Hmmmmm, I'm not sure how I feel about this book. By which I mean, I know exactly how I feel about it but am trying to temper those criticisms with an understanding of the target audience and constructive observations about how it might be better achieved. The book should have been about Mary Magdalene

I don't think this is a good or imaginative use of the historical fiction genre. There's more than just a few girlboss moments that make it hard to engage with the parts of the story where the author leans heavily on tradition/scripture. It's like pick and choose which parts of first century norms/culture we want, then treat everything else as a Mulan-type "men are pigs, well I'll show you" arc, which would be maybe fine and certainly enjoyable if the author chose to give a voice to, say, another historical figure who actually existed, or even to a fictitious character who might have existed, but instead she fabricates a best of all worlds girly who grows up (not like other girls) wanting to read and write and be independent, not be married away to some gross man (he is gross), who behaves in ways that a daughter of a high-visibility scribe of Herod Antipas (Jewish king/king of the jews/king regent of a client-state of Rome). Ana runs into lots of strawmen throughout her come up,

The book shines in the parts which explore the motivations and personalities of household names like Herod, like Joseph, like Judas, like James. Mary hardly gets covered, perhaps out of reverence (?) though that's unlikely considering the premise that Ana is Jesus' wife in this story

• Diotima taught socrates about love / eros not "philosophy in general"
• At some point, Ana refers to her gaggle of ladies as her "trinity" but this would be an anachronism for the the doctrine of the trinity was not formally articulated or defined till Council of Nicaea in 325 AD - this is the kind of thing that I would expect an author bold enough (which I think is good!!!) to tackle a subject like this to know, easily. But getting stuff like this wrong, but then going into the "weeds" to dig up Diotima (incorrectly,,,) just shows a unidirectional slant. It becomes increasingly clear that Kidd is keen on the historical tidbits which portray women in either heroic or subjugated perspectives (one begets the other) and falls prety confirmation bias to bolster the like 1st and 2nd wave feministic ideas of women as some sort of Bene Gesserit we've-always-been-here-in-the-shadows projection of a modern understanding of womanhood and femininity that indirectly does erasure on the –again– REAL lives of 1st century women who actually lived and were abused or treated poorly by rigid ways of life.

Like,, how cool would it be to hear from Mary Magdalene about navigating the early formation of the church in the male-dominated, but still egalitarian discipleship Jesus left in his wake? You could literally copy paste over all the Egypt arc stuff without really bothering anyone and go deep into the woman's POV on important 1st century happenings without relying on a protagonist with plot armor who would have been stoned to death for her blasphemy but somehow lands Jesus.

I cannot think of a more rigidly uniform (from a social perspective), culture or group of people than first and second century Jews. So this girl doesn't follow the rules, is able to read all of the Greek classics because her father was a scribe, is disowned by everybody and has a rag tag group of similarly fringe friends? very convenient for a modern story, but would not have happened in the first century. She would have been ostracized, not for being a woman, but because she was blaspheming and this false dichotomy undermines the rest of her testimony.

we will teach you our god and you will teach us about yours and together we will find the god behind each of them

nope. The book starts with her being (accurately) concerned with someone finding her graven image on her pot, but then those inhibitions pretty much fall by the wayside and she's vindicated, going without punishment for pretty much anything that she quote-unquote "deserves" to be punished for. All the tragedy that befalls her is cosmic and unrelated to her behavior, which reinforces the idea that she can do no wrong, which is just not a very 1st century Jewish woman outlook...

Kidd uses the familiarities of tradition, and milks the reader for shock value by imposing modernity upon it, like the revisionist feminism, or that Jesus had sex, I think it's lazy. Inserting fictitious characters who might even be fictitious stand-ins for historical figures, and then exploring other stories in an existing context I think is the right use of historical fiction. Playing pretend in wondering "what if they did what I wanted them to do back then instead of what they actually did," I don't know. I just don't think I enjoy that, because the entire time I'm thinking about history. And this is nothing to do with the religious edginess which is more or less tastefully handled throughout the book while still being present. The book is actually pretty reverent as far as that goes, or at least not irreverent (allusions to Jesus bedding Ana, and her becoming with child, no on screen P + V, see here I'm being worse than SMK was). She isn't milking us for shock value on those lines (yet at least), I just mean the facts about who historical Jesus was –agreed upon between agnostics, atheists, and the Church alike. Getting those things wrong on purpose or otherwise is like OK well, why do that? If you're going to discard or deviate from that truth, then you better motivate your plot, and when it doesn't, then I just don't care lol.

Really enjoy the profile of Judas as a class-conscious conspirator who doesn't like Rome and who gets agitated at the waste of resources. Who wants a revolution against Rome so bad that he's willing to betray Jesus in order to harbinge a riot. The figuration of Judas is so good it (almost) offsets how bland Ana is as a character.

(during the passion)

Where were the men? Were we women the only ones with hearts big enough to carry this anguish

Again, super weird revisionist history and straight up misandry.

Jesus dies, Ana, Yaltha, etc. all flea back to Egypt to join the Gnostic Therapeutae, and then they just live happily ever after and we don't get any of the pentecostal Acts, Christian uprising, revolution any of the stuff that made Judas and compelling character...

SMK flirts with, but is unwilling to accept any sort of Christology, where Jesus rises from the dead. Jesus appears to Ana, but she writes it off as like her mind playing tricks on her, which again is just not the way that a first century Jewish woman would have behaved in the situation to the guy who outed himself as the Son of God, seems like she really just let that go in one ear and out the other.

The last few chapters focus on revisionist history again, wherein Ana is tasked with hiding her writings as head of the Therapeutae in her old age, so that they can later be surfaced (implied that that's the account we're reading), as true firsthand accounts, because MEN, and importantly, not people, but men are trying to silence her story. The author's note at the end of the book immediately concedes that this is fiction, so again what's with the feminist bullshit. Positioning the whole book s.t. if you don't agree with the creative liberties the author took in omitting, emphasizing, or straight up changing about the most studied story in history of the world, then it's because you're a man trying to silence her for being a woman, not because she's telling a story of fiction.

“The proper stuff of fiction” does not exist everything is the proper stuff of fiction every feeling every thought every quality of brain and spirit is drawn upon no perception comes amiss.

instant defense to ole reliable, V.W.

If Jesus' wife existed, then she would have been the most silenced woman in history

• If she existed, then there's no reason to think she would have been silenced. You can't forget to update your priors for this hypothetical in light of new information, and there's no indication that she would have been necessarily silenced. See: all the women elevated due to their proximity to Jesus: Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, Veronica, Mary & Martha, ...
• The idea that she's being silenced comes from the fact that historians agree that no such woman existed
• Constructing this vacuously true hypothetical to hoist the gold medal upon one's own chest in the victimhood olympics is the kind of logic pattern that irked me most of the book.

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