant friends for centuries of unsightly Mary-worship.Please. Who wants to apologize to Evangelical Protestants for anything, these days, at least in the doctrinal sphere -- when their own Bibliolatrous fundamentalism and bad scholarship are a scourge on the face of Christianity?Sr. Athans's Marian scholarship is sorely lacking not only because of the shallow perusal she makes of history and the desultory footnote-material throughout, but also because of the painful specter of cherry-picked quotes from Athan's fellow liberal female theologians, marshaled in all the "right" places. Twelve pages in I was just waiting for the first, perfunctory Schussler-Fiorenza quote to materialize and was not disappointed. This is hardly the way to construct a book of such sweeping ambition. Someone like Jaroslav Pelikan can manage such an effort, and I'm not saying Sr. Athans could not do it, but she inspires no confidence here. Indeed, the survey of Mary throughout History, Theology and Spirituality should have been an entirely separate volume (preferably executed by someone else). Most disappointing, aside from the aforementioned issues, is the fact that Athans seems to be relying on rather outdated scholarly sources for her historical Marian survey. The whole thing has a kind of paint-by-numbers "Hilda Graefe-meets-just after Vatican II" nebulousness about it, in terms of Marian scholarship. Enormous advances have been made since then -- advances that cannot be ignored, particularly in our understanding of the 4th and 5th Century origins of Byzantine Marian devotion/theology/spirituality, which of course informed the medieval picture. Can the good sister be utterly unaware of all this? I doubt it. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that Athans deliberately sought to construct her "history" this way to make a point. Sister certainly doesn't say the following in her book (let me make that abundantly clear) but *to me* she seems in tone and execution to be persuading her audience along these desperate lines:"Your entire understanding and experience of Mary is pretty much useless unless you obsess about her earthly Jewishness. That's the most important thing and everything else is a distortion. By the way, here's a bland, cursorily footnoted, and thrown-together 'history' of Mary in Christendom to back-up my point! You don't need a more detailed and incisive history because, if I gave you one, you'd realize that my entire theory is ultimately silly."Uh huh. Sister Athans strikes me as one of those nuns who completely forgets that most Christian people do not believe they are presently interacting with an earthly Jewish Jesus or an earthly Jewish Mary. Those individuals are not on the earth anymore. They are celestial beings, immortal beings with whom Christians in every age wish to have "in the present" relationships and experiences and, therefore, the coloration of their "personalities" --as humans perceive them and love them-- have necessarily risen above and beyond the minutiae and details of their earthly ethnicity, and even the schematic offerings of the Gospel accounts.I guess, in the face of such a book, I'll have to oversimplify it: Despite your implication that they ought to feel otherwise in your book, the most important part of religious experience to most people, sister, is: Where is my God right now? Where is Mary right now ... and what can she do for me?She isn't grinding meal on a stone to make bread or tossing the chamber-pot out into the streets of Nazareth right now. I guarantee that. Most Catholic Christians believe she is alive beyond that, and these are the realities Christians wish to experience, if they actually believe in everlasting life. If they don't believe that, they might find a great deal of interest in a book like yours, which seems to cloak the possibility that maybe you don't believe in such things, either. Maybe it's enough to just join hands around a Kumbayuh-circle and celebrate the fact that Jesus was a revolutionary Jewish prophet with a lot of valuable quips and wise tidbits. This is what counts ... because we all know He doesn't really exist in any celestial, heavenly manner.Again, I am certainly not saying that Sr. Athans espouses such notions, but we do indeed dwell in a world where a great many progressive theologians and clerics (even in teaching positions at Catholic universities!) DO espouse such things and, in my opinion, the tone and construct of Athans's book does not rule out that possibility in her case. Whether she does or does not, however, is not as important as the fact that she presents us with a very weak case for the primacy of relating to Mary (or Jesus, for that matter) strictly through her Jewishness, and Athans's historical treatment is truly dreadful and incomplete.After all of this criticism, however, let me share my enthusiasm about the ways in which Sr. Athan's book does indeed shine. Namely, it shines in her marvelous anecdotes about her experiences over the years with the Jewish spiritual community. Athans has been at the forefront of ecumenical relations for decades and is a valuable ambassador for her Church in that regard. Ecumenism remains as important as ever, if not more than ever, and not only do I applaud Athans's tireless dedication and acumen in that regard, but I wish she would have given us a book full of such accounts and insights drawn from those direct experiences. That, I believe, is where the detailed understanding of the admittedly fascinating aspects of the "Jewish Mary" and "Jewish Jesus" are most valuable and of greatest service to interreligious dialogue. An entire book like that from the accomplished Sister Athans would be welcomed and treasured.She took on far too much, here, however, in far too unconvincing fashion, and with far too much of a blatantly narrow and progressive agenda to do proper service to not only a "quest" for Mary, but to the whole Historical, Theological, and Spiritual panorama that accompanies the Marian experience through the centuries -- earthly or otherwise. Read Jaroslav Pelikan's still-extraordinary work, 'Mary Through the Centuries' for a truly balanced and masterful treatment of such matters.

In Quest for the Jewish Mary is a slim volume that offers a captivating and refreshing perspective on the mother of Jesus. In the prologue of the book, Dr. Athans includes a poignant personal breakthrough in her young adult life when she came to realize that this very human woman---Mary---was Jewish. The author includes a brief, incisive chapter on the ways the iconic Mary has come to be depicted by the Church and its people throughout the centuries. At the end of the book, the author includes prayers that Mary most likely had recited or sung herself in Hebrew. The author herself describes how she herself memorized these Hebraic prayers and used them for a beautiful lectio divina practice while on retreat, which she shares with the reader. Dr. Athans' little book on Mary, the mother of the Jewish Jesus, is both reader friendly and factually illuminative and a must-read for any person seeking a clearer light about the historical Mary.

a lot of scholarly research went into this endeavor and it was very beneficial for me.she has made a valuable contribution for us who long to know and have a relationship with the person god created rather than the distortion human beings created,thinking god didn't get it right and we had to make up for his deficiency.thr author has made a valuable contribution to all christians.

In Quest of the Jewish Mary: The Mother of Jesus in History, Theology, etc. is an important book for those who are interested in that period of biblical times. Mary is presented as a typical, young Jewish girl, who is visited by an angel, Gabriel, announcing the birth of Jesus with her as his mother. Without telling too much about this book's narrative, I found it very thorough in presenting the atmosphere of time and place. I recommend the book to those who have a similar interest in who Mary was.Anna M. Seidler, S.F., Ca.

I bought this book to review for use with a faith-based group of lay people. The author thoroughly researched the topic. The book's style is quite readable style for a lay group. The book gives a clear lead for further reading and study. I decided not to use this book for our faith-based study group, because the content of chapters 3 and 4 gives little substance of use to our reflection group. I thought this would discourage members from continuing on to reflection on following chapters.

As a Catholic convert & lover of history, this book was very informative. It was not academic or overly spiritual. There is a lot to learn about the times she lived in & thoughout history. The book answered so many of my questions.

I looked forward to reading this book, but was somewhat disappointed...the historical perspective was material I had already read about in works by other authors.The saving grace of the book was the section that dealt with reflections by Mary at different points in her and Jesus' lives. I could have read more pages of that type of contemplative thought and not bothered with the remainder of the volume...

The book was fascinating and opened doors that I would like to investigate further.Although the book was long, I wish the author has been more inclusive about the social and religious mores of the BCE and 1st century inhabitants of Israel.