![colm toibin the testament of mary colm toibin the testament of mary](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41VaPqecroL._AC_SY350_.jpg)
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His Mary suspects her son is "out of his mind", just as the Gospel of Mark tells us Jesus's family did. When we go back to the gospels we find an irritable, not loving, relationship.Ĭolm Tóibín bravely takes this textual truth as his starting point for a gentle, thoughtful reimagining of Mary's own experience of her life in his new novella, The Testament of Mary. The tradition is, of course, that she knew his divinity from the start, and she remains still a potent figure in Christian myth and worship, but tradition is not text. At the wedding at Cana, where Jesus pulls his water-to-wine party trick, when Mary tries to talk to him Jesus replies brusquely: "Woman, what have I to do with thee?". In the Gospel of Matthew we're told that Jesus's mother and brothers come to see him preaching and want to speak to him: "Someone told him, 'Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.' He replied to him, 'Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?' Pointing to his disciples, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers'." Not the behaviour of a good Jewish son. Mary might have been the sacred womb that carried him but he's not that interested in her afterwards. There's a little advice to Martha about the value of housework. Jesus tells stories and parables about fathers but not mothers. D espite the cult that later developed around her, Mary the mother of Jesus doesn't get a very good showing in the gospels.