Book Review

Note: Scene 360 publishes this book review in context of journalistic purposes. The magazine remains neutral concerning opinions expressed by author of the book and reviewer.

Rating: (4 out of 5)
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Vintage Books (April 13, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0099507692
ISBN-13: 978-0099507697

First published in 1984 by Metheun, Michèle Roberts’ “The Secret Gospel of Mary Magdalene” has been republished by Vintage Books, with a new preface by the author. This book is basically about not only a missing gospel but also a missing disciple; a whore, a harlot, a woman of the street, a FEMALE disciple.

Left: Book cover of "The Secret Gospel of Mary Magdalene" by Michèle Roberts. © Vintage Books. Right: Painting of "Mary Magdalene," Oil on wood panel, Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial (Delaware Art Museum).

But, wait a minute Philbin, aren’t you a self-confessed atheist—what the hell are you doing reviewing a “religious book?”

What are your theological credentials for this endeavour?

In light of the content of this beyond-feminist treatise, it’s a good thing that this reviewer has atheistic tendencies—much of this book could be considered heretical in classical terminology as it brazenly flies in the tacit face of catechismal dogma as proscribed by the Vatican. If Michèle Roberts were talking about the Koran this way, there’d surely be a Fatwa on her head. Seriously, she gets her big feminist boots on and kicks in the teeth of Organised Religion from a purely sexual point of view.

Don’t you mean sexist?

No, I know what I mean; I mean a sexual point of view. Organised Religion has had its hymen surgically altered to reassert its virginity, its innocence. But this public reconditioning betrays the underlying teachings of Jesus as expounded in this book, that of the male and the female coming together to procreate a universe of brotherly and sisterly love. A unified sexual beast that revels in the pleasures of the flesh and is held back by no moral or ethical code. I mean, we’re talking Religious Anarchy here.

But there’s no mention of Demons or Angels in this book, it’s a purely secular re-examination of the life and times of Jesus the preacher in the manner of showing the world “where religion went wrong,” where it took a wrong turn, where it got lost. This book (through admittedly pagan imagery) shows the reader how the religion they’re practising now is a religion of cowards who didn’t have the balls to fully accept and properly appreciate the unisex Word of the Lord.

It’s like the old Bill Hicks sketch, “I think what Jesus meant was….” Wrong. You subscribed to the teaching and you re-interpreted it. You made a mess of it. Millions more people suffered under your propaganda than would have suffered if Christianity had never been promoted by the Romans in the second to third century A.D.

The real crux of this interesting and entertaining treatise is the conflict between Jesus’ lover Mary Magdalene and Jesus’ right hand man (his Rock) Simon Peter, the guilt-ridden thrice-denier. The book’s not Jesus P*rn, but it goes into surprisingly graphic detail about the openly sexual relationship between The Saviour and His Harlot. There’s a suggestion that Simon Peter’s antagonism towards Mary Magdalene is based in part on his jealousy of the “special physical love” shared by the male and female parts at the heart of his religious quest. I’m serious, we get close-up depictions of the taste of Jesus’ tongue and the warm, wet needs of a woman for her man.

The book effectively examines the dichotomy between male faith and female faith and how one has been betrayed, over the years of Christian dogma, to the detriment of the entirety of Jesus’ message while on this Earth. The way Michèle Roberts puts it, organised religion shouldn’t be anything like the gold-adorned money-grabbing Vatican-centric propaganda machine that it’s become. It should be about physical and spiritual love as shared between both the male and the female parts of God; the Father AND the Mother.

By thrice-denying not only Jesus, his Lord, Simon Peter, the crumbled rock upon which Jesus’ bastardised church has been ordained, but also denying Mary Magdalene’s vision of the resurrected Christ, he has subjected mankind to TWO THOUSAND YEARS of unjust subservience to a corporate God whose only reward is profit and conquering. Christianity gave us a God of War, Territory and Hatred. Mary Magdalene’s version of religion had the potential to liberate the planet from tyranny.

That’s why this book is so good. It has the audacity to suggest that there was an alternative. Really well written and totally convincing. A fresh re-appraisal of (a forgotten, asexual, living) God in all our lives.