Review of The Woman With the Alabaster Jar
The Woman With the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalen and the Holy Grail
by Margaret Starbird
Published by Bear & Company in 1993
ISBN: 1-879181-03-7 trade paperback $16.95 USD
Publisher URL: http://www.innertraditions.com
As I’ve mentioned here before, after reading The Da Vinci Code, I felt compelled to do some reading in gnosticism, a topic I’d been curious about for sometime. This book had been recommended by so many people that it was the first one I intended to read on the controversial subject of Mary Magdalen’s relationship to Jesus. It didn’t turn out to be the first, but it would’ve been a great place to start. It’s not a book about gnosticism, but a collection of facts and theory regarding the relationship of Mary Magdalen and Jesus, or Miriam of Bethany and Yeshua, as they’re also named in the book.
Margaret Starbird began her research of this subject in the hopes of debunking Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, having read it from the perspective of a devout Catholic. Somewhere in the course of her research, she found herself supporting many of their claims. Her journey explored the life of one of the most enigmatic women the world has known, or at least thought we knew. (more…)