A world-renowned historian of early Christianity and ancient Judaism lifts the veil on the life of Mary—revealing her revolutionary role as the matriarch of the Jesus movement

“Tabor restores her voice, her faith, her motherhood, and, most of all, her humanity, in this groundbreaking portrait that challenges everything we thought we knew about the origins of Christianity.” —Reza Aslan, author of Zealot

Mary, mother of Jesus, is the best known—and least known—woman in history. Revered and worshipped by millions, she remains a figment of the imagination, the ethereal subject of Raphaels and Botticellis, bathed in heavenly light, too virginal and pure to move among us.

But what about the real Mary? The young Jewish woman and single mother of eight—five boys and three girls. The defiant citizen of Roman-occupied Galilee who survived through one of the most dangerous periods of Jewish history—an ancient “game of thrones” that claimed the lives of three of her sons: Jesus and Simon by crucifixion, James by stoning. The historical Mary whose teachings and courageous example may in fact make her the “first founder” of what we now call Christianity.

This Mary has not only been lost to us—she has been systematically erased over the past two millennia by a theological, cultural, and political program intent on removing her from the human realm and marginalizing her womanhood, motherhood, and Jewishness.

In The Lost Mary, James D. Tabor corrects the record, laying out the results of his intensive textual and archaeological sleuthing over the past three decades, including new evidence regarding Mary’s genealogy (which may be hiding in plain sight in the New Testament!). Tabor’s quest for the historical Mary offers a transformative perspective on Jesus and his early followers, and recovers the nature and essence of earliest Christianity.

"A deep dive into the life of history's "best known, least known" woman, the Virgin Mary, tracking how her story was changed and lost over the centuries. In the first century AD, a widowed Jewish woman raised eight children during a brutal Roman occupation of her homeland, instilling into them the lessons she'd learned from growing up under extreme violence barely twenty years before. Some of her sons would go on to proselytize based on what she'd taught; her eldest would face persecution, crucifixion, and, after his death, be known to the world as Jesus Christ. But everyone knows Jesus. What do we know about Mary? Anchoring itself firmly in the "messianic game of thrones" employed by Herod the Great and turbulence of Roman rule, The Lost Mary presents a detailed account of the influences shaping Mary's life, and, by extension, the lives she touched. With precision and expertise, Dr. Tabor breathes life into a woman who remains well-known but unseen, exploring her upbringing and marriage, and presents a compelling case for understanding her not as the saintly mother of a prophet, but as the influential foremother of a movement. Working with snippets from the Bible and primary writings from the period, and drawing on his long academic career, Dr. Tabor pieces together a spellbinding composite of Christianity's forgotten founder: A girl from a wealthy and well-pedigreed family in the cosmopolitan city of Sepphoris. A fierce and devoted mother who instilled her beliefs into her sons. A woman whose accomplishments were lost to theological dogma and time, but, guided by this groundbreaking work, may once again be imagined as something more"--