The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail[1] is a book written by Margaret Starbird in 1993, claiming Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene were married, and that Mary Magdalene was the Holy Grail.
Margaret Starbird developed the hypothesis that Saint Sarah was the daughter of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and that this was the source of the legend associated with the cult at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. She stated (correctly)[2] that the name "Sarah" means "Princess" in Hebrew, thus (supposedly) making her the forgotten child of the "sang réal", the blood royal of the King of the Jews.[3]
The book is mentioned in the 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code, an international bestseller by Dan Brown; both books made use of the blood royal theory from the 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln.[4][5]
The book has been criticised for containing theories based on medieval lore and art, rather than on historical treatment of the Bible.[6]
See also edit
References edit
- ^ Margaret Starbird, The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalen and the Holy Grail, Bear & Company, 1993. ISBN 1-879181-03-7. Categorised as "Women's Studies/Creation Spirituality" by the publishers.
- ^ Commentaries on Genesis 17:15, and Brown-Driver-Briggs' Hebrew Definitions
- ^ The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, pages 60-62. ISBN 1-879181-03-7
- ^ Brown, Dan (2003). The Da Vinci Code. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-50420-9.
- ^ Quoting Dan Brown from NBC Today, 3 June 2003: "Robert Langdon is fictional, but all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, secret societies, all of that is historical fact" (found in, Carl E. Olson, Sandra Miesel, The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing The Errors In The Da Vinci Code, page 242 (Ignatius Press, 2004). ISBN 1-58617-034-1
- ^ Ben Witherington, The Gospel Code: Novel Claims About Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Da Vinci, page 16 (InterVarsity Press, 2004). ISBN 0-8308-3267-X