![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Here we see the shadows of a frequently told version of the Jesus story which has been around since the work of H.S.Reimarus in the 18 th century, of Jesus as a misguided would-be revolutionary Messiah whose memory was hijacked by later followers such as Paul and the Gospel writers, who used him as a figure-head for their own newly-invented non-Jewish faith. Mary, Martha and Lazarus are relocated to Cana in Galilee, and Jesus himself is portrayed as a proud man, who relishes power and influence, manipulating his easily-suggestible ne’er-do-well disciples and brazenly claiming to be the Son of God. Tóibín plays fast and loose with the traditional narratives of Jesus’ life, mostly it seems relying on John’s Gospel. Its opening I found bitter and angry, the testimony of a crabbed and crotchety old woman dislocated by the events of her life, mourning her lost husband and son in a city, Ephesus, which is far from her Jewish home. It’s clear that, with his background, a book about Mary the mother of Jesus must come with a particular agenda.Īnd for me that’s what makes it a fascinating read. In a further twist, Tóibín is gay and has been publicly and bravely so for a long time. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, one of the most Catholic countries in the world has in recent years joined the race to secularise, catching up in a few years with the decades of distancing from Christian religion which have happened in Britain and mainland Europe. Not only was Tóibín brought up Catholic, but an Irish Catholic in the 1960s and 1970s, a generation that has felt deeply the revelation of the awful scandals that took place in the Church in that time. ‘Ah’ they say, ‘but are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant one?’Ĭolm Tóibín may be an atheist, but he was brought up and educated as a Roman Catholic and it shows in The Testament of Mary, the shortest book ever to be on the Booker Prize list. ![]() Along comes a man, and they challenge him at once: ‘Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?’ they ask. There’s an old joke from the Troubles in Northern Ireland which goes like this: two men in balaclavas are standing guard over an alley-way one night. The book group in our village is reading The Testament of Mary this month – so here are a few thoughts on it that others might find useful as well. ![]()
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