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Eva Puschautz, Maria Mutter im Konflikt: Eine feministisch-historisch-kritische Lektüre von Mk 3,20f.31-35. WUNT II 648. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2025.
In this slightly expanded and revised version of her Vienna doctoral thesis, Eva Puschautz argues that early Christian sources contain very little material relating to the 'historical Mary'. One passage that repays further investigation, however, is the curious account in Mk 3.30-21, 31-35 of the attempt by Jesus' mother and siblings to take him home… Adopting a feminist-historical perspective, she reconstructs an entirely plausible situation in which the widowed Mary finds herself in tension with her son, whom she sees as not only failing in his filial obligations but as potentially threatening the family's honour… Assuming the role of mater familias, she sets out with the family to bring Jesus back to Nazareth. In this, she aligns herself with other women in Mark's gospel… who similarly take matters into their own hands.
…Puschautz turns her attention to the generally more idealized characterization of Mary in a range of early Christian texts… It is in the pastoral epistles, however, that she finds the key to Mary's transformation… these letters promulgate a patriarchal worldview that curtailed women's authority and encouraged them instead to accept a subordinate, domestic, and maternal role… the figure of Mary could be moulded to make obedience and motherhood attractive to women…
This is an exceptionally well-written and clear thesis that manages both to reconstruct a plausible context for the historical Mary and also to account for the rise of the idealized and symbolic Marys of the church. The resulting woman is no longer flawless, but her family tensions, conflicts and contradictions create a woman we can all more easily relate to.
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