THE LOST MARY By James D Tabor

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.

STORYLINE: Its one of the best books that every Christian should read to learn about how Christianity was born and evolved over two centuries. The book is full of interesting facts and illustrations about Mary, the biological mother of Jesus and her re-discovery from the lost status in Bible. Equally astonishing are the facts about how she and her surviving family of Jesus have been effaced from the Bible tactically to start an entirely different ideology. Though the book might be appearing highly controversial by followers of Jesus Christ as God, the author produced enough archaeological evidences about Jesus’s birth and life as on ordinary man who inherits the genes of King David. All facts presented in this book point out to the reality that he was a Messiah of God along with John, the Baptist (his elder cousin) but not God himself. The book turns even more interesting when the evidences of Mary’s royal lineage are illustrated and how she is portrayed as a “Virgin” having been the vessel to bring in the Messiah of God into the world. It is also proved that she has six more biological children (four sons and two daughters) after Jesus’s birth. The author mainly concentrated on establishing Mary as the torch bearer of starting and taking forward the Jesus movement after the crucifixion and death of Jesus through his brother James. But her efforts have been diluted in the New Testament by strategically masking her involvement in the birth of Christianity. Instead, Paul, one of the later apostles who haven’t even met Jesus ever, wrote the New Testament of the Bible under the influence of his allegiance to Roman kings.  The main reason behind this cited to be as to present Jesus as a God and not just Jewish Messiah of God for which he needs to be born of divine intervention but not through regular biological methods. This tactical move of Paul silenced the original seeds of Christianity started by Mary and her family, through his original preachings as a Messiah. The author put all his efforts to bring back Mary to lime light whom he considers as the one who bore the brunt of all sufferings during the reign of King Herod the Great to give birth to Jesus and also raising him through the ruthless barbaric killing of thousands of Jews by means of crucifixions in Jerusalem. He considers her as the most important of the greatest women of the world who needs to be given the credit of bringing Jesus, the son of God to the mortal world and also raising him to become the future leader of the deprived and needy, during the most tumultuous periods of Jewish sufferings.

Pros : The wonderful archaeological evidences with graphic, Biblical citations and original illustrations of the proofs of every aspect of Mary’s birth, her life before the birth of Jesus and her being silenced after that is worth reading. The author’s deep inquisitive knowledge about the geographical area of Nazareth, Jerusalem and its surrounding places gives even more strength to his evidences proving every aspect about Mary’s family history. Truly wonderful.

Cons : Though there is quite a believable historic evidence put forward, some to be just imaginations of the author that a particular event might have taken place at that time. Such were again mostly based purely on Biblical citations of New Testament which according to him was a deviation from originality of Christianity.

My rating : 4 out of 5