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Ten discussion points for reading groups |
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In the Q and A, Hazleton says that she wrote this book to honor Mary in her reality. Do you think she succeeded?
Has this book changed the way you think about Mary? In what ways?
Was it hard to see Mary as a Palestinian peasant girl instead of as the European madonna of Renaissance art?
How did you feel about thinking of her as Maryam instead of as Mary? Did it make her more real, or more distant?
Many chapters of the book start with a few pages told from Maryam's point of view. Though these sections are solidly based on anthropological and historical research, they are still essentially fictional. Is this valid?
How do you feel about Maryam's role as a healer and midwife, the village 'wise woman'?
Do you agree with Hazleton's idea of virginity as a metaphor rather than physical fact? What does virginity mean to you? Is it important to you, and if so, why?
Do you think Jesus had dual paternity -- human and divine -- or only one or the other?
Does Maryam's later life as shown in this book -- at the center of a community of women who honor her as the personification of the divine feminine figure of wisdom -- make sense to you?
Do you agree that there must have been a "lost" or suppressed gospel of Maryam, in her own voice? If so, what do you think it contained?
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(c) Lesley Hazleton, 2004
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