America, June 2003
"It's difficult to find flaws in this work....[a] scholarly, well researched, beautifuly written and theologically profound book."

Anne Carr, Professor of Theology, Divinity School, The University of Chicago
"It is simply breath-taking in its scope and achievement."

Mary Gordon, best-selling novelist and Millicent McIntosh Professor of English at Barnard College
"Truly Our Sister is an inspiring book: poetically written and enlightening.......presents us with a view of Mary....

Richard P. McBrien, Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology, Notre Dame University
"I know of no book on Mary that is superior to Truly Our Sister.... remarkably creative, challenging, and ground-breaking."

Robert J. Egan in Commonweal
"Johnson has published a major theological study on Mary, --- comprehensive, erudite, critical, and passionate...."

Sally Cunneen in The National Catholic Reporter
"Lucidly written, logically structured, and enriched by her vast reading and 20 years of teaching and writing about Mary..."

Choice, October 2004
"...required reading, especially for feminists who have all but given up on Mary. Highly recommended."

Book Description
The first-century Jewish woman Miriam of Nazareth, mother of Jesus, proclaimed in faith to be Theotokos, the God-bearer, is the most celebrated female religious figure in the Christian tradition. So varied and manifold are the traditions about Mary, both popular and scholarly, that some would speak of "Mary" as a collective noun or refer, in George Tavard's memorable title, to The Thousand Faces of the Virgin Mary. In her long-awaited book on Mary, which forms a diptych with Friends of God and Prophets, Elizabeth Johnson offers an interpretation of Mary that is theologically sound, spiritually empowering, ethically challenging, socially liberating, and ecumenically fruitful. In particular, she construes the image of Mary so as to be a source of blessing rather than blight for women's lives in both religious and political terms.

About the Author
Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J., is Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University, Bronx, N.Y. Her book She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Theological Discourse won the Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion in 1993. Her Friends of God and Prophets: A Feminist Theological Reading of the Communion of Saints received an AAR Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in 1999.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

"When it comes to the subject of Mary," writes Johnson, "women's judgment is decidedly ambiguous." On the one hand, Mary has been an icon of obedience-thus perpetuating women's subordinate place in the church. On the other hand, she is an inspirational sister for the common woman. After all, Miriam of Nazareth was a lower-class Jewish woman living in a poor and politically oppressed region of the world. In the face of tyranny, poverty, and prejudice, Mary represents the ongoing feminine quest for "God's compassionate and liberating justice." Written like a doctoral thesis, Johnson's book argues for a feminist and empowering vision of Mary. She is overt in her criticism of "patriarchal mariologies that function to subordinate women." Many traditional assumptions are challenged, from the belief that Mary was reading a book when the Angel Gabriel came to her, thus symbolizing the rewriting of her life story (doubtful, given the low literacy rate of peasant girls), to Mary's appearance: Europeans often depict her as a delicate, blonde-haired beauty. As a Jewish peasant girl, she was probably a dark, muscular teenager. Johnson is at her finest when she offers her feminist interpretations of Mary's central moments in the Bible. For instance, Mary's brave witnessing of the crucifixion represents the fact that "life given by women's bodies keeps on being taken away by brutality, war and terrorism," and her memory comforts all the grieving mothers who lose their sons to political acts of violence. While this offers a fascinating revamping of Mary's story, readers who are looking for a new spin along the lines of The Red Tent will not find it here. Unfortunately, the scholarly tone of Johnson's writing will limit this book's appeal. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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