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AR 26:3 - FICTION - "Jesus' wife" as a feminist?
In this issue:
FICTION - why "the first and only contemporaneous gospel" was never written?
ORIGINS - "the nature of life and observable evolution"
Apologia Report 26:3 (1,508)
January 20, 2021
FICTION
The Book of Longings, by Sue Monk Kidd [1] -- the Christian Century review (Aug 12 '20, pp42-43) by Kaethe Schwehn <www.bit.ly/2M4voz1> reports: "The Book of Longings tells the story of Ana: daughter of [the tetrarch of Galilee] Herod Antipas's head scribe, sister of [an adopted] Judas Iscariot - and wife of Jesus of Nazareth. Ana harbors a secret longing to be a writer. The book follows her from the mosaic floors of Sepphoris to the crumbling village of Nazareth to the shining streets of Alexandria. In each location she struggles to find a place for her writing amidst her other callings as friend and wife, home-keeper and child-carrier, muse and hermit. Along the way, Ana participates in many familiar moments from the Bible: she is baptized along with Jesus in the Jordan, she tends to a wounded friend with the help of a kind Samaritan, she is welcomed into the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, and she dabs at Jesus' bloodied face when he falls on his way to Golgotha.
"Conservative readers of the Bible are likely to find the insertion of a self-confident wife into the story of Jesus rather appalling. But a survey of Goodreads (where, with nearly 15,000 ratings, the book hovers at 4.3 stars) and the New York Times best-seller list (where the book happily perched for several weeks)" suggests non-conservatives are loving it.
"Ron Charles of the Washington Post, for instance, falls squarely into the second camp described above - those who believe biblical historical fiction has the responsibility to poke and prod and disturb us. He claims that the events and characters of The Book of Longings fall into neat lockstep with popular understandings of liberal theology and feminist spirituality; absent is the 'discomfiting radicalism of the Gospels.' <www.wapo.st/39HDEx8> ...
"In a moment of confrontation with Ana, [Jesus] admits, 'I too have kept you from being yourself' (words likely to make even a 21st-century wife swoon). ...
"It was something of a wonder to discover that the human Jesus has so many different faces and that people, even historical Jesus scholars, tend to view him through the lens of their own needs and proclivities. ...
"Kidd <suemonkkidd.com> chooses to offer readers a warmhearted, nonviolent version of Jesus, a man ready to welcome the marginalized and call out corruption.... Her depiction of Jesus is not a failure. It is a choice, and one that accurately reflects the moment in which Kidd resides.
"If you, like Charles, tend to pick up biblical historical fiction in the hopes that your own understanding of Jesus or your theological predilections will be challenged, this book may disappoint you."
Schwehn mentions her disappointment with a different popular example of religious fiction (this time, Jewish). Reading Kidd "is a profound experience. And it's not one, I might add, that was conveniently taken care of with the publication of The Red Tent [2]. ...
"Women were there, too. We were human, we were complex, and we mattered.
"I want in."
The "starred" review in Library Journal (Mar 1 '20) finds that with Kidd, "Early Christianity is treated respectfully, but as one among many other possible paths to spirituality." Adding, "Don't shy away from this historical fiction page-turner thinking that it falls into the inspirational genre. [It] will inspire readers but in a different way: to live authentically and remain true to oneself."
Publishers Weekly (Feb 20 '20) reports that Ana, "Overcome with despair while meeting ['her betrothed ... much older'] Nathaniel for the first time in a marketplace ... grows faint and falls. A young bearded man [Jesus] helps her up, causing her to feel an 'odd smelting' in her thighs. [Later,] the two bond over their status as outcasts - Ana as a 'widow' and Jesus as a child of dubious parentage. ... Kidd deemphasizes the New Testament's telling of Jesus's miraculous deeds and divinity, instead positioning his early faithfulness and ministry - not to mention events that will ultimately take his life - as essentially political in nature."
The PW reviewer recognizes that Ana's "rebellion against her parents may seem somewhat anachronistic for a woman of her time. ... In an afterword, Kidd offers insights into her research and makes the argument that Jesus's marriage - despite later church assumptions and teachings - was not only possible but likely." [9] (We wonder if the flawed scholarship of Karen King <www.bit.ly/3hy62VZ> had an influence here.)
BookPage (May 19 '20) adds that Ana has "dreams of making her ideas resound across the ages ... with an 18-year-old man named Jesus of Nazareth, who just happens to be as intellectually precocious and open as she is. Their curiosity about each other turns to romance.... The gripping conceit at the heart of this novel stems from the idea that, if Jesus were married, his wife might be completely erased by the history that followed their relationship." [5] (It appears as though Jesus hardly outshines Ana.)
Booklist (Feb 15 '20] spices things up by noting that Ana "chafes against gender restrictions." Nevertheless, this reviewer admits: "Ana's feminist beliefs and pursuits may stretch credulity at times...." (Kidd's Ana seems as "woke" as possible for the beginning of the first millennium.)
Last, Kirkus (Feb 15 '20) tells us that "When Nathaniel dies after his betrothal to Ana but before their marriage, Ana is shunned for insufficiently mourning him - and after refusing to become Antipas' concubine, she is about to be stoned until Jesus defuses the situation with that famous admonition. She marries Jesus and moves into his widowed mother's humble compound in Nazareth, accompanied by [her "courageous" aunt] Yaltha" who "mentors Ana in the ways of the enlightened women of Alexandria, from whence Yaltha, suspected of murdering her brutal husband, was exiled [and forced to abandon her daughter] years before. ...
"A structural problem is posed when Jesus' active ministry begins - what will Ana's role be? Problem avoided when, notified by Judas that Antipas is seeking her arrest, she and Yaltha journey to Alexandria in search of [Yaltha's daughter] Chaya. In addition to depriving her of the opportunity to write the first and only contemporaneous gospel...."
With an initial print run of 750,000, it could be that "we ain't seen nothing yet."
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ORIGINS
"Breaking the Iron Grip of the Reigning Scientific Orthodoxy: The Twilight of Mindless Evolution?" by Nicholas J. Healy (New Oxford Review, Oct '20, pp16-20) -- "The cultural influence of evolution is enormous, yet few have challenged its foundation. The absence of a definition has hampered the framing and addressing of serious issues that continue to roil the sciences relating to evolution as well as a reconsideration of its broader cultural influence.
"The year 2019 closed with two milestones in the drama of evolution's grip on establishment science. The first was the passing of Phillip Johnson. He will be remembered as the first academic of real stature in recent decades to question Darwinian evolution in a public forum. Though not a scientist, Johnson's academic pedigree was so impressive that he could not be easily dismissed: He earned a B.A. in English literature from Harvard University; he graduated first in his class from the University of Chicago Law School; he was a clerk for Earl Warren, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; and he was a longtime faculty member at Boalt School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley.
"Despite his immersion in legal issues, Johnson became intrigued by debates in the field of biology concerning the origin of life. What troubled him was that scientists who studied and wrote about the subject were constantly making pronouncements based on the assumption that life is a spontaneous, random event, wholly without any external influence of design or intelligence. Johnson concluded that the Darwinist consensus was propped up by a philosophy of naturalism rather than by scientific evidence. His growing skepticism led to a blockbuster book, Darwin on Trial (1991), in which he effectively demolished the accepted theory that all life and all species, including mankind, were the product of mindless material forces. [3] Overnight, skepticism about the claims of Darwinism became widespread; hundreds, perhaps thousands, of scientists awakened to the possibility that their private doubts about at least some of the claims of the Darwinists might be valid. The nascent intelligent-design movement had a champion. Professor Johnson, by his courage, humility, and love of truth, led many to new insights into the nature of life and observable evolution." (At this point a paywall kicks in.) <www.bit.ly/34JRDkv>
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - The Book of Longings, by Sue Monk Kidd (Viking, 2020,hardcover, 432 pages) <www.amzn.to/3pu4gbl>
2 - The Red Tent - 20th Anniversary Edition, by Anita Diamant (Picador, 2007, paperback, 352 pages) <www.amzn.to/3hw31Wb>
3 - Darwin on Trial, by Phillip E. Johnson (IVP, 2010, paperback, 247 pages) <www.amzn.to/38Fn4xt>
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