Customer Reviews

Strange Heaven: The Virgin Mary as Woman, Mother, Disciple and Advocate

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As an Episcopalian I, like many Protestants, have always been rather skeptic of Catholic Marian worship. Strange Heaven directly addresses this skepticism with a study of Mary worship, written in clear layperson's terms. In it, Sweeney addresses the reasons for the adoration of Mary and brings to light many of the non-canonical documents upon which this worship is based. Although the book will not cause me to change my general feelings about Mary, it definitely does broaden my understanding and make me more able to accept worship of the Theotokis when I am confronted by it.

Given the title of the book, I approached it as an historical study of the mother of Jesus. Such a book is sorely needed as there is very little in the gospels about Mary. But what kind of an historical book can this be when there is no discussion about the use of the term "Virgin" (compared to the proper translation of "young woman") and virtually nothing about 1st Century Jewish marriage traditions (e.g., the two stage marriage process). Nor is there anything about the differences presented by the different gospels (e.g., Matthew has them living in Bethlehem while Luke has them journeying from Nazareth to Bethlehem), nor any discussion of the lack of archeological evidence for the existence of Nazareth. Nor is there much mention of the Desponyi.

Leaving aside these major omissions, the book has several sins of commission.

. On page 14 McSweeney claims that referring to Jesus as "son of Mary, implying that there was no real father." Wrong! In 1st Century Israel, the use of the term "son of Mary" meant that Jesus was a bastard and the phrase had nothing to do with the assumption there was no "real" father and hence a divine father.

. On page 59 he says that Paul "...is speaking of the teachings of Christ..." The fact is that Paul almost never talked about the teachings of Jesus. Paul had his own theory of religion which had very little to do with the historical Jesus, but rather revolved around the belief in Jesus, with little reference to Jesus' life or his teachings. What was essential to Paul was his death and resurrection, not his teachings.

. In talking about the apocryphal texts (p. 64) McSweeney claims that some of their stories "are downright frightening." I think most scholars would refer to them as downright silly, rather than frightening.

In any event, as an historical book McSweeney's text has much to be desired. But that's not the whole story, which is why this is a "strange book." McSweeney does cover a lot of historical material about Mary, most of it from the middle ages, and he covers it well. This is an excellent place to find material which is not easily available elsewhere.

So if you approach this book as a collection of resources on the life of Mary in literature and art, you will be rewarded with a great little book. On the other hand, if you are looking for information about Mary and what her life was actually like, you need to look elsewhere.