![]() ![]() The most annoying for me was Rubin’s repeated insistence that the New Testament says “very little” about Mary, whereas one could equally argue that it says a surprising amount about her. Mother of God contains errors and misleading assertions. I have the sense that the book was rushed to press, and that we are presented with a draft rather than a polished product. ![]() The endnotes reveal scholarship on a vast and dazzling scale whereas the text reads at times very superficially, or at best like a good undergraduate essay. None the less, there is a significant disconnect between the learned and extensive endnotes and the actual text. Such a wide-ranging and ambitious book invites an “open hunting season” for those of a donnish and pedantic disposition, and it is easy for specialists with knowledge of only one or two of the centuries or societies under examination to pick holes. Professor Rubin’s book is not so much a history of Mary per se as an exploration of the reception and construction of “Mary” over a dizzying range of cultures, as her narrative strides over countries and centuries at a breathless pace. Its aim is to present a history of Mary from the New Testament to the late 1600s. MIRI RUBIN’s Mother of God: A history of the Virgin Mary is a big, ambitious book by a leading cultural historian of late-medieval Europe. ![]() ![]() Mother of God: A history of the Virgin Mary ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |