Posted on 09/08/2011 3:08:08 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Jesus Christ is considered the most important and central figure in all of history for many. Yet in her debut novel, Kristen Wolf turns the biblical portrayal of the Messiah on its head by portraying Jesus as a woman.
The Way, which was released in July but is noted in the September 2011 issue of The Oprah Magazine as a “Title to Pick Up Now,” transports its readers back to ancient Palestine where a young girl, Anna, struggles to comprehend her purpose in a male-dominated society.
After she witnesses the brutal murder of a woman in her town, and her family goes through its own set of tragedies, Anna's father disguises her as a boy and sells her to a group of shepherds.
After years of learning the shepherding trade and pretending to be a boy, she ends up with a group of women who celebrate femininity and have mystical powers, leading her to acknowledge the woman she truly is.
The title of the book, The Way, comes from the name of the philosophy that the mountain-dwelling “Sisters” believe in and practice.
Men, in the novel, are accused of violently silencing followers of The Way and creating a masculine God. For much of the story, Anna must hide her true identity as a woman, calling herself by the name of “Jesus” and even forgetting she is female at some points.
Controversial, no doubt.
In an interview with The Christian Post on Tuesday, though, Wolf said that her goal was not to offend anyone's religious beliefs.
“It's not my role to criticize any religion,” she said, though she has braced herself for criticism that might come her way.
"The story is fiction. It is in no way intended to be historic or scholarly. Again, my hope is to provoke conversation and dialogue, and I understand that [taking] criticism is a natural part of that."
Her personal story reveals much of her motivation behind her writing the novel. As a 6-year-old, Wolf set up a temporary altar in her parents’ driveway where she conducted Mass for an audience of mostly Jewish children, for which she had “borrowed” some items from the Catholic church she attended.
She says that she felt “excluded from my spirituality” as a child because of the amount of masculinity – church leaders were male, God was identified as Father and the Christ is the Son. These identity issues played a big role in her writing of the book.
For her, finding her identity “has been a search and a yearning that I've had, and that, I believe, other people have had as well, and so I wanted to explore it for myself but also bring other people along with me because I think it's a worthwhile exploration.”
Today, Wolf doesn't identify herself with any particular religion, but believes in ideas similar to those that are promoted by The Way – wonder, awe, attentiveness, and gratitude toward creation.
"For me, spirituality is a constant question, and a constant search ... it's the yearning that we all share, and that is to understand that which is greater than all of us,” she commented.
This first novel will not be her last, either. Wolf has a trilogy planned, though she could only speak very little of it.
“It continues the story of The Way into present day and beyond,” she said.
She doesn't believe exclusively in the Christ of the Bible as the one, true way. At the same time, Wolf said that she believes that if people followed his teachings the world would be a better place.
She might believe in different ways, but THAT path leads to death...
(sigh)
It was not an attack on Christianity, but you're never going to understand that, so I'll move on.
. . . and 100% God
Actually, He is 100% the Son of God, our Lord and Savior. God is 100% God.
Even worse - my daughter in Manhattan went to a mass and the priest said that Mary the Mother of God was Black.
My daughter is not racist - she was affronted about the facts!! Mary was semitic/Jewish and the icon shroud clearly shows the origin of Jesus. His beautiful Face is definitely male -
Jesus was a Male semitic Jew - no question. Follow the Shroud’s history.
Thank you Lord.
2. So, are you saying Jesus Christ is not God?
The hypostatic Union comes into play here. His nature was Divine and Human.
We could bring in Mary and the thread will go wild!!
The Holy Spirit gave Mary His Divine side with her Fiat (Latin -she said yes- not raped) and Mary gave Him the Human side with her humanity.
Perfect - just right for Justice-
1. I don’t believe that Dan Brown claimed that the story was true anymore than the 4 previous authors who wrote similar stories claimed that the story is true.
!a. I don’t care what Muslims think.
2. That is correct, Jesus Christ is the Son of God. God is still God.
to your point 1a, you may not care, but they use it as another "proof" of the "lies of crusaders"
2. you didn't answer my question -- according to you, is Jesus Christ God? Son of God, yes, but I believe that Jesus Christ is God along with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit -- do you concur?
you hit the nail on the head. Those who reject calling her Theotokos inevitably start down the road to denying that Jesus Christ was both 100% man and 100% God, part of the Godhead with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit — all are God, not separate Gods, but ONE God.
Ok, I’ll play.
1. Let me reiterate “I don’t believe that Dan Brown ever claimed that the story was true, anymore than the previous 4 authors who wrote a similar story.” That statement in no way conveys anything suggesting that you said I said anything different. Have you ever read the DaVinci Code, or are you just repeating the same ill-informed nonsense that others who haven’t read the book have claimed?
1a. No, they predicate their hatred of us “infidels” on crap written in the Koran that says anyone who isn’t Muslim is an infidel and deserves to be killed if they don’t convert. So, these people start out with closed minds and cannot consider anything else, nor are they able to coexist with those who do not believe exactly as they do. Thus, the wars they initiated against Christianity during the Crusades and the sequel to that that we are witnessing today. So, what Muslims think (assuming that they ever do) is of little or no consequence to me other than the fact that they are fixated on slaughtering as many “infidels” as possible.
2. I don’t know how I can say this more clearly - Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and is our Lord and Savior. Jesus is not God, AND the Son of God; they are two distinct individuals in my religious beliefs. YOUR particular branch of Christianity may teach otherwise and that’s ok. All Christians do not necessarily believe exactly alike, that’s why there are so many different branches of Christianity. The difference between us and the Muslims is that we can all coexist peacefully with our different versions of Christianity. Various Muslim sects cannot which is why you see Sunnis, Shiites, Shia and whatever other sects they have all murdering each other in the name of Allah, PLUS each of them committed to slaughtering as many Christians and Jews as possible. Christians accept that God made room His kingdom for all of us regardless of our specific religious beliefs. Muslims have NO such belief and desire only to conquer (or kill) all of us and enslave us to the rantings of a psychotic 6th century pedophile.
Since you stick to the notion that Dan Brown claimed that the story is true, here is what he says on his own website about the DaVinci Code in response to specific questions:
Q: HOW MUCH OF THIS NOVEL IS TRUE?
A: The Da Vinci Code is a novel and therefore a work of fiction. While the book’s characters and their actions are obviously not real, the artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals depicted in this novel all exist (for example, Leonardo Da Vinci’s paintings, the Gnostic Gospels, Hieros Gamos, etc.). These real elements are interpreted and debated by fictional characters. While it is my belief that some of the theories discussed by these characters may have merit, each individual reader must explore these characters’ viewpoints and come to his or her own interpretations. My hope in writing this novel was that the story would serve as a catalyst and a springboard for people to discuss the important topics of faith, religion, and history.
Q: BUT DOESN’T THE NOVEL’S “FACT” PAGE CLAIM THAT EVERY SINGLE WORD IN THIS NOVEL IS HISTORICALLY FACT?
A: If you read the “FACT” page, you will see it clearly states that the documents, rituals, organization, artwork, and architecture in the novel all exist. The “FACT” page makes no statement whatsoever about any of the ancient theories discussed by fictional characters. Interpreting those ideas is left to the reader.
Your turn.
to your point 1a --> I did not say this was the root cause, I only pointed out that this reinforced it -- and the Moslems I know who have read this are what you could call 'open to influence' Moslems -- those who were genuinely interested in Christianity etc. and unfortunately found this book
to your point 2 Jesus is not God, AND the Son of God; they are two distinct individuals in my religious beliefs. -- That is what I wanted to know, thank you for confirming it.
Good volley. I have not read his website. The "FACT" page in his book is cunningly worded and without reading the website one does come to the conclusion that I and most others have -- that the author was claiming that everything including the belief that Jesus had kids was true.
One key element, the Priory of Sion which Brown claims as fact. for one example, is a debunked fraud.
I refuse to read the DaVinci code and rarely read much that was written after the 1960’s.
I tend toward non fiction and I do like history/western civ.
Point 2 - We have now moved into the territory of the Trinity. God has one nature manifested in 3 separate persons - the Father, the Son and the Holy spirit.
I adore the Trinity!! I explained it to my daughters when they were younger in this manner - not a perfect analogy, but they understood - we are all McGuire’s (same nature) but we are ourselves (different persons).
This concept is part of the heresy of Mohammed - he failed to understand Christ’s divinity. Allah is not the Trinity - Christians and Muslims do not worship the same God and anyone who tries to pass that off has their theology messed up.
thanks for that -- I dropped by the English-language section of the bookstore for lunch and yes, that's on the front page claiming that the Priory of Sion is real.
This is claimed to be something created in 1099 when actually it was created by Pierre Plantard in 1956.
To claim this as a "fact" on its first page is devious at best.
Islam is half-baked — in 600 AD, Mo comes up with the idea that Abraham was about to sacrifice Ishmael not Isaac — for 2600 years no one said anything like this, no history, nothing. This is just one of the many proofs that he stitched together his religion as a military-cult with religion stitched around it
In his preface, Dan Brown states: 'The secret society of the Priory of Sion was founded in 1099, after the First Crusade. In 1975, parchments referred to as 'Dossiers Secrets' were discovered at the Bibliothèque Nationale, which mention the names of certain members of the Priory, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo and Leonardo Da Vinci'. These events, which Dan Brown presents as the truth, are simply untrue. The Priory of Sion was founded in June 1956 by Pierre Plantard, who at that time was working as a draughtsman at the Chanovin works in Annemasse.As for the 'Dossiers Secrets', they were forged and filed with the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris by Pierre Plantard in the 1960s. The French journalist Jean-Luc Chaumeil unmasked Plantard's imposture in the 1980s and published several books on the subject. He also collaborated with BBC2 on a TV program which was broadcast in 1996, and which presented evidence demolishing the whole story.
But it would seem that Dan Brown has not taken any account of this. The novelist has also not hesitated to make his heroine Sophie Neveu the descendant of the families Plantard and Saint-Clair (a name that Pierre Plantard adopted in 1975), who themselves were descended from the Merovingians, and who are presented in the novel as the descendants of the marriage of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene...
…When called before the court to testify, Plantard, under oath, admitted he had made up the whole Priory scheme. The court ordered a search of Plantard’s house, which revealed further documents that proclaimed Plantard to be the true king of France. The judge gave Plantard a stern warning and dismissed him as a harmless crank.
The basis of the Da Vinci Code is a hoax created by Pierre Plantard.
D-fendr,
Your information on the Priory of Scion completely ignores or overlooks the original Priory of Scion that started in the 11th Century and sied out in the 17th Century.
The Priory of Scion was RE-started in 1956. Dan Brown’s information is not incorrect, but yours is.
Again, Brown states certain things are true and that the story is fiction. Good fiction weaves real events, plaqces, etc. with the story. That’s what Brown did, pure and simple. Every fictional writer uses the same technique.
Ok, it's FICTION. Fiction is not a historical text, it takes (in Brown's case) real events and weaves a story around them. Any fiction writer worth his/her salt, does the same thing. It s called literary license.
Since Brown never claimed that the story was accurate or historically accurate, I think you are going a little overboard. There's no law that says you have to like the DaVinci Code or any other author's works. I don't care if you liked it or not (I have no stake in it either way), but claiming things that are untrue about the book are unfair.
Finally, with respect the D-fender's comments, I did a lot of my own investigation into many of the facts Brown based the DaVinci Code on (as have others, including documentary filmmakers) and the facts, as collected and related by Brown are true.
thanks for your reply.
Look again at what Brown claims as fact about the Priory and the key (fraudulent) documents that underpin his da Vinci, Newton, etc. link.
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