it’s important to remember that in the book of Genesis, Eve is called “Eve” only once; she is called “woman” eleven times.

In the Gospel of John, Mary appears twice: once during the wedding at Cana (John 2:1–12), and once during the crucifixion of Jesus (John 19:25–27).

For Luke, the new exodus begins in Jerusalem and ends in heaven.

Mary is the “woman” of Genesis whose “offspring” will conquer the serpent (Genesis 3:15).

You simply cannot understand Mary without looking at her in her first-century Jewish context.

Contrary to what some people believe, the Catholic Church did not get its teachings about Mary from paganism. It got them from Judaism.

For Epiphanius, therefore, the Collyridians were committing idolatry by offering the sacrificial bread of the Eucharist to Mary.

For this reason, despite her sinlessness—or rather, precisely because she was preserved from all sin—Mary can truly declare that “God” is her “Savior”

before her pain came she was delivered of a man-child” (Isaiah 66:7)…