Mary is such a common name in the first century that her husband Enos decides she will be known as Simona. Seems kind of strange to give your young wife a new first name, but hey! Lots of things were different about marriage in the first century. Mary seems like an obedient, nice enough young Jewish girl. She comes across as a little naive, but this makes sense due to her young age and lack of any education. She has heard about the preacher/prophet Jesus, and wonders if he could be the messiah.
Then a Pharisee (one of the devout elite religious establishment) notices her and offers her parents a large sum of money to take her as a wife. I’m telling ya. Not much about marriage in the first century remotely resembles what we would view as marriage. Anyway, she is bored a lot, gets a maid and a lot of fancy new clothes, he is really controlling of her, but it is hard to know if this is weird for the time or not. She becomes pregnant but loses the baby, which makes her very sad. Simona is alone a lot. Turns out Enos is one of the Pharisees trying to bring down Jesus, they believe he is a false prophet and Herod’s governor Pilate will have him executed.
Somehow Mary has faith in Jesus, really without much reason, not having heard him speak and just praying to him. It does have a happy ending although Enos is pretty upset when he learns she is a “Jesus follower.”
I definitely felt sorry for Simona/Mary, and it was a very good historical/Biblical fiction story, I just felt that the characters, particularly Enos, were pretty one-dimensional. When I was younger, I always heard about the Pharisees and thought they were the bad guys, and OF COURSE if I were there I would be a Jesus follower. But as I have grown older, I wonder if the Pharisees didn’t really think they were doing the right thing, they were very devout, religious people like myself. I personally believe Jesus was the best teacher of all time, and I like considering how tales about his miracles and teachings spread across Judea.
A quaint story about a young girl that helps us imagine what life would be like in the first century. This book reminded me of the American Girl doll historical fiction books but about Biblical times.
Thanks to NetGalley and Tyndale for the ARC. Book to be published March 11, 2025.
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