The Book of Longings
The Book of Longings is a 2020 Christian novel by American author Sue Monk Kidd, written as a feminist reimagining of the New Testament, published by Viking.
It follows a fictionalized Galilean scribe named Ana who becomes the wife of Jesus during the lost years, commenting on the silencing of women across history and literature.
Her parents attempt to burn her collection of scrolls, but Ana smuggles them out to bury in a nearby cave, where she chances upon Jesus mourning for Joseph.
He also brings news of Antipas marrying Herodias to try and claim the title of King of the Jews, and Ana writes to Phasaelis to warn she may be assassinated to make way.
Ana receives word that both her parents are dead and Phisaelis has escaped, but that Herodias has discovered her letter, forcing her to leave for Alexandria with Yaltha when Haran sends a treasurer to handle the estate.
Ana sneaks past Haran's soldiers by hiding in a coffin but is badly delayed in the journey to Galilee, arriving at Bethany Passover night.
She finds Judas mad with guilt in Gethsemane the next morning, explaining he had expected Jesus to resist arrest and force the disciples to take up arms.
He is traditionally taken to have lived a celibate life free from sins such as lust, though the Gospels and New Testament do not directly deny the possibility of his taking a wife or lover.
The concept had been previously explored in fiction, and some have argued that a marriage would have been implied by omission due to the problematic legal status of unmarried men at the time.
[8] Jungian motifs and feminist theology are prevalent throughout Kidd's work, who previously explored feminine divinity through the Black Madonna worshiped in The Secret Life of Bees.
[2] Ana is pushed to rebel against the patriarchal structure of existing Jewish religion by both Jesus and her Therapeutaean aunt, eventually coming to worship Sophia, or Wisdom, as a feminine person or aspect of the Judeo-Christian God.
[2] The Gnostic women declare her to be the "Daughter of Sophia", mirroring Jesus's own divinity as the Son of God, while her use of a coffin to sneak out of the precinct is argued to foreshadow the resurrection directly.
[1] Gutzeit argued for the plausibility of Jesus having a wife, crediting Kidd's narrative as a result of "double historical deduction", and advertised casting as "authentic" to the time period in place of "those old sandal flics with white American stars".
