Stories that offer an easy answer to life’s sorrows may seem soothing so long as we remain privileged, cocooned, unaware of the violence of human history, but stories that leave us troubled and uncertain are the ones we can take with us when we are exiled from this narrow shelter.

Like Rebecca Bratten Weiss (“Shapeshifting Jesus,” February 19, 2019), I was drawn to Katie Kresser’s essay, “Christ the Chimera: The Riddle of the Monster Jesus” (Image 99), with its full-page rendering of the so-called “Alexamenos graffito.” Etched into a Roman wall circa 200 AD, the cartoon mockingly depicts a Christian venerating a donkey-headed figure on a cross. The image has long…

Who was Mary Magdalene? Tradition for centuries presented her to us as a penitent woman, kneeling woman, woman once possessed by demons, woman with a past. As prostitute-turned-saint, she is a figure of femaleness easily fetishized by the male gaze. And yet this tradition doesn’t have its roots in the earliest writings and traditions of…