In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sherlock Holmes observed: “The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”
What if this were true about St. John’s Gospel?
What if that account was heavily influenced by one person, hiding in plain sight — namely, the Blessed Virgin Mary?
And, if so, where are the clues that suggest this?
That is the intriguing premise Michael Pakaluk explores in his book Mary’s Voice in the Gospel According to John.
Speaking to the Register from his home in Maryland, Pakaluk explains that his book is the first systematic study of Mary’s influence on the distinctive characteristics of St. John’s Gospel. His earlier book on St. Mark’s Gospel covered similar territory; in that instance, Pakaluk used the relationship between Sts. Peter and Mark to show how that Gospel came to be written. And, as “a natural development,” just as St. Peter was the “voice” behind that Gospel, so Pakaluk sees Mary as “the person behind” St. John’s.
His approach is to perceive Mary’s background voice — what he describes as an “oversound” — running throughout the sacred text.
“John and Mary lived together for 30 years in Jerusalem and Ephesus,”
