The role that Mary plays in God’s plan of salvation is an issue that over the centuries has divides Christians and their churches. In part, these differences stem from disagreements about what the New Testament says about the mother of Jesus. This book should go a long what toward solving the disputes. It is not a collection of essays but rather a collaborative statement prepared by a team of Protestant, Anglican, and Roman Catholic scholars who have reached substantial agreement on how Mary was pictured by Christians of the first two centuries.
This book follows the same methodology as an earlier volume, Peter in the New Testament, produced by the same research group. The status of that first book as an ecumenical achievement of American biblical scholarship is at tested to by the welcome it received and by its translation into five foreign languages. In light of the difficulty of the subject matter, Mary in the New Testament may be an even greater achievement.