What I’m Reading: Mary of Nazareth

Mary of Nazareth - a novel - by Marek Halter, 2008.

I didn’t actually read this one.  I listened to it on CDs as I drove to and from my parent’s house for a few days of vacation after Christmas.  I picked it out from the library as something to listen to – mostly as a concession to my wife.  I thought it would be something she’d enjoy.

I was wrong.  It bored her.

But I was interested. At least a little.

For me, it was a mixed bag. There were some things that I really liked about this novel by Marek Halter, but there were also several that I didn’t. 

One thing I didn’t like – and this really has nothing to do with the book itself: I did not care for the reader for the audio-book.  The voices that she gave to many of the characters reminded me too often of the kids on the old Superbook cartoon. I nearly turned it off a number of times.  But I persisted.

What I liked – really liked – about this book was the way that Halter grounded the story in the political and economic desperation of the time.  It’s very easy to read and re-read the stories of the bible and to become so familiar with them that we forget the background.  The people of Israel during the time of Mary of Nazareth were, for the most part, poor.  They were oppressed.  They were hungry. They were tired. They were desperate.  They lived in fear – fear of the Roman soldiers, fear of the mercenaries hired by the wicked king Herod.

Halter brings to life their anger and frustration and their paranoia and distrust.  The Jewish people were divided into numerous groups – Pharisees, Sadducees, ascetic Essenes, revolutionary Zealots – each with a dream and a plan to change the world. But instead of coming together and uniting against their common foe, these groups distrusted and even despised each other.

Halter also emphasizes in his novel the ‘am ha’aretz – “the people of the land.”  These were poor, illiterate, unrefined peasants of Israel.  The Pharisees despised them because they were illiterate and thus unable to study and adhere to the torah.  They were, as the poor are everywhere, cursed and maligned. 

And these are the people among whom Halter’s Mary lives.  She is one of them.  This is a Mary who could sing of God turning away the rich and filling the hungry with good things. 

I also like that Halter has allowed me to shift my thinking by a little bit concerning Barabbas.  In the past I have been quite content to accept the picture of Barabbas as thief, as a murder, as a violent revolutionary.  (And no doubt, he was those things.)

But I have allowed the contrast between Barabbas (whose full name according to some early Greek sources was Jesus Barabbas) to be that of polar opposites:  Pilate offers to release either the very evil and murderous Barabbas (booo!) or the quite obviously innocent Jesus of Nazareth (hurray!).  I have, in my mind, allowed it to be a contrast between the totally reprehensible and the totally wonderful, between pure evil and pure good.

And, I think, I missed the point. 

If we understand Barabbas (Jesus Barabbas) to be a revolutionary leader – committed to setting the people of Israel free from their foreign oppressors, as one who stole from the rich and powerful to feed and free the poor and lowly – he almost becomes heroic.  He is Robin Hood and George Wallace fighting for “our freedom!” Why would the people at Pilate’s courtyard clamor for Barabbas’ release? Because he was fighting for them. 

And thus the choice between Jesus Barabbas (Jesus Son of the Father) – the bandit and Jesus Barabbas (Jesus Son of the Father) - the Messiah isn’t a choice between pure evil and pure good, but rather a choice between good and better.  The difference between them is the difference between man’s attempt to impose Righteousness on the world by force (Might makes Right!) and God’s creation of Righteousness within his people.

I have more respect and sympathy for Barabbas after this novel (though no more support or admiration for his banditry.)

But wait… Barabbas?  In a novel about Mary?
Yep. Barabbas. This is something that I didn’t like so much about the novel. 

It is, quite obviously, a novel.  A fictionalization. It is a romance in the classical definition of the word.  It is a story of adventure and passion (though not much “romantic love” though there does seem to be some romance between Mary and Barabbas).  Halter’s novel puts Mary of Nazareth at the center of intrigues and adventures and tales of daring do. In this novel she meets nearly everyone from the New Testament before her son is even conceived.

It’s forgivable, I suppose.  It is a novel, and novelists are free to craft a story however they please – but I found it increasingly implausible that Mary could be at the center of so much. She’s on one hand joining Barabbas in a midnight raid on a Roman fort, and then studying the Greek language and philosophy with Mary Magdalene.  Then she’s with the Essenes studying medicine with Joseph of Arimathea.

It seemed to me that the Mary of this story would hardly need her miraculous son. In fact, the whole novel seemed to supplant the son with his mother – even the title Mary of Nazareth seems to put Mary into a messianic role.  That she conceives the infant messiah by a divine overshadowing doesn’t come as a shock or surprise to her. She asked for it. 

She isn’t quite the Mary, Queen of Heaven as in some of the more extreme Roman Catholic teachings, but neither is she the humble handmaiden of God.

And this is where I thought my book ended…

Halter brings his story of Mary of Nazareth to a conclusion with her arrival with Joseph in Bethlehem for the census.  But that isn’t the end of the book.  As a sort of epilogue he has tagged on a contemporary account of his return to Warsaw, Poland –the city of his birth – and how he was given a copy of an ancient document which is, purportedly, a Gospel of Mary.  This gospel then continues the story (switching to a 1^st person voice for the first time in the book) as Mary tells of the ministry of her son… but still it seems more about the mother than the son.

It was a strange break in the narrative.  I’m not sure why Halter did this.  Perhaps he worried that the book was getting too long and wanted a way to short cut to the end.  This was the weakest part of the book and I really didn’t like it.  It felt like a cheat. 

Especially as it denies the central point of the faith based on Mary's son- his resurrection.  Mary is, in this novel, part of a plot to fake Jesus' death on the cross and then to secret away his body from the tomb.  

Overall I wasn’t terribly impressed by the book.  It wasn’t terrible, and it did have some fine parts. I’m grateful that I’ve read (listened to) it.  I’m glad to have had the chance to re-think some things.  But it wasn’t a great book.  And not one I’m likely to recommend.

Mary of Nazareth by Marek Halter, 2008