The Lost Mary

“A great leap forward in understanding and contextualizing Mary’s life, after two millennia of her being dismissed and rewritten by patriarchal power structures.” James Cameron

“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

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.

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 too pure to move among us.

But what about the real Mary?

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.

“In recovering her story, we discover not only the hidden roots of Christianity but also a model of resilience that speaks across time. Mary, Tabor shows, reminds us that behind every movement are women whose voices have been silenced, whose influence has been hidden in plain sight.” – Candida Moss, National Geographic

"The Lost Mary effects an imaginative repatriation of this ancient and elusive figure, vividly conjuring both her character and the times that she lived in. Tabor’s Mary is ‘lost’ no more.” – Paula Fredriksen, author of When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation

About the author

JAMES D. TABOR is a retired professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he served as department chair for a decade. His previous ten books include the international bestseller The Jesus Dynasty, The Jesus Discovery, and Paul and Jesus. Over the past three decades Tabor has combined his study of ancient texts with field work in archaeology, and since 2008 he has been co-director of the acclaimed Mt. Zion excavation in Jerusalem. Tabor’s work has been featured in dozens of major magazines and TV documentaries, including on PBS Frontline, BBC, Discovery Channel, Nightline, 20/20, and the History Channel. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.