THE PASSION OF MARYAM is a dramatic search for the person within the icon of the Virgin Mother. A pious first-century young woman suffers a profound violation that plunges her into doubt about her faith and beliefs in the God of Israel. She endures to become a wife and mother, who struggles with her entrancing and enigmatic firstborn. Their interaction at his cruel execution shines light into the shadowed layers of their relationship with each other and with the God, and climaxes her struggle to turn unfathomable evil into the transcendent mystery of the divine.
THE PASSION OF MARYAM is a dramatic search for the person embodied in the icon of the Virgin Mother. What might she really have been like? What might her relationship have been with her charismatic son and with God? While Mary and Jesus—Maryam and Yeshua—are usually pictured as embodying unsullied good, what if it had been the case that both, from the beginning, had been forced to seek the holy from an abyss of evil? Would that not reveal a particular depth and reach to their unique lives? In a meditation on good, evil, and the divine, the novel finds within the iconic Virgin a pious Galilean young woman who suffers a profound violation that plunges her into doubt about her faith and beliefs in the God of Israel. She endures to become a wife and mother, who struggles with her entrancing and enigmatic firstborn. Their interaction at his cruel execution shines light into the shadowed layers of their relationship with each other and with the Holy One, God of Israel, and climaxes her struggle to turn unfathomable evil into the transcendent mystery of the divine. This reveals anew the imperishability of a mother’s love, even as it exposes the cost to her and her son of being chosen by God.
To ensure as accurate a picture as possible of its first-century setting, the novel is the product of seven years of research into numerous biblical and scholarly sources, the study of Hebrew and Greek, and visits to the Holy Land. My debt to the large number of Biblical scholars with whom I have consulted and whose works I have read is enormous.
In today’s secular environment the two worlds of science and spirituality are alien worlds, distinguished primarily by a deep-seated antagonism in which the principles of spirituality and the pragmatism of modern science exist face to face in a peren
Because we have an opportunity to choose our attitude and focus our intentions in the present moment, the world and our own personal lives are a reflection of our thoughts. It is our 360 degree review on how we think. Put simply, our job is to fully
