Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary
Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah
by Brant James Pitre
Crown Publishing
Image
Christian
Pub Date 30 Oct 2018


I am reviewing a copy of Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary through Crown Publishing and Netgalley:


This book addresses the questions of whether the Catholic teachings on Mary are Biblical, or if they are simply the traditions of men. This book goes on to question whether Mary should be called ”The Mother of God.” Or “The Mother of Jesus.” It even goes on to quest if Mary remained a virgin all of her life or if the “brothers of Jesus,” refer to her other children. It goes on to speculate that if by praying to Mary does that mean Catholics are worshipping her or does it mean something else. The author also goes on to point out how Mary can help us in our quest to understand Jesus.


Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary takes us from the the Garden of Eden to the Book of Revelation to show us how biblically rooted Cath beliefs on Mary are.


I give Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary five out of Stars!


Happy Reading!

Before I begin this review, I want to mention that I'm a Protestant and a seminary graduate. The review is written from my theological perspective. I know some will disagree with my thoughts on the book. That's okay. We can just agree to disagree. Now for the review: I looked forward to a book on the Jewishness of Scripture; however, this book fails because of flawed theology. It venerates the Virgin Mary rather than glorifying God and Christ. I'm thankful to attend a church where the pastor rightly divides the Word of God and brings out the Jewish context of the Scriptures while emphasizing the One who is worthy of worship -- and it's not Mary. This review is based on an advance electronic copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley with the expectation of an honest review.

This outstanding little book is full of insight. It looks at several aspects of Mary and shows very clearly how they are predicted in the Old Testament as well as in Jewish practice at the time of Christ.

The chapters follow much the same format. An aspect of Mary is covered, for example, the New Rachel. The first part of the chapter covers what the Old Testament says about the original and what it means. Also covered are parts of the prophets that speak to Mary.

The middle part of each chapter covers New Testament writing on the same subject, including parts of the book of Revelation. Testimony from the Church Fathers is not ignored here, nor were non-'Biblical Jewish sources from the period.

The final section of each chapter draws all this together by showing what it means within the Catholic Church.

One of the things I like best about Pitre's books is how wide-ranging his sources are. He quotes secular first-century AD Jewish writers, Orthodox Church Fathers, Protestant Biblical scholars, and modern Jewish commentators. Because he draws from so many sources, the reader feels his conclusions to be more powerful.

It's a wonderful book.

I am not a Catholic, but I do enjoy reading books about Catholicism, and the topic of Mary has been one that has intrigued as more of a Protestant/Evangelical who hasn't put much focus on Mary and has taught to be skeptical of those Mary worshiping Catholics.

Pitre does a fantastic job of laying out all of the main doctrines about Mary and explaining them clearly, but more importantly explaining why they matter. What is even more important to me as a more evangelical type is that Pitre doesn't put much emphasis on Catholic tradition or Vatican II or anything close to it, but rather pulls the basis for all of his beliefs from the scripture and connects the Old Testament shadows to the New Testament in a way I'm very familiar with. The scripture alone is foundation, and the early Christian writers and lastly the more recent Catholic teachings build upon this foundation. It was also very interesting to learn that there are a number of well-known Protestants who make many of the same connections as Pitre though not as Catholics.

There were some issues I had with the book. While Pitre did provide a lot of pretty ancient Christians as sources to prove that these beliefs he's promoting didn't necessarily originate late into Christianity, there were still some instances where I felt he couldn't go back far enough. I am more open to 4th century sources, but when your primary sources for "ancient beliefs" are from the 8th century that doesn't really cut it for me personally. There was a lot that had developed by that time. On the same note, the book revolved around what the Old Testament taught and what Jews expected when the Messiah comes. A number of these references came from Jewish talmuds that were developed after the time of Christ, so I find it difficult to put much trust into a source that comes after the New Testament had already developed.

Overall I enjoyed the book, and while it did not convert me to a Catholic position on Mary, it did challenge me to see her in a deeper way, and in a more important way. It also helped me to more clearly understand the Catholic doctrines on the subject.

I was provided a free copy of this by Netgalley for an unbiased review.

Little is known from Scripture about Mary so I was excited to find this as a resource companion for my New Testament studies. Rarely is theology presented in such a way that you are drawn in, yet Brant does a great job of addressing common questions about Mary in a compelling way.