Can You Learn from a Novel that Makes You Squirm? Read Magda Revealed

Christian fiction by Ursula Werner

I was flattered that a book promoter who had seen my review of Sue Monk Kidd's The Book of Longings contacted me to see if I'd be interested in reviewing a new Christian fiction book. When deciding if I would spend the time reading the book and reviewing it - all a task without any monetary recompense and squeezed in among my day job, my caregiving responsibilities, and the many other daily chores now resting solely on my shoulders - I debated the value of being obligated to someone else, yet another job in a world where I don't have enough hours in the day.

But doing my due diligence, I started researching the author and read a blog on Ursula Werner's website entitled "Blowing Jesus' Mind." The premise of the article is that the current political diatribes of revenge and retribution, along with the past actions of Donald J. Trump, our current president, are not demonstrative of Christianity.

"Well," I thought to myself, "I agree. I don't know that I'd have the guts to say it quite that boldly, but I think she's right."

So I decided to accept the free copy of the book Magda Revealed by Ursula Werner and review it. My experience reading the book made me consider a completely new question: Can you learn from a novel that makes you squirm? Can you grow your faith by questioning the definitive texts of your belief? Do you benefit by considering radical alternative theories?

The blurb of Magda Revealed:

"For two thousand years, history hijacked her story, silenced her, called her a whore.

You think you know all about the man she spent her life with – Yeshua of Nazareth – but you don’t. Magda knew him, Magda loved him, Magda understood better than anyone else what he was trying to tell the world.

She wants to set the record straight. And she’s ready to tell her story, her truth about what happened in Judea all those years ago."

The novel recreates the life of Mary Magdalene, called Magda by her friends. She is the only child of well-to-do parents. Her father runs a business processing and salting fish and creating sauces and pastes for cooking. He educates Magda by giving her tutors in classical Hebrew and Greek, hoping that someday she'll help him run the business and be fluent in her knowledge of Jewish laws. Other girls in her town do not have this luxury.

On Magda's sixteenth birthday, her father calls upon her to read from the Torah during services at the synagogue. While it is not forbidden by law, it is rarely done. Magda bravely gets up and does a perfect recitation, feeling the words of God as she speaks them.

What happens afterward, however, forever alters her life. A group of young men, students at a nearby school, rape Magda for her overstepping the boundaries of custom. Traumatized, ostracized, and ashamed, Magda stays inside her home for two years while the townspeople label her as "demon-possessed," "damaged," "whore."

Magda's reputation and mental health are ruined.

Enter Yeshua, the Hebrew name for Jesus.

Yeshua as healer

Magda's parents call in a new healer they've heard about, the young Jewish man from Galilee called Yeshua.

Yeshua's calm and soothing presence in Magda's daily life helps bring her back from the brink. They take long walks together. They talk about the ancient scriptures and the concepts she's learned from her studies. They enjoy nature. Finally, finally, Magda laughs again.

Because she's sixteen and considered damaged or deranged by the town, she has no matrimonial prospects, so when Yeshua suggests that Magda join the other women and men traveling with Yeshua, her parents agree.

The stage is set for Mary Magdalene to be one of Jesus' "in-crowd."

The story goes on...

Throughout history, many have wondered about the real relationship between Yeshua and Mary Magdalene. This book is an imaginative creation of story and possibilities that focus on Magda's increasing skill as an anointer and healer who works alongside Yeshua to help people find healing. (An anointer was a Jewish woman who used oils and fragrances along with touch to heal and honor someone.)

Other than Yeshua, Magda develops close relationships with Yohanna, a woman whose Roman husband is divorcing her; Shoshanna, a widow who is raising Ilana, her husband's child by his first wife, now a beautiful young woman. Levi, the apostle who travels with them, falls in love with Ilana, and the group forms a family.

It's a decidedly, unapologetic, unabashed feminist retelling of what we know as the Jesus story.

Whether you know the stories of Yeshua or not, you will be surprised by some of the premises of the novel.

First, Mary Magdalene is telling the story from the Hereafter, where she has witnessed the events of the world after her own passing, and where Yeshua and "The Source" of his being are asking her to return to earth to tell the "real story."

Next, there is Magda's insistence that "The Quartet," the writers of the Gospels, got it wrong. Magda demeans them continually, claiming that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John got their information second-hand and did not learn from Yeshua himself. Therefore, their stories aren't accurate. (She's not altogether right about this because Matthew was an original apostle, the same Levi she writes of with love and affection.)

She had first-hand exposure to the events of the Palm Sunday and The Last Supper and says they were NOT what "The Quartet" reported. She especially questions the recounting of the experience of Paul on the road to Damascus.

Then, Magda asserts that Peter and Paul, focused on making the new church powerful, twist Yeshua's message of total equality and radical tolerance by creating a hierarchy of priests and a Catholic church that ignores the role of women. (Besides, she tells us, Peter had always been jealous of her closeness to Yeshua and had an axe to grind with her!)

Finally, Magda claims to have written a gospel, too, a book that was buried and lost to us because it would have been seen as heretical.

There's an even more shocking revelation at the end, but I don't want to ruin it for you, so you'll need to read Magda Revealed to see how it affects you.

Doubt as a way to increase faith

One of the best sermons I've ever heard was on DOUBT. Doubt is NOT a bad thing. Instead, it serves as the impetus for questioning. Questioning makes us read, research, ask, contemplate, and consider until we find an answer. Ultimately, our faith is stronger because of this quest for knowledge.

While much of what Magda Revealed espoused made me squirm, in the future, I will more carefully consider the traditional portrayal of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute because I have read this book. Since I have always wondered why women like Priscilla and Phoebe - early disciples - and the women who followed Yeshua around the countryside aren't better known, I will now thoughtfully construct answers as to whether or not the role women played in Yeshua's ministry was purposely stomped out by men who wanted control as Magda suggests.

In addition to some of the theories proposed by Magda (and there are many I didn't discuss here), I was bothered by the appearance of the Terracotta Warriors. Magda's father has a good friend named Marcus Silanus who has agreed to watch over Magda as he travels around trading goods. Marcus Silanus arranges for Magda and Yeshua's group to have Passover dinner at the home of one of his clients. They find the home filled with silk tapestries, ivory and jade figurines, along with lacquered wooden boxes, all treasures from the Far East. I had to roll my eyes, however, wondering how no publisher's fact-checker questioned the appearance of these life-sized clay figures. The Terracotta Warriors were created more than 200 years before the time of Yeshua and were specifically made as funerary objects. Buried underground to protect the tomb of the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, the Terracotta warriors would not have been for sale or on display anywhere outside of the earthen tunnels of China.

Open to other ideas?

If you are a skeptic of Christianity, you will appreciate Magda Revealed for its decidedly alternative retelling.

If you are a person of faith, you can shoot holes in her arguments.

If you are always questioning, doubting the traditional tales, then Magda Revealed will make you consider different perspectives, forcing you to come to conclusions that may strengthen your faith.

The language is lovely. The characters are strong. The tone is modern, and the conclusions made me squirm.

Read it and decide for yourself whether it's a faith-strengthener or a faith-buster.

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