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Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary, by Miri Rubin
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How did the Virgin Mary, about whom very little is said in the Gospels, become one of the most powerful and complex religious figures in the world? To arrive at the answers to this far-reaching question, one of our foremost medieval historians, Miri Rubin, investigates the ideas, practices, and images that have developed around the figure of Mary from the earliest decades of Christianity to around the year 1600. Drawing on an extraordinarily wide range of sources—including music, poetry, theology, art, scripture, and miracle tales—Rubin reveals how Mary became so embedded in our culture that it is impossible to conceive of Western history without her.
In her rise to global prominence, Mary was continually remade and reimagined by wave after wave of devotees. Rubin shows how early Christians endowed Mary with a fine ancestry; why in early medieval Europe her roles as mother, bride, and companion came to the fore; and how the focus later shifted to her humanity and unparalleled purity. She also explores how indigenous people in Central America, Africa, and Asia remade Mary and so fit her into their own cultures.
Beautifully written and finely illustrated, this book is a triumph of sympathy and intelligence. It demonstrates Mary’s endless capacity to inspire and her profound presence in Christian cultures and beyond.
- Sales Rank: #439302 in Books
- Published on: 2010-03-16
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.26" h x 1.35" w x 6.10" l, 1.75 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 560 pages
From Publishers Weekly
At first glance, it would seem that attempts to write histories of biblical characters must be hampered by the sparsity of extracanonical writings that inform our understandings of the Bible's people. But sometimes an individual rises from the pages of Scripture to take on a role so central, so important to Christendom's self-understanding that legend and devotion supersede historical verities. Rubin, professor of history at Queen Mary University of London, brings to this work a panoramic view of Mary's impact on the evolution and growth of Christianity, especially Catholic Christianity. Mary emerges in this study as a multifunctional Swiss army knife of spirituality, variously used as a model of motherhood, an object of devotion and a focal point of conflict among Christian believers. But she also serves as a useful tool to help all believers reflect on the uses of the feminine in private yearnings and public supplications. In the end, Mary is as complex as is Christianity itself. Rubin's study goes a long way toward helping readers understand Mary and deserves a wide readership. 32 color, 8 b&w illus. not seen by PW. (Apr.)
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Review
"Rubin is adept at keeping the reader turning the pages. She has a gift of the bon mot."-History Today
"This is a book to fascinate the social historian. Here is wide learning, elegantly expressed. A brilliant and enlightening study of the religious imagination."-Sr. Wendy Beckett, author of Sister Wendy on Prayer -- Sr. Wendy Beckett
"Mother of God is a breathtaking work of scholarship, surely the finest account of Mary's impact on world culture from biblical up to modern times. Miri Rubin captures Mary's profound appeal-as mother and virgin, chaste and fertile, chosen and modest, life-giver and mourner-and as an inspiration to countless artists, writers, and believers. It's a remarkable achievement by one of the most gifted historians at work today."-James Shapiro, Columbia University
?This is a book to fascinate the social historian. Here is wide learning, elegantly expressed. A brilliant and enlightening study of the religious imagination. Sr. Wendy Beckett, author of Sister Wendy on Prayer -- Sr. Wendy Beckett
?Mother of God is a breathtaking work of scholarship, surely the finest account of Mary's impact on world culture from biblical up to modern times. Miri Rubin captures Mary's profound appeal?as mother and virgin, chaste and fertile, chosen and modest, life-giver and mourner?and as an inspiration to countless artists, writers, and believers. It's a remarkable achievement by one of the most gifted historians at work today. James Shapiro, Columbia University -- James Shapiro
"Miri Rubin''s Mother of God is an intellectually exuberant tour-de-force. Like the great cloak that in some medieval images billows out from the Virgin, enclosing her rapt worshipers, this book reaches out to embrace a startling range of human dreams, fears, and hopes across many centuries."?Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University -- Stephen Greenblatt
"In this magisterial work . . . Rubin traces Mary''s rise to global prominence from the time of the early Christian empire to the 16th century. . . . [D]epict[s] the shift in representations of Mary through history. . . . Extensively researched and written for a wide audience." -- Catholic Book Club "America"
About the Author
Miri Rubin is professor of history, Queen Mary University of London. She lives in Cambridge, UK.
Most helpful customer reviews
48 of 56 people found the following review helpful.
Flawed but the best available
By C. J. Skamarakas
Miri Rubin's "Mother of God" is the only work that I have come across that lays out most of the history of Mary in the Catholic Church. For that reason alone, it is an essential work. Rubin's book presents the facts, is well researched, and readable. I would not be surprised if it becomes the first book researchers go to on the subject of Mary. It is that good. But is it good? To my mind, it is the best that's out there, but that is not saying much. Rubin fails repeatedly to pursue important lines of thought. She notes the absence of Mary in the earliest Church writings, the existence of the Egyptian Isis cult, and the influence of Constantine's mother Helena at Nicea, to give three examples, but never pursues these lines. Likewise, Rubin's book gives the briefest mention to the First Vatican Council and the papal decree on the Immaculate Conception, and so does not examine the politics surrounding those events. Rubin has done a commendable job gathering and presenting the facts. Then she stops.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
The Blessed Virgin Mary's importance to history and the culture
By Locksley - lover of truth
While it's obvious that Miri Rubin is not Catholic - perhaps not a Christian of any variety - it is refreshing to read so clearly enriching a book about history and the cultural importance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Western and Eastern society over the past two millennia.
This is a book about history, with a dip or two into the pool of prose and poetry, with an occasional shower of theology to to make sure everyone is on the same page.
If you want a good grasp at an important sidelight on how devotion to Mary has been a bonus to humanity, be sure to get a copy.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Five Stars
By K. Hrabcak
The person I bought it for loved it!
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