Who was Mary’s mother and Jesus’ grandmother? You’d be hard-pressed to find a reference to any of Mary and Joseph’s lineage in common texts, but the information is out there, if you wish to find it.
Christian tradition identifies Mary’s parents as Joachim and Anne, a childless couple to whom Mary’s birth after 20 years of marriage must have seemed miraculous in its own way. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance era, Anne was often depicted as part of a trinity with Mary and Joseph.
What other religious, mythological, or folklore characters had ancestors we don’t discuss? What role might they have played in the miracles performed by their descendants?
