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Why I wrote “The Day After His Crucifixion.”

In researching the culture and traditions of first century Palestinian Jews, I was deeply dismayed by the attitudes regarding girls and women.

They were considered inferior.   Because it was assumed that education was wasted on girls, most women were illiterate.

Women were seen as unreliable or incompetent witnesses and could not testify in court, even in cases that involved themselves.

And there were strict rules regarding interactions of men and women. Women were to be shunned or ignored in public. Men were specifically prohibited from speaking to women in public.

There is even a prayer that men traditionally offered which included the sentence, “Thank you, God, that I am not a Gentile, a woman, or a slave.”

Hobbled by such assumptions, can you imagine how women and girls must have thought or felt about themselves?

And yet, Jesus, something like a rock star with huge crowds following wherever he went, totally ignored the rules. He freely interacted with women, taught them, and welcomed them as his followers.

What must it have been like to have him, a famous prophet and teacher, gaze at them with respect rather than ridicule, listen to them, teach them as he taught his  male disciples?

A woman was the first to whom Jesus confided that he was the Messiah. And a woman was the first to see him after his resurrection.  Despite the fact that women’s testimony was considered invalid, he chose a woman to bear witness to the greatest event of his earthly life — his resurrection.

Considering such a patriarchal society, it is astonishing that within the gospels there is no preaching on the status of women.  Yet there are several stories of Jesus’ public encounters with them.

Encounters in which he treats them with dignity, concern, and compassion. He relates to women as human beings rather than sexual objects.  He is interested in them as persons.

The more I researched the amazing interactions of Jesus and women, the more I knew I had to write about them.

I decided to introduce Jesus through his experiences with women.  There would be no religious jargon in my book.  I wouldn’t even use the name “Jesus,” but rather his birth name, the name by which everyone in his life knew him — Yeshua.

My book would not be a theological study.  It would be a collection of stories. Women’s stories.

Where to start?  Well, nothing draws friends and colleagues together to talk and remember, to laugh and cry, like the death of someone they love.

So I started with Yeshua’s crucifixion, and let the women take it from there.

Interview with the Author

• What does success as an author look like to you?

When I was a senior in high school, we took a battery of tests to determine our abilities for various fields of endeavor. Then we met with a counselor who would try and guide us into our future employment. I was not interested in any of the suggestions the counselor, made and he finally asked, “Well, what do you think you want to do?”

            I said, “I want to be a writer.”

            He leaned across his desk and said disparagingly, “Don’t you know that writers starve?”

            What he didn’t know was what I have learned in the years I’ve made my living through my writing. I’ve written for magazines, newspapers, corporations and universities. And here are just a few of the wonderful rewards:  * The writing itself is a great reward. Creating something no one else has.  * Seeing your work published. Knowing that others, maybe thousands of others, are reading your work. *Being paid for something you alone created. *Receiving complimentary letters and emails from people who have read and loved your work.

Any one of these four rewards could be considered success.

 

• Which part of the book was most difficult to write?

The Day After His Crucifixion is my first fiction book, so the entire project was pretty new for me. While I loved the research and the writing, what proved most difficult was keeping the women’s stories short, like they would be if the women were talking to me. And still getting all the emotion and truth in those stories. I spent years puttering away on the manuscript because each woman’s story held so much potential and yet it couldn’t be too lengthy.

• What inspired this book?

I had a long career of writing non-fiction for magazines and newspapers, corporations and universities. The Day After His Crucifixion is my first fiction book. It actually took me years. The kernel of the idea began in college, when I was studying sociology and women’s studies.  I started thinking about all the women in Jesus’ life from his mother to the many he interacted with and how quickly they disappeared from the written word after Jesus’ resurrection.

Like the disciples, they had lives of their own and yet we know little about them and their world. It’s almost as though they are invisible. Some of these women were healed by Jesus. Some were taught by him. Some became part of his entourage. Jesus related to each one in a way that was revolutionary – he treated them as equal human beings rather than sexual objects. He was interested in them as persons. He cared about them, that was obvious from the way he treated them.

Years later, when I was studying for a master’s degree in Spirituality and working full time, I realized that many of my colleagues knew nothing about Jesus. They were curious but weren’t interested in church. Maybe they’d be interested in reading a book about him.

Eventually my thinking and imagining, along with my studying and researching turned into the desire to write a book about Jesus. It would not be a religious or theological study, but a collection of stories. Women’s stories. I’d use Jesus’ birth name, “Yeshua,” rather than the English translation of “Jesus.” I’d do my best to give voice to the women involved, letting them describe their life-altering experiences with the Son of Man/Son of God.

So, with lots of prayer and research (and encouragement from my husband), I took on the task.

• What is your favorite Bible verse?

I have two: John 3: 16-17 and Galatians 3:28

• What are you reading right now?

I’m reading five books right now:  Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time by Marcus J. Borg,  Finding Jesus by Herb Montgomery,  The Greater Good by Claire Gaudiani, Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster, and Pathways to Inner Peace by Diane Dreher. Sorry that none of these is fiction. But they are all fascinating!

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