Mike Aquilina points us to a helpful essay by David Scott on the Assumption, specifically how a re-engagement with early Christian history puts more recent anti-Assumption polemics in persepective.

On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII declared a new dogma of the Catholic Church—a truth revealed by God to be believed by the faithful: that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the end of her time on earth, was assumed, or taken up, into heaven.

But it was Protestants, not Catholics, who set the tone for the world’s reaction. And Protestant reaction was just this side of apocalyptic.

Rev. Marc Boegner, president of the World Council of Churches, repeatedly called the new dogma a “scandal.”

The don of cold–war American Protestantism, Rev. Reinhold Niebuhr, called it a species of idolatry.

The dogma, he declared, “incorporates a legend of the Middle Ages into the official teachings of the Church, thereby placing the final capstone on the Mariolatry of the Roman Church.”

Scholars, too, apparently struggled to remain charitable—without much success.

Rev. R.L.P Milburn, delivering the 1952 Bampton Lectures at Oxford—then the most distinguished lectureship in Protestant theology—said the Pope had made “fantasy, however pious, to masquerade as fact.”

His verdict: “The grave difficulty concerning the doctrine. . .is that. . .something has been solemnly stated as assured historical fact that has no other strictly historical basis even pretended than a Coptic romance.”

To this day, our understanding of the Assumption’s origins languishes in the long shadow of these early polemics, which so often betrayed a deep–seated animus against Catholicism.

From the Encyclopedia Britannica to the daily newspaper—the received wisdom is that the Assumption belief has no basis in the Bible, but instead grew out of the colorful imaginations of unlettered medieval Catholics with an overzealous devotion to the Virgin.

In fact, Stephen Shoemaker, who teaches religion at the University of Oregon, says the whole field of early Christian studies suffers the lingering effects of inherited “anti–Catholic prejudice”—particularly when it comes to studying Mary.

In an important scholarly book, Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption (Oxford, 2003), he writes: “There is a palpable tendency in much scholarship to minimize the strong devotion to Mary evident in the ancient Church [and to] ‘trivialize any early mention of [Mary] so as to reduce its import for mariology.’”

(By the way, Shoemaker has also addressed the identity of "Mary" in various non-canonical writings, questioning the contemporary assumption (sorry) that this is always Mary of Magdala. The abstract for "Re-thinking the "Gnostic Mary:" Mary of Nazareth and Mary of Magdala in Early Christian Tradition"

Numerous early Christian apocrypha, including several so-called "gnostic" texts, include a character known as "Mary," whose identity is usually other-wise unspecified. Generally, this "Mary" appears as an associate or, some-times, as a rival, of the apostles, who is filled with knowledge of the "gnostic" mysteries. Although scholars have persistently identified this Mary with Mary the Magdalene, rather than Mary of Nazareth, this interpretive dogma is based on evidence that it is at best inconclusive. This article reexamines the relevant apocrypha, as well as incorporating much previously overlooked evidence to argue that Mary of Nazareth is an equally important contributor to the "gnostic Mary’s" identity. The gnostic Mary, it turns out, is a composite figure, who draws on the identities of both the Magdalene and the Virgin, rather than being the representation of a single historical individual. This new perspective will present both consequences and opportunities for feminist interpretations of early Christianity and the veneration of Mary of Nazareth.

The Pope at the Angelus today:

The feast of the Assumption of Mary, a “certain sign of our hope”, is an opportunity to entrust to the “Queen of Heaven” the “anxieties of mankind for all places in the world rent by violence”. In his reflection before the Angelus, Benedict XVI recalled the Holy Land, Iraq and Sri Lanka. But he mentioned especially Lebanon and Israel, where masses were being celebrated at the same time at the Shrine of Harissa on Mount Lebanon and at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth. The pope said: “We unite with our brothers and sisters who at this very moment are gathered in the Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon in Harissa for a Eucharistic celebration presided over by Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, who went to Lebanon as my special envoy to take comfort and concrete solidarity to all victims of the conflict and to pray for the great intention of peace. We are in communion also with the pastors and faithful of the Church in the Holy Land, who gathered together in the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, around the pontifical representative in Israel and Palestine, Archbishop Antonio Franco, to pray for the same intentions.” And referring to all the ethnic and religious tensions and conflict prevailing in such situations, he said: “May Mary obtain for all sentiments of understanding, a will to agree and a desire for harmony!”

Moreover, said the pope, the feast of the Assumption is the feast in which Christians discern a “certain sign” of hope.

“Mary encourages us not to lose faith in the face of the difficulties and inevitable problems of daily life,” continued Benedict XVI. “She assures us of her help and reminds us that the essential thing is to seek and to think ‘of things that are above, not of things that are on earth’ (cfr Col 3:2).  Taken up with daily worries, we run the risk of maintaining that it is here, in this world where we are only passing through, that the ultimate scope of human existence lies. However Paradise is the true goal of our earthly pilgrimage. How different our days would be if they were animated by this perspective! This is how it was for the saints. Their existence testifies how, when one lives with one’s heart constantly turned towards heaven, earthly realities are experienced according to their proper value because they are illuminated by the eternal truth of divine love.”

Also via Mike, foreshadows of the Assumption in Jewish literature.