The Silent Years: A Review

My latest Speak Easy selection was the little novel "The Silent Years."  It is essentially the story of Jesus from before birth through the beginning of his ministry as told by his uncle, who was Mary's brother and a Pharisee.  It is also important to note that the story is told through the progressive Christianity theological lens as well.  I have been finished with this book for a few weeks now, but am still struggling with some of its content.  The story does follow the narrative of the gospel accounts, but their interpretation is where I am having the most difficulty.  Let me explain a little.  I consider myself to be a fairly open minded person, even about things where Christianity is concerned, but I do believe that there are a few things that are crucial to our faith.  One that I feel this book, and progressive Christianity, take that always makes me pause is the divinity of Christ.  This book seems to deny the full divinity of Christ and in turn make him out to be a regular guy who was full of the light of God.  Now I can maybe go there if the book was solely from the perspective of the uncle speaking about Jesus, but the book included many pages of dialogue between Jesus and the uncle both in child/teenage years and as adults.  Through my reading of scripture I just believe that Jesus had an understanding of his identity as he began his earthly ministry.  Another thing that I had a problem with is the portrayal of how Jesus called the fishermen to be disciples.  In scripture we read that Jesus asked them to follow and the dropped their nets and did so.  In this novel Jesus first sets up a trade union to improve their work conditions and profits.  I very seldom speak aloud when I read, but this made me do so.  I felt this was a ploy to insert a certain political agenda into Jesus' story, but I guess you get that license when you write a book.  

Overall I felt the book was well written.  The story flowed well and was engaging.  My biggest issues were with the interpretation of scripture but I guess I am not a progressive Christian in this sense.