Taylor

Compelling and personal insight into the experience of being a 1st-century disciple of Jesus

Revisado: 03-17-20

This book is a well-written historical/biblical fiction that portrays what the life of a disciple of Jesus and a 1st-century woman living in Palestine might have been like. It is steeped in quality research and is a great learning tool, both about the historical context of the New Testament and about biblical narratives themselves. Because the Bible was a product of its time, two truths affect our modern reception: it does not set out to explain its own time and place that is foreign to us, and it often gives minimal details about people who were less socially significant at the time (i.e. in particular here, women.) This book does a fine job fleshing out those two gaps for modern readers, bringing the biblical narrative to life. As the author explains expertly in the afterword, she has crafted this novel from biblical references, historical research, and creative imagination where needed (primarily, as Margaret George mentions, about the personal details of Mary Magdalene’s life and childhood).
As a Christian seminarian and budding biblical scholar, I am wary of attempts to harmonize the four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John) into one story of Jesus’s life, ministry, death, and resurrection. Each gospel writer had different perspectives, audiences, and focuses in the way they chose to tell the story of Jesus, so I find it confessionally important to maintain their distinctions and even hold in tension some of their contradictions. This novel’s genre allows for some harmonization, but in my nerdy and picky preferences I would’ve liked it to follow one gospel writer’s narrative arc. However, as George writes in the afterword, she is limited by the fact that Mary Magdalene is only referenced 5 times in the New Testament.
I listened to this book on 1.5 (and sometimes 1.75) speed. I’m a fast auditory processor, so that may be why that worked for me.

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