Mary, mother of Jesus, is the best known--and least known--woman in history. Revered and worshipped by countless millions, she remains a figment of the imagination, the ethereal subject of Raphaels and Botticellis, bathed in heavenly light, too virginal and pure to move among us.

But what about the real Mary? The young Jewish woman and single mother of eight--five boys and three girls. The defiant citizen of Roman-occupied Galilee who survived through one of the most dangerous periods of Jewish history--an ancient "game of thrones" that claimed the lives of two of her sons: Jesus by crucifixion and James by stoning. The historical Mary whose teachings and courageous example may in fact make her the "first founder" of what we now call Christianity.

This Mary has not only been lost to us, she has been systematically erased over the past two millennia by a theological, cultural, and political program intent on removing her from the human realm and marginalizing her womanhood, motherhood, and Jewishness.

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.