MARY Glimpses of the Mother of Jesus (Personality of the New Testament) (Personalities of the New Testament)

Author Beverly Roberts Gaventa tells us there are 85,000 books and pamphlets on Mary in the Marian Library at the University of Dayton. Why one more? A number of things make this slim yet delightful book distinctive. First, the author is both a woman and Protestant (Gaventa is the Helen H.P. Manson Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis at Princeton Theological Seminary and the author of numerous New Testament studies). Second, she approaches the study of Mary not from an historical point of view (searching for the facts about Mary), nor from a theological point of view, but from a literary one. As she summarizes this approach, "the primary questions to be addressed here have to do with the ways in which early Christian writers portray Mary as a character and the role or roles she plays in their re-presentations of the Jesus story." In separate chapters she explores three of the Gospels (and the Book of Acts) along with the second-century work Protoevangelium of James, concluding that what unites these various so-called glimpses of Mary is the way in which she "participates in the larger theme of the scandal of the gospel." In particular, she identifies three motifs: the vulnerability of Mary, her reflection on events (especially in Luke's Gospel), and Mary as a witness of Jesus. In this way, she concludes, "Mary remains a model for all Christians." --Doug Thorpe