MARY, ABORTIONIST?

There's a new "biography" (read: "fantasy") about Mary the mother of Jesus out, and we learn a lot of interesting things about Joseph's wife:

But psychologist and political and cultural journalist Lesley Hazleton takes a daring approach in this "speculative" biography, basing her assumptions of the real-life, everyday Mary on her own experiences living in Jerusalem for 13 years, as well as on traditional and Gnostic texts. She says it's high time we get a clearer understanding of the life of that peasant girl and grown woman in first century A.D. Palestine.

"This is what I want:"she writes, "To repair the world of Mary and weave it anew into whole cloth. To give her back to herself, starting with her real name (Maryam). To restore her strength and her intelligence, and see her as the multifaceted human being she was before she became an icon: a peasant, a healer, a nationalist, a mother, a teacher, a leader -- and yes, a virgin, though in a sense we have long forgotten."

The book weaves an amazing tapestry of the threads of Maryam's skills, experiences and actions, all plausible as representative of a typical Galilean female in that drought-stricken, politically ravaged society.

Dividing the book into three sections -- Her World, Her Womb and Her Women -- Hazleton provides fascinating details of Galilean women's common knowledge of herbs, healing and midwifery/abortion.

Yes, how could we have "forgotten" all of that? Thankfully, she gives us a portrait to whom "her flesh-and-blood worshippers finally can relate." Yeah, if you're a man-hating feminist, I suppose.

You know those healing miracles of Jesus? Learned it all from Mary. And that whole "virgin" thing? It really means "rape" in Greek, you see. And the bondslave of the Lord (Luke 1:38, pardon my reference to such a patriarchal text) really also worshiped the Lady Wisdom, the maternal goddess.

This is great! I didn't know any of this stuff!