Gods Forgotten -Op/034

This book sings the other half of God's humanity with ease and believability. While fiction, the author remains true to the gospel tradition, but more importantly, emphasizes the historical context of Jesus' ministry. I'm only sorry it is not true. The historical Jesus lacks only one thing, and that is womanhood.

For anyone interested in reading this book, do not be turned off, as I was, to the subtitle: What If Jesus Had Been a Woman? That has nothing to do with this book. Jesus is every bit what he is in the Bible, he just has a twin sister who shares his healing powers and is very close to him. Her ministry is to the women. Luckily someone I respect recommended the book to me, and I am very glad I read it. It brought the courage and role of women at that time (and this?) to the fore, and made the whole Biblical story more complete and visual to me. I was especially impressed with Schneider-Aker's indepth Introduction telling of the differences between men and women, and her struggle to discover who Jesus really was for her.

For one thing, this book is fiction. It's not saying this is what happened, it's just saying if Jesus had had a sister, this is what could have happened. And the gospels do mention Jesus having sisters. In Mark 6:3 people ask if this isn't the son of Mary, "and are not all his sisters with us?" A similar passage is in Matthew 13:56.The book is interesting and emphasizes the female half of Jesus' followers more than most other books on this subject. However, I did wonder why Jesus didn't preach to the women himself instead of leaving it to his sister. If you're going to break society's norms, you might as well break all of them.Overall I enjoyed the book. I wish it was longer.

This book was written with an eye toward the extant texts and to restoring women to the stories of Jesus' life as told in the 4 Gospels of the New Testament. I tried to be sensitive to the traditions reflected in the texts, but to, at the same time, open them up to new interpretation. Katherine Schneider-Aker, Author