Book Alert: The Lost Gospel of Mary: The Mother of Jesus in Three Ancient Texts

Frederica Mathewes-Green has a new book some of you might be interested in. Here's the text of the e-mail about it:


My new book, "The Lost Gospel of Mary: The Mother of Jesus in Three Ancient Texts," will be coming soon from Paraclete Press -- official release date is March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, but I was told that they'd have it on hand starting today. On my web page you can read an excerpt and description and blurbs, and click through to the Amazon page:

http://www.frederica.com/books/

(The Amazon entry has an earlier version of the subtitle, "The Theotokos in...", and we're trying to get this corrected.)

I know "Lost Gospel" sounds like a surprising title. One of my goals is to recover for Christian use a few of the wide range of documents that Christian believers cherished in the early centuries. These works weren't regarded as Scripture, but they filled a worthy supplemental role. They can be compared to the sort of thing found in a Christian bookstore today: commentaries on Scripture, histories, prayer collections, inspiring letters, hymns, poetry, and life-story narratives (or "gospels") of heroic Christians.

The one I'm calling "The Gospel of Mary" is a narrative about the Virgin Mary that seems to have been passed along orally for some time before taking written form prior to AD 150. So it is surprisingly early, especially if you think that interest in the Virgin Mary began around the year 1200. In fact, this story was *extremely* popular among early Christians in Asia and Africa, and scores of ancient copies have been found, in 8 languages. (Not in Latin, however, till the 16th century; it was rejected by a pope and so got "lost" to Western Christians.) It's a charming tale, simply told, with a "folk" quality. It begins with Mary's elderly parents mourning their childlessness, and concludes soon after Jesus' birth. It's natural that the first followers of Jesus would want to know more about his background and earthly life, and this "Gospel of Mary" provided what we could call a "prequel."
( More about the book, plus an excerpt )

Having a Pity Party!

Yesterday magnifelyn asked a great question: "If you were throwing a Pity Party, what would you do??"

My answer:

A real Pity Party? Play lots & lots of angry or melancholy music, preferably with lyrics related to something I'm feeling miserable about. (For some strange reason, there seem to be very few songs about getting screwed by bureaucracy. I know there are some out there, but I can't think of many in my album collection.)

Have plenty of food. There are several things you can do here:
-- Buy good, expensive, delicious foods, then feel miserable about how much money you spent and how badly the food wrecks your plans to eat more healthfully.
-- Buy lots of cheap food with crappy artificial flavoring, then feel awful about how you couldn't even buy some food that actually tastes good.
-- Have plenty of food (good or bad) but don't eat any of it. Feel miserable about watching your diet.
-- Go out in the garden and eat worms.

Be sure to invite the right people to the party. For a Pity Party, the right people could fall into two categories:
-- People who don't understand you and have no idea how you feel.
-- People who seem to understand you--but if you work hard at it, you can find all sorts of reasons why the Really Don't Know How I'm Feeling.

M responded: "Damn, HW. If you ever throw a Pity Party, i hope you invite me. You're a freakin' expert at this!" This is, in fact, true. Are there any other expert Pity Partiers out there? What would you do if you held a Pity Party this weekend?