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Arguably the most influential of all women throughout history, Mary, the Virgin Mother is also, paradoxically, the least known. In this unprecedented brilliantly wrought biography, Mary comes believably to life. We are so used to the legendary image of the Madonna that the very idea of her as a real person sets the eyes alight. Starting with the dark-skinned, hard-muscled girl barely out of adolescence when she gave birth, Lesley Hazleton weaves together the many facets of Mary's existence: peasant villager, wise woman and healer, activist, mother, teacher, and yes, virgin, though in a sense we have long forgotten. She follows her through the worst any mother can experience-the excruciating death of her child-and then looks at how she transforms grief into wisdom, disaster into renewal. Strong and courageous, the source of her son's powers of healing and wisdom, the Mary we see here did not merely assent to her role in history, but actively chose it, and lived it to the fullest. As a former psychologist and political reporter with deep roots in both Judaism and Catholicism, Hazleton has drawn on years of Middle East experience as well as on anthropology, history, theology, and above all, empathy to reconstruct Mary's life. The woman she discovers is neither demystified nor diminished, but on the contrary, all the more meaningful and admirable. By honoring her reality, Hazleton has given her back to herself-and to us.
Mary - Woman not Icon
| Customer Rating:   | | While I doubt the Mary (Maryam) of history was quite the easily-recognizable feminist that Lesley Hazleton portrays, at least this Mary is treated as a living, breathing woman of her time. I can recommend this book highly as an invitation to those who are tired of seeing Mary as an icon who is no more human than a statue. To those who insist that the Mary of the institutional Church is the only possible Mary, I say please don't read this book; it will just upset you unnecessarily. |
Mary: Finally flesh and blood
| Customer Rating: | Lesley Hazleton has broken an icon, one that holds great meaning for millions of people. She has taken the most important woman in Christianity, identified her as a jew, a very young, very poor, very real person who lived in Jesus' time. It is Mary the healer that we meet; Mary who knew much about the world around her. Hazleton's ability to dig deep into the literature and culture of the middle east is supported by her knowledge of the languages and the fact that she lived there for 13 years. Her explorations of the possibilities within the biblical accounts of Jesus' time present an extraordinary example of an author who has both the intellectual capacity to examine these texts with a reporter's skills and the imagination to invest Mary (Maryam as Hazleton calls her.) with a humanness that is both touching and
challenging. I loved the writing. I loved the journey. I loved living in the time which I certainly did while reading this book.
Anyone who has ever scratched their head and wondered how Mary handled what she saw when she witnessed her only child dying a slow, cruel, painful death on a cross must read this book. It is a fascinating and convincing story. |
Mary,: A Flesh and Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother
| Customer Rating: | | I was outraged in reading this book. I can't imagine why someone who obviously has absolutely no faith would write a biography of Mary. Other than being an insult to anyone of faith, it is not a biography at all, but a book about the times that Mary lived in. It is quite clear that the author has no knowledge of the biblical Mary and no understanding of faith or Christianity. Don't waste your money or time on this book. I had to give this book one star, but it deserved none. |
New Age Sentimentality;
| Customer Rating: | How can you write a new biography about the Virgin Mary when you have only the gospels? Lesley Hazelton's solution is to use anthropological and historical information to fill the background. Starting off with the basic facts about being a first century Jewish peasant, she uses information about Galilee, being a healer, pregnancy and childbirth, first century polytheism, and nasty details about crucifixion. In her view Mary, or Maryam, was pregnant at thirteen. She was probably a healer who taught her son. She certainly would have assisted the rebellion that broke out on the death of Herod the Great in 4 BCE. She may have been raped, possibly by a solider, possibly by priests. Notwithstanding that traumatic event, she was "a strong woman of ability and wisdom who actively chose her role in history, and lived it to the fullest." Now a reader might look at Hazleton's rather sparse notes, and note some scholarship, but a closer look would reveal that never gives page numbers. In fact this is simply a reverse of the old devotional lives. Where they portrayed Mary as an exemplar of Christian dogma, she portrays her as a New Age hero. Both do violence to the real Jewish Mary.
One of Hazleton's flaws is anachronism of evidence. She relies on a mid-century history of Palestinian peasant life, and then assumes that there were no changes in the intervening nineteen centuries. She uses Barbara Ehrenreich's deeply flawed book on medieval midwives to argue that Mary would have been a healer. Even if women were healers at that time, it does not follow that Mary would be one of them. She uses information from the Intafada to argue that Mary would have supported the rebellion on Herod's death. (Later still she argues, against the evidence of both Matthew and Luke, that Jesus was actually born ten years after Herod's death, which means that Mary would have been 2 at the time of the rebellion.) There are other examples of Hazleton's shallow grasp of Palestinian history. Contrary to what she says, there is some evidence of synagogues at the time in Galilee. Herod the Great would not have thought about declaring himself a divinity, since he was actually Jewish. Palestine was not of strategic value because it was part of the Grain land route from Egypt to Rome; grain would have been shipped entirely by sea. Contrary to what Hazleton says, Galileans in the Roman era were not descended from the old Israeli monarchy. They were fervently Jewish who probably descended from settlers in the second century.
These errors allow Hazleton to make the preposterous claim that Mary was a Goddess worshipper, and even said prayers to Isis! There is no evidence to support such a suggestion. Josephus refers to the Galilean's devotion, and the archaeological evidence clearly shows that there was no major Gentile presence at this time. Exclusive monotheism is one of the clearest and best attested ideas of first century Judaism. There is certainly no evidence that Mary would have been aware of the esoteric, much later, gnostic speculation that Hazleton (of course) links her to. But then Hazleton's ideas about religion are pretty sentimental. She has John the Baptist believe "that God was inside you, not in a temple," an idea that was "an early manifestation of the democratic spirit." In point of fact John clearly argued that the world faced imminent judgement for its sins. Hazleton may prefer the cosmopolitan and tolerant virtues of paganism, but they have nothing to do with Mary. One should add that the book in infected with purple prose about fertility and Mary's grief over the crucifixion. One should note that Hazleton talks about things that she has no way of knowing, such as saying there was no "romance" in first century Palestine, or what age girls were married at, or how many children they were likely to have, or what Mary's grandmother was like. There are also several pages where Hazleton tries to have it both ways on Mary's sexuality. Obviously Mary isn't drearily celibate, but on the other hand it would be crudely rationalist to deny her virginity.
The simplest explanation is also the most reasonable. There is no evidence that Mary was a Christian, only that she survived the death of her son. Both Paul and the Gospels clearly state that Jesus had siblings. To say that they were merely cousins or kinsmen is simply gratuitous assertion, which can be gratuitously denied. Christian dogma denied Mary her family and her religion because it undercut the doctrine of perpetual virginity and, more important, the Incarnation. Hazleton does the same thing, but claims that this is an act of empowerment. Readers should not be similarly deluded. |
A
| Customer Rating: | I read Mary like a house on fire. Truly, this work is a gem of intellectual courage, imaginative risk taking, penetrating scholarship, and spell-binding writing -- a beautiful evocation that makes those Catholic school plaster statues of Mary leap out of their alcoves and into spirited life. This is the Mary the church fathers don't want you to know. This is a flesh and blood Mary, the real woman behind the iconic image. Hazleton rediscovers Mary as a human being, and in so doing makes her divinity more personal, intimate, and real. Like Jesus, this Mary had the courage to be herself under every set of circumstances.
Lesley Hazleton's Mary is not the second Eve of the church fathers' - the obedient virgin who redeems the first Eve's primal rebellion. This Mary is the Great Mother Godess who is, "short, wiry, with dark olive skin and the trace of of a moustache on her upper lip." This Mary doesn't come with the good table manners and idealized looks of the Renaissance virgin. Hazleton delivers Mary from the hands of ecclesiatsical partriarchy, and gives us a historical Mary whose divinity suffers not one whit. |
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