Mirjam

**Mary** was a first-century Galilean Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph, and the mother of Jesus, according to the canonical gospels and the Quran.

The gospels of Matthew and Luke in the New Testament and the Quran describe Mary as a virgin. In Matthew and Luke she is betrothed to Joseph. According to Christian theology she conceived Jesus through the Holy Spirit while still a virgin. She accompanied Joseph to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born.

According to Catholic and Eastern Christian teachings, at the end of her earthly life God raised her body directly into heaven; this is known in the Christian West as the Assumption.

Mary has been venerated since early Christianity, and is considered by millions to be the most meritorious saint of the religion. She is said to have miraculously appeared to believers many times over the centuries. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches believe that Mary, as mother of Jesus, is the *Theotokos* (Mother of God) (Greek: Θεοτόκος, romanized: *Theotokos*, lit. 'God-bearer'). There is significant diversity in the Marian beliefs and devotional practices of major Christian traditions. The Catholic Church holds distinctive Marian dogmas, namely her status as the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity, and her Assumption into heaven. Many Protestants minimize Mary's role within Christianity, basing their argument on the lack of biblical support for any beliefs other than the virgin birth (actually a virginal conception). Mary also has the highest position in Islam among all women. She is mentioned in the Quran more often than in the New Testament, where two of the longer chapters of the Quran are devoted to her and her family.

Christians commonly refer to her as the Virgin Mary, in accordance with the belief that the Holy Spirit impregnated her, thereby conceiving her first-born Jesus miraculously, without sexual relations with her betrothed/husband, "until her son [Jesus] was born". (Mt 1:25) The word "until" has inspired considerable analysis on the subject of Mary and Joseph producing siblings after the birth of Jesus; see e.g. Sabine R. Huebner's succinct analysis of the issue. Among her many other names and titles are the Blessed Virgin Mary (often abbreviated to "BVM", or "BMV" after the Latin "Beata Maria Virgo"), Saint Mary (occasionally), the Mother of God (primarily in Western Christianity), the *Theotokos* (primarily in Eastern Christianity), Our Lady (Medieval Italian: *Madonna*), and Queen of Heaven (Latin: *Regina caeli*), although the title queen of heaven was for centuries before an epithet for several ancient sky-goddesses — *Nin-anna*, Astarte, Ishtar *et al.* — including Astoreth, the Canaanite sky-goddess worshipped during the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah's lifetime. Titles in use vary among Anglicans, Lutherans, Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Mormons, and other Christians.

From her we have harvested the grape of life; from her we have cultivated the seed of immortality. For our sake she became Mediatrix of all blessings; in her God became man, and man became God.

Mary is often referred to by Muslims by the honorific title "sayedetina" (our lady). She is mentioned in the Quran as the daughter of Imran.

Moreover, Mary is the only woman named in the Quran and she is mentioned or referred to in the scripture a total of fifty times. Mary holds a singularly distinguished and honored position among women in the Quran. A Sura (chapter) in the Quran is titled "Maryam" (Mary), which is the only Sura in the Quran named after a woman, in which the story of Mary (Maryam) and Jesus (Isa) is recounted according to the view of Jesus in Islam.

The adoption of the mother of Jesus as a virtual goddess may represent a reintroduction of aspects of the worship of Isis. According to Sabrina Higgins, "When looking at images of the Egyptian goddess Isis and those of the Virgin Mary, one may initially observe iconographic similarities. These parallels have led many scholars to suggest that there is a distinct iconographic relationship between Isis and Mary. In fact, some scholars have gone even further, and have suggested, on the basis of this relationship, a direct link between the cult of Mary and that of Isis." Conversely, Carl Olson and Sandra Miesel dispute the idea that Christianity copied elements of Isis's iconography, saying that the symbol of a mother and her child is part of the universal human experience.