Amazon Woman Redeemed Books Unlimited Ireland Libros in Mexico Category:  Religion Publisher: Outskirts Press ISBN-10:  1432715836 Type: Fiction Pages: 271 Copyright: 2007 ISBN-13: 9781432715830 Celebrate the women who walked with Jesus...women of community, conviction, faith Woman Redeemed is the Every(wo)man story that embraces the feminine influence on history and celebrates the strength of women in community with one another. Mary Magdalene is a product of a multi-cultural region: empowered by the tales of Roman women and grounded by Jewish heroines of traditional stories. She is a universal symbol of renewal and redemption. As such, Mary Magdalene transcends Judeo-Christian tradition and personifies femininity at its most enduring and inspiring. Tracing her decline through the temptations of this multifaceted world and her attempt to deny her femininity to succeed in a male-dominated society, we explore her difficult, yet familiar, cycle of sin, forgiveness, and reawakening. Finally, as she witnesses the Resurrection, she gains an awareness of the divine in the world and the beauty of women, including herself.               Excerpt “To die upon the sea!” Our sentence was announced to the cheering crowd of onlookers. It was the only death sentence a Jewish court could hand out as it required no executioner, no killing, just a soft push out into the vast ocean with few provisions and no hope. “Kill them!” the chants surrounded us as if one voice from a single beast. From within the crowd came an underlining growl that reminded me of those at His execution. And now, here we stood, my brother Lazarus, my sister Martha and I, Mary, condemned to die together: alone, away from our community, our friends, our people. We would drift into the open sea and, as I’ve been told, either die of starvation, dehydration, or simply go insane and throw ourselves into the hungry waters. Our crime? Our belief. Our belief in Him, Jesus of Nazareth, who once held this same port at Caesarea in captivation with His teachings. Back then, the crowds of Jews, Romans, and visitors from all over had welcomed Him and us, his followers, with open arms and open hearts. What a long time ago that now seems. Today, that close community I traveled with is dispersed. We are sent out to far corners, separated from the safety of one another to spread the Word we were taught while He lived among us. And, because I travel with Lazarus, who’s own resurrection has caused fear and growing suspicion among our people, I have also been feared and hated. The growing population of Pagans into our region has brought stories of the undead, which I guess, is what my brother would be labeled. However, the same neighbors who burned our home, ran us out of Bethany, and eventually to our present fate on the shore of Caesarea, had once celebrated Jesus’ miracle of bringing Lazarus back to life. Odd, how the wind changes. Martha grips my torn and soiled sleeve as we are shoved onto the small, leaky boat. Lazarus proudly steps in himself with no prodding needed from our guards. I brush Martha’s hair back and kiss her cheek, telling her we must keep faith as our vessel slowly leaves the shore. Lazarus, a hand on each of our shoulders, begins the prayers, “Father, who lives in the heavens, Holy is your name...” We join in and pray in unison watching our home, the edge of our world, drift from sight and my heart remembers my journey here...

Writers in the Sky
BOOK REVIEW
Woman Redeemed by Christine Blake

It was during Christine Blake’s pursuit of her Master’s degree in Cross-cultural Teaching at National University that a book idea began to emerge. Now, in her historical novel, Woman Redeemed, she transports us to the rich and colorful region created and dominated by the Romans in the first century, and introduces us to Mary Magdalene in first person.
We meet Mary in a small boat with her brother Lazarus and her sister Martha as her story cleverly unravels in a series of remembrances that occur as she looks upon the disappearing shore of her homeland.
As a child, Mary believes she’s vastly different from her sister, her mother, and the other women in the fishing village of Magdala. She’s curious, with “too much spirit to satisfy [herself] among the required duties of [her] sex.” She gravitates to the marketplace like her father, and idolizes Cleopatra for her power and allure.
Three significant meetings occur in her childhood that will change the course of her life: One on a stop in Nazareth during a return trip from market, when she is given a wooden box by an elderly carpenter. Another, during Passover in Jerusalem, where she meets the mother of Jesus telling stories to a gathering of children, and finally, during this same time she meets Jesus, who is around the age of her brother.
Christine Blake, through Mary Magdalene, tells the story of every woman’s self-doubt, temptations, pain, and startling experiences against a backdrop of political ambition, splendid architecture, industry, and traditions. She brings together the intersecting lives of the Jews and Romans, fishermen and prophets, women in community and women rebels. She plants us for a while in lands and seas whose names have changed but whose struggles continue. She revives the Bible stories of our youth and stays historically accurate to both Roman and Jewish records.
While this book may look small on the outside, Christine Blake has no problem delivering a huge story of redemption on a grand historical and societal stage. Celebrate womanhood in Woman Redeemed.

Barbara Sharp Milbourn is a writer and editor in Nashville.





litarena.com
This story is only half about Mary Magdalene. The other half is about Mary Magdalene and Jesus. And the two halves of the story are very different in emphasis.

Splendidly edited by Monsignor G Shroeder, the story itself is researched to an incredible degree. Christine Blake is Mary Magdalene for the first half of the book. The book is written from the first person perspective in the detail of clothes, habitat, family, culture transport, experiences and so on. Any experiences that Mary had had Christine writes about. It's tremendous. The reader literally gets the impression that Mary has actually written this book herself. And Christine Blake writes that way deliberately. She uses the Jewish tradition of recollected storytelling in order to literally recreate the past in the present. It's a splendid achievement.

As we now know, the first half of the story is Mary Magdalene's "autobiography." And the second half of the story, (after Mary meets Jesus,) is comprised largely of gospel stories with which we are all familiar: Jesus turns water into wine, he turns over the tables in the temple in Jerusalem on the Feast of Passover, he raises Lazarus from the dead and gets crucified. The difference between the stories from the second half, with which we are already familiar, and their usual renditions is that they're retold from Mary's perspective. They're personalised. And yet they're extremely familiar.

From the extent of her research, which Christine Blake itemises in bibliographical form at the end of her book, it is clear that she is aware of the fact that in legend (and in various scriptures) there are an enormous variety of Mary Magdalenes. For example Mary's name wasn't even Mary. And Magdala was a place who the biblical character was named after. Christine Blake is completely aware of all of the controversies (sometimes extremely bitter ones,) about who Mary Magdalene was and what she was. And she avoids being dragged into them. Regardless of the fact that Christine has studied the scholarly arguments and debates, she chooses to pick helpful pieces of information from them regardless of which position a scholar takes.

I was spellbound by this story. The idea of actually walking down the street in fishing village of Magdala with Mary and her father was very new to me. There are a wealth of experiences of Jewish trading, (and some domestic cruelties which Mary's culture appeared to excuse or encourage,) which, having been told from such a personal perspective, can not fail to fascinate, I'm sure.

My recommendations for this story:

In view of the fact that the second half of the story relies so heavily on and repeats so many well-known gospel tales I would recommend this story very highly, primarily to active Christians. However, anybody can read it, and I believe that anybody ought to read it. But, whoever reads it needs to know that it is heavily structured, at least in its second half, by Jesus' miracle workings, his preachings his relationships to his disciples and so forth.


Review by Patrick Mackeown, March 2008