Skip to content
Wellsprings
Mary, mother of Jesus

Mary, mother of Jesus

b. c. 20 BCE · Nazareth

See the world in their lifetime (16 CE) →

Mary, a Jewish woman of Nazareth, was the mother of Jesus. Matthew and Luke say she conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit while betrothed to Joseph, without a human father (Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38). Christian tradition holds this as the virgin birth, a matter of faith that historical methods cannot test. Both Gospels place the birth in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1; Luke 2:4-7). John places her at Cana and the cross (John 2:1-12; 19:25-27); Acts, at prayer with the apostles (Acts 1:14). Her death is unrecorded. The Council of Ephesus (431) affirmed the title Theotokos, 'God-bearer', which most churches use. Catholics, the Orthodox and some Protestants hold that she remained a virgin, reading Jesus's 'brothers and sisters' (Mark 6:3) as cousins or Joseph's children by an earlier marriage; many Protestants see them as her younger children. The Orthodox celebrate her Dormition ('falling asleep'), holding that she was then taken bodily into heaven. The Catholic Church defined the Immaculate Conception (her conception free of original sin) in 1854, and in 1950 the Assumption: that at the end of her earthly life she was taken body and soul into heaven, leaving open whether she first died. Islam honours her as Maryam.

See Mary, mother of Jesus’s journey on the map →

Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→Trace on the map →

Stop 1 of 530Home; Annunciation

NazarethIsrael

What they did here

Luke sets the angel's announcement to Mary in Nazareth (Luke 1:26-27), and both Gospels have the family settle there with the child Jesus (Luke 2:39, 2:51; Matthew 2:23). Luke presents Nazareth as her home before the birth. Matthew mentions Nazareth only after the return from Egypt.

About Nazareth

Nazareth, in the Lower Galilee, is the largest city of Israel's Northern District and a predominantly Arab city, roughly two-thirds Muslim and one-third Christian. Archaeology shows that it was a small Jewish village in the Roman and Byzantine periods. The Gospels make it the childhood home of Jesus, called 'Jesus of Nazareth', and of his family, and Catholic tradition places the Annunciation there; the modern Basilica of the Annunciation is among the largest churches in the Middle East. Under Ottoman rule the town grew in the eighteenth century, and churches, schools and monasteries were built in the late nineteenth. It came under British control at the end of the First World War and surrendered to Israeli forces in July 1948.

In Nazareth at the same time

Joseph, husband of Mary, Jesus of Nazareth, James the Just

See other sages who lived in Nazareth→

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Mary, mother of Jesus’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Mary, mother of Jesus’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn from recorded birth and death years (reign years for rulers whose lives are undated); where only one end of a life is known, a span of about 70 years is assumed.

Works

No works attributed in the corpus yet.