In his works on the Papacy and Mariology, Catholic historian Eamon Duffy readily admits that there is no biblical and meaningful early Christian evidence for the Bodily Assumption of Mary. Speaking of Pius XII’s definition of the Assumption in 1950, Duffy notes that:
The definition [of the Bodily Assumption of Mary] embarrassed many Catholic theologians, since it was unsupported in scripture and was unknown in the early Church. (Eamon Duffy, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes [2d ed; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001], 353; comment in square brackets added for clarification)
Elsewhere, Duffy wrote:
[T]here is, clearly, no historical evidence whatever for it (unless one counts the negative evidence of the lack of post-mortem relics of the Virgin). (Eamon Duffy, What Catholics Believe about Mary [Catholic Truth Society Publications, 1989], 17)
For more, see:
Stephen J. Shoemaker, The Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary's Dormition and Assumption (Oxford) and pp. 139-56 of my book, Behold the Mother of My Lord: Towards a Mormon Mariology
