Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary - Hardcover

Rubin, Miri

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300105002 ISBN 13: 9780300105001

Publisher: Yale Univ Pr, 2009

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

`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.'

Review:

`Rubin shows us the many meanings the Virgin Mary had for people over the centuries in the West and beyond. A miracle of scholarship and great storytelling!'

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale Univ Pr
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0300105002
• ISBN 13: 9780300105001
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 533