Truly Our Sister

""When it comes to the subject of Mary,"" writes Johnson, ""women's judgment is decidedly ambiguous."" On the one hand, Mary has been an icon of obedience-thus perpetuating women's subordinate place in the church. On the other hand, she is an inspirational sister for the common woman. After all, Miriam of Nazareth was a lower-class Jewish woman living in a poor and politically oppressed region of the world. In the face of tyranny, poverty, and prejudice, Mary represents the ongoing feminine quest for ""God's compassionate and liberating justice."" Written like a doctoral thesis, Johnson's book argues for a feminist and empowering vision of Mary. She is overt in her criticism of ""patriarchal mariologies that function to subordinate women."" Many traditional assumptions are challenged, from the belief that Mary was reading a book when the Angel Gabriel came to her, thus symbolizing the rewriting of her life story (doubtful, given the low literacy rate of peasant girls), to Mary's appearance: Europeans often depict her as a delicate, blonde-haired beauty. As a Jewish peasant girl, she was probably a dark, muscular teenager. Johnson is at her finest when she offers her feminist interpretations of Mary's central moments in the Bible. For instance, Mary's brave witnessing of the crucifixion represents the fact that ""life given by women's bodies keeps on being taken away by brutality, war and terrorism,"" and her memory comforts all the grieving mothers who lose their sons to political acts of violence. While this offers a fascinating revamping of Mary's story, readers who are looking for a new spin along the lines of The Red Tent will not find it here. Unfortunately, the scholarly tone of Johnson's writing will limit this book's appeal. (May)