This volume includes eight new translations of early Christian narratives about the end of the Virgin Mary's life, that is, her Dormition and Assumption. Translated from Greek, Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic, Georgian, and Christain Palestinian Aramaic, each of these texts is either translated into a modern language for the first time, or appears in a version that has not previously been published. The texts represent a broad range of the highly diverse early Christian memories of Mary's departure from this world. Likewise, the texts themselves often disclose a range of theological diversity within the early Christian tradition even beyond what scholars have thus far recognized |