My First Catholic Audience: Presenting the Historical Mary to Catholic Sisters

I recently gave my first lecture on the Historical Mary, mother of Jesus, to a Roman Catholic audience–in this case the Sisters of Maryknoll Institute. This is very in-depth with slides–for those who want to explore in more details the texts, archaeology, and history that shed precious light on the Lost Mary–the “real” historical woman and her all important place as first founder of the Jesus Movement.

I spent ten years researching and another ten years writing this book. Like bread crumbs in a vast forest of theology and myth, I sought to search out what we could really say about the historical figure of Mary. Here is an excerpt of the first review of the book:

The Lost Mary unfolds in five radical claims. . . . Together these arguments are Tabor’s attempt to rescue Mary from pious abstraction and revolutionize our picture of her as one of the most consequential women in history. . . . 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