In Search of the Real Virgin Mary

From then on, Mary's story is taken up by various Apocryphal and Gnostic texts. Although they recount diverse opinions about where she goes, some placing her with John in Jerusalem, Nazareth, Mount Zion, or Ephesus in present-day Turkey (according to the Eastern Orthodox tradition), most sources also place her at the center of a group of female disciples continuing Jesus's message of forgiveness. The Gnostic Pistis Sophia, which means Faith Wisdom in Greek, shows Mary as one of 17 disciples: the 12 male apostles plus Mary Magdalene, Salome, Martha, and her sister Mary of Bethany.

According to the 20th Discourse of the Apocryphal New Testament, Mary, dying of old age, gathers the community of women around her, instructing them to follow Mary Magdalene when she's gone. "Behold your mother from this time onwards," she says. She dies in A.D. 46, aged somewhere between 52 and 59 years old.

On her death, says the text, Christ descends from heaven. "Her soul leaped into the bosom of her own son, and he wrapped it in a garment of light." At Jesus's instructions, the apostles remove her body to the Vale of Jehoshaphat in Jerusalem, the current site of Mary's Tomb. Three days later, Christ returns to raise her into heaven with him, accompanied by a choir of angels as Peter, John, and the other apostles lose sight of them.