5.1 The Historical Mary: Setting the Scene

Whether you are religious or not, Mary's story is an important part of world heritage. She is obviously the great female figure throughout Christianity, but she is also highly honored in the Koran. There have been over 2000 sightings of her claimed since the year 40 BCE. Millions of people pray to her daily. Millions more read her story regularly. The modern world was shaped in part by people who believed in her whole heartedly. So many legends have grown up around her, and those legends have also shaped the world and are worth studying, but in this series I will focus on what history can tell us about her. Today I will set the scene, talking about the situation for the Jews in the early 1st century. And I'll discuss to what extent the Bible can or cannot be treated as a historical source.

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